Think back to the last performance review you received. How did the conversation go? Maybe you spent a little time at the beginning hearing about your strengths and the things you do well – just enough time to feel a little boost of self-confidence, until wham! Your reviewer has moved onto your weaknesses, perhaps described as “opportunities for improvement.”How much time did you spend talking about those opportunities for improvement? And how did you feel walking out of the door after your performance review? Probably not great. It’s funny how you can receive both positive and negative feedback, yet the negative feedback can linger a lot longer, can’t it?We’ve all probably been in this position, yet as managers, many of us approach performance reviews in the exact same way. Sure, we let our employees know what they’ve done well – briefly. And then we try to think of the most effective way to hammer home that they must improve upon X, Y and Z behaviors if they want that next raise, career break, or your approval on their performance. Behavior change is hard enough as it is. Is it any wonder that this approach can lead to dissatisfied employees instead of better performance?I’ve been thinking about strengths and weaknesses ever since I saw Marcus Buckingham, former Gallup guru and author of many business bestsellers including First, Break all the Rules, speak at an Inc. conference last fall. The key to business and personal success, according to him, is to figure out how to focus more of your energy on your strengths and minimize time spent on weaknesses, or activities that don’t bring out the best in you.Managers can think about this approach when working with employees to encourage them to do their best work. For example, do you know your employee’s growth goals – not just the ones you’ve set for them but the ones they’ve set for themselves? You can also spend some time thinking about the areas where your employees excel. Odds are good that they probably enjoy doing these tasks because they feel like they can be successful at them. Can you maximize their time spent in these areas? If you have varied skill sets on your team, perhaps it’s a matter of shifting the workload among a few individuals.Does this mean employees shouldn’t have to do any work they don’t enjoy? Nope. We all have to do stuff we don’t necessarily like. But by zeroing in on employee strengths, you’re guaranteed to have more purpose-driven, inspired employees – the kind of employees who create meaningful business results.