Now, Discover Your Strengths 
asked by bethness on November 21, 2006 6:24 PM
Effectively managing personnel--as well as one's own behavior--is an extraordinarily complex task that, not surprisingly, has been the subject of countless books touting what each claims is the true path to success. That said, Marcus Buckingham and Donald O. Clifton's Now, Discover Your Strengths does indeed propose a unique approach: focusing on enhancing people's strengths rather than eliminating their weaknesses. Following up on the coauthors' popular previous book, First, Break All the Rules, it fully describes 34 positive personality themes the two have formulated (such as Achiever, Developer, Learner, and Maximizer) and explains how to build a "strengths-based organization" by capitalizing on the fact that such traits are already present among those within it.
Most original and potentially most revealing, however, is a Web-based interactive component that allows readers to complete a questionnaire developed by the Gallup Organization and instantly discover their own top-five inborn talents. This device provides a personalized window into the authors' management philosophy which, coupled with subsequent advice, places their suggestions into the kind of practical context that's missing from most similar tomes. "You can't lead a strengths revolution if you don't know how to find, name and develop your own," write Buckingham and Clifton. Their book encourages such introspection while providing knowledgeable guidance for applying its lessons. --Howard Rothman
Reviews
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I found this book to be so helpful that I ordered 20 copies for my team.
reviewed by lovieduvie on November 27, 2006 4:20 PM
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I listened to a CD from the library. Then bought the book, simply to get the one-time use ID code required to take the test. For about 20 bucks, you get a quick guesstimate of your strengths. I'm a bit disappointed, at the lack of direction, e.g.
Deliberative
Ideation
Learner
Analytical
Intellection...With only a small paragraph describing each strength.
If you are serious, I would suggest spending serious money. For example, about 4 years ago, I paid $2500 for a psychologist to administer a full battery of IQ tests to my son (6 year-old taking 6 or 7 hours of tests) For $2500 I received a 30 page detailed report on how to best teach my gifted son. If you are looking for TRUE INSIGHT as to career change, I would think that you would be better off investing some real money. Twenty bucks only gets you thinking about a journey, but provides little in the way of a road map. If it happens to help you, great. To me, the book is more an appetizer than a full meal. The website informs you that you can have additional guidance for about $2000. If you have that kind of coin, I would advise you skip the book and have testing administered by a psychologist in your neighborhood, so that you get advice tailored specifically to YOU.
Deliberative
Ideation
Learner
Analytical
Intellection...With only a small paragraph describing each strength.
If you are serious, I would suggest spending serious money. For example, about 4 years ago, I paid $2500 for a psychologist to administer a full battery of IQ tests to my son (6 year-old taking 6 or 7 hours of tests) For $2500 I received a 30 page detailed report on how to best teach my gifted son. If you are looking for TRUE INSIGHT as to career change, I would think that you would be better off investing some real money. Twenty bucks only gets you thinking about a journey, but provides little in the way of a road map. If it happens to help you, great. To me, the book is more an appetizer than a full meal. The website informs you that you can have additional guidance for about $2000. If you have that kind of coin, I would advise you skip the book and have testing administered by a psychologist in your neighborhood, so that you get advice tailored specifically to YOU.
reviewed by librarian on November 29, 2006 10:34 AM
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We are a small nonprofit and have all read this book, taken the test and know and value our strengths - We use this knowledge of each other in our team and individual work, in thinking about our learning and what is next - for our organization and personal growth.
The Support Center for Nonprofit Management in New York
The Support Center for Nonprofit Management in New York
reviewed by fusionz on November 29, 2006 12:00 PM
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There are thousands of self-help books in the management section of your local bookstore, covering a bewildering spectrum of ideas about how to bring out the best in people. Few of them are helpful, beyond trite statements about human behavior, and even fewer of them are based on more than a modicum of research. Now, Discover Your Strengths is an excellent book on both counts. The Gallup organization has studied excellence in many fields for over thirty years. This book summarizes some of that research from the perspective of identifying and bolstering people's talents.
The writers worked hard to make the book clear, precise, and readable. The book never sacrifices clarity, even when faced with complex ideas. I had to read the book twice to make sure that the straightforward writing wasn't masking conceptual problems. It wasn't. The writers lay out the main idea right away; they write that "to excel in your chosen field and to find lasting satisfaction in doing so, you will need to...become an expert at finding and describing and applying and practicing and refining your strengths." They go on to describe precisely what they mean by "strengths," then they give you a tool to discover your own strengths by taking an on-line test.
The outstanding thing about Now, Discover Your Strengths is the foundation of research that supports it. The Gallup folks are serious about their research. The claims in this book are based on reliable studies of almost 2 million employees. If you have any doubts about their research methods, the writers supply a technical report on the StrengthsFinder tool in an appendix. I almost wet my pants with glee, reading about interrater reliability, modern test theory, and "big five" personality factors. All of this is safely ignored in favor of the practical suggestion in the main sections of the book, but it makes a skeptic like me confident in recommending this book to everyone on my team.
Here are the main reasons why I recommend this book with no reservations:
1) It's based on exhaustive research
2) It comes with a free test...a similar tool would cost hundreds of dollars if you bought it from a career counselor or management consultant.
3) It is carefully written and eminently practical.
Now, go buy yourself a copy, take the test, and start a strengths revolution at your own workplace.
The writers worked hard to make the book clear, precise, and readable. The book never sacrifices clarity, even when faced with complex ideas. I had to read the book twice to make sure that the straightforward writing wasn't masking conceptual problems. It wasn't. The writers lay out the main idea right away; they write that "to excel in your chosen field and to find lasting satisfaction in doing so, you will need to...become an expert at finding and describing and applying and practicing and refining your strengths." They go on to describe precisely what they mean by "strengths," then they give you a tool to discover your own strengths by taking an on-line test.
The outstanding thing about Now, Discover Your Strengths is the foundation of research that supports it. The Gallup folks are serious about their research. The claims in this book are based on reliable studies of almost 2 million employees. If you have any doubts about their research methods, the writers supply a technical report on the StrengthsFinder tool in an appendix. I almost wet my pants with glee, reading about interrater reliability, modern test theory, and "big five" personality factors. All of this is safely ignored in favor of the practical suggestion in the main sections of the book, but it makes a skeptic like me confident in recommending this book to everyone on my team.
Here are the main reasons why I recommend this book with no reservations:
1) It's based on exhaustive research
2) It comes with a free test...a similar tool would cost hundreds of dollars if you bought it from a career counselor or management consultant.
3) It is carefully written and eminently practical.
Now, go buy yourself a copy, take the test, and start a strengths revolution at your own workplace.
reviewed by stonefox on November 29, 2006 5:17 PM