Final answer:
Companies gain competitive advantage by focusing on employee strengths, creating an efficient and innovative workforce, and achieving dominance in the market.
Step-by-step explanation:
Gaining competitive advantage through people involves leveraging unique talents to outperform rivals. Companies that focus on nurturing individual employee strengths can create a highly efficient, innovative, and dedicated workforce, which can lead to a monopoly-like dominance in the market. This management practice recognizes the importance of human capital as a differentiator, rather than relying solely on market competition.
By capitalizing on strengths-based management, as described by Donald Clifton, organizations encourage consistent, near-perfect performance in areas where employees naturally excel. This approach can potentially enhance overall organization performance, although it requires a careful balance to not neglect areas of weakness or overutilize strengths to the point of detriment.