You will hear Mary Goldsmith, a columnist of Business Week interviewing psychologist, Tommy Thomas about his new idea that peopl

You will hear Mary Goldsmith, a columnist of Business Week interviewing psychologist Tommy Thomas about his new idea that people’s weaknesses are actually their strengths.
For each question 23 -30, mark one letter (A, B or C)for the correct answer.
After you have listened once, replay the recording. You have 45 seconds to read through the questions.
[pause]
Now listen, and mark A, B, or C.
[pause]
Woman: Hi! Tommy! I’ve been looking forward to learning more about your new idea that people’s weaknesses are actually their strengths. Can you explain how you define a strength?
Man: A strength is a conceptual way to reduce a lot of information into a single idea. We use these ideas to identify specific related aspects of a person’s ability to think, feel, and behave. We are taught early on that those things that we are not good at are "weaknesses" and should be disguised and ignored. However, the message is confusing. It says: to be successful, we need only half of ourselves—our strengths.
Woman: Then, how is it that we don’t have weaknesses?
Man: We are so used to thinking in a positive-negative framework, which is a self-limiting way of thinking. So, it’s almost natural that when we think about a strength we have, we immediately start looking for a weakness. I want you to see yourself not in terms of strengths and weaknesses but in terms of opposite strengths.
Woman: I see. And as a columnist of business section, I am wondering how can executives be more successful by seeing themselves in terms of opposite strengths?
Man: An all-too-common assumption is that executives must reinforce their strengths and avoid their weaknesses by delegating. This way rejects half of the executive’s natural strengths. What people consider weaknesses are actually strengths they don’t value in using. It’s these lesser-valued strengths that actually sustain the success that comes from what people consider to be their only strengths—those things that come easily to them. By redefining all the ways of thinking, feeling, and behaving as strengths rather than labeling some of them as weaknesses, executives can feel comfortable drawing on all of their internal resources.
Woman: Tommy, please give me an example of a strength and its opposite one.
Man: All right. One of the six strengths is thinking—the ability to rationally analyse. The opposite strength of thinking is what I call risking, the ability to move into action.
Woman: Definitely. Risking is important to put wonderful thoughts into action. I’ve talked with many executives who want to be more successful and how can your idea of strengths help them?
Man: Mary, in your book What Got You Here Won’t Get You There, you identify 20 habits that people must break in order to get into the executive suite. As I see it, 17 of those 20 habits stem from the exclusive use of one specific strength while ignoring the opposite strength.
Woman: That’s intriguing. Can you explain?
Man: The strength is independent risking— the ability to rely on yourself to take action. Executives are sometimes led to believe that the opposite strength, dependent risking, or the ability to form relationships and delegate responsibility, is a weakness, so they shy away from it. For example, your habit No. 11 is "claiming credit that we don’t deserve." Executives do this when they are stuck on their own importance, so they don’t pay enough attention to others and their relationships. By shifting their attention to the opposite strength of focusing on their relationships with other people, CEOs enhance their own success.
Woman: Thank you, Tommy. By the way, how can you recognise when you’re overusing one strength?
Man: Pain. Pain is a great internal mechanism that tells us that something is wrong. Many times we develop blind spots because we’ve felt positive about using a strength. It’s like being an ice hockey player who is best at skating forward but has trouble skating backward, so he never does. As he notices other players skating both ways and realise that developing more skills will give him a chance to move to the next level of play.
Woman: Tommy, how can people discover how they might tend to overuse one of their strengths?
Man: Hundreds of executives have taken my Opposite Strengths Inventory to learn which strengths they use naturally and which strengths are hidden genes. I invite your readers to e-mail me for instructions on how to complete the online inventory and get a complimentary report explaining the results.
Woman: Thank you, Tommy!
Man: My pleasure.