Buckingham, a Gallup researcher who co-authored 1999's 400,000-copy-selling manual for managers called First, Break All the Rules, has teamed up with Donald O. Clifton, another Gallup researcher, on Now, Discover Your Strengths, just published by The Free Press. Applying the results of Gallup's studies, Buckingham and Clifton prescribe a complete regimen for identifying your strengths and those of your employees, then building an entire company around everyone doing what he or she does best.

It's a powerful prescription, according to those who have tried it. When Toyota University ran a pilot program two years ago, offering managers of Toyota's 10,000 U.S. employees a training program on identifying their strengths, the response was overwhelming. "Word of mouth coming out was electric, and we had a yearlong waiting list within a few weeks," reports Morrison. "That's unheard of for training."

Strengths fans say the philosophy has the power to greatly improve performance at both corporate and individual levels. "We've put a couple of thousand associates through it, and we're seeing evidence on an anecdotal basis with people self-reporting the increase in performance," Morrison says. "All the indicators are that this investment is paying back big-time for Toyota."

Reevaluating an Old Problem

The obvious question is that, if catering to our strengths is so helpful, why hasn't anyone thought of it before? They have, of course. Separating people according to various inclinations or personality types is an ancient field of psychology. Carl Jung, for example, classified people as introverts or extroverts. The Myers-Briggs Type Indicator, a test based on Jung's theories, has been administered to countless job applicants and career planners for many years.