Rating: 
Summary: Nothing new
Review: While the Gallup organization is well known for it's polling abilities, and their previous book, "First Break all the Rules" is a respected management tool, it appears the authors felt it was time to write another book, whether or not they had enough new material or not. The basic premise is that we all have strengths and we should find those, capitalize on those and manage around our weaknesses. A reasonable message, and one that is pretty well covered in the first 15-20 pages. The rest of the book is filler to expand the book to 260 pages. After all, who would pay a list price of US$28 for a 20 page booklet? There are other management books out there that are far superior. Pass on this one.
Rating: 
Summary: Interesting Approach
Review: "Discover Your Strengths" is an easy to read review of the work the Gallup Organization has done in studying and defining talent, the natural tendency to perform with excellence in certain situations. The book does a great job of explaining the approach and methodology used to discover individual talents and how they become strengths (with knowledge and skill) and it does a good job of defining the 34 strengths they isolated after interviewing over 2 million people whose performance was identified as excellent. The authors want to offer companies the language and means to implement a management system that focuses on employee strengths instead of systems that focus, as most now do, on overcoming employee weaknesses. They also want individuals to spend more time developing their talents into strengths and to look at weaknesses as something to manage but not obsess over (great chapter on just how to do that). You're given a registration code so you can take the strengths index online yourself (only one person per code). Once you're told what your strengths are, don't expect to find out which careers you may best be suited for. The authors admit that it is not their intent to offer career guidance to individuals, but you'll still gain some interesting insights about yourself.
Rating: 
Summary: Source of self-development inspirations
Review: Great position, inspiring on the area of the self-development. If you waste a lot your time in order to learn some things you are not able to learn instead of focusing on you strngths points this is a book for you.
The basic concept is very simple. The key element is talent. Or you have it or not. You may learn somethink, you may gather the experience but you will never reach the top level in some area. Great really great,..., even you do not agree with the concept, the book is presenting many very practicall examples and cases you may use in you managerial practice.
Rating: 
Summary: Interesting 'listen'; author should take his own advice
Review: Listened to the audio (CD) version. Interesting; online test was OK, too. For the future, Author Buckingham should take his book's advice about playing to one's strengths. Mr. B. is probably an OK author but the role of 'narrator' is NOT one of his strengths. Next time hire an actor whose strengths/skills match the job. As an audio/video producer, I know there is no shortage of professional actors whose talents bring 'life' to the content of authors and similar experts. Maybe next time...
Rating:
Summary: The book was good, but the test results are misleading
Review: I really liked much of the book and I enjoyed taking the test but I found the presentation of the results to be marketing of their services and the book kind of slipped up in the vary areas I expressed concerns about to Pathfinders. ...
Rating:
Summary: Phenomenal! Put your creative power to work
Review: In the last 25 years Dr. Paul Zane Pilzer has been the most accurate economic forecaster. He accurately warned us of the upcoming Savings & Loan collapse. He also accurately predicted, ten years ago, the ".com" (Internet) industry as the next Trillion-Dollar industry. Dr. Pilzer has met with 1 or 2 companies he feels will benefit most, being at the top of this new trend. My wife and I recently attended a seminar because we are a part of the business leading in the Wellness Industry! Wow! This guy completed his MBA in only 3 years at age 22, Has predicted the next Trillion Dollar Industry. He has served as an economic advisor to two US Presidents. He made his first Million before age 22, and his first 10 Million before age 30! He advises the world's elite on wealth and estate planing. Are you ready to make your fortune using the internet and the wellness industry? ...
Rating:
Summary: Truly Empowering!
Review: "NOW, Discover Your Strengths" is a book that guides you to find out your strengths and build on them instead of your weaknesses. It is very inspiring because it comes from that you are living the life you are supposed to live. It's about accepting your life the way it is. They even have a website associated with the book where you can take a quiz to find out your top 5 strengths. I found this very useful because it gives an outside view as to the way you are living and what you can do to be more effective. This book is spreading a more positive way of looking at your life. It shows a way to stop trying to repair the flaws in your life from past experiences and just learn to focus on your strengths in the moment. Which will then give you the space to have a successful life. This goes along with another book that I would recommend titled "Working on Yourself Doesn't Work" by Ariel & Shya Kane. In this book the authors write about how to have a more successful and satisfying life by living moment by moment. The only thing there is, is right here right now. It discusses that what ever happened in your past (your story) however bad it was doesn't have anything to do with having a great life!
Rating:
Summary: A nice change from the normal negative focus
Review: My favorite part of this book is how aggressively positive it is. Rather than the usual focusing on weaknesses or negative behavior (i.e. studying sub-par performance to understand what makes up excellent performance), they insist that we focus on excellence as a separate science. This doesn't sound groundbreaking, but it really is a different approach than what most of us have experienced throughout our lives. The online test is a useful tool, but when I first got back my results, I didn't agree with them. I had to put them down for a few days, read some more of the book, and come back to the test results before I realized that they were right. However, if you're looking for something that will tell you exactly which career you should choose, you will be disappointed by this book. It doesn't hand you all the answers at the end, since one of the things it emphasizes is how your strengths can be used in many different roles and organizations. The book is intended to help you figure out where to start - it's up to you to figure out which way to go.
Rating:
Summary: Low - high - low
Review: This book really is a collection of three books. The first part of the book argues that we all have certain talents that are fixed in our brains early in our lives. According to the authors, we should move away from focussing exclusively on our and others weaknesses and look more towards developing our natural strengths. This part of the book left me with a somewhat unconvinced feeling - apart from self-evident insights - as it is relatively short, relies heavily on anecdotal evidence and often sounds more like philosophy than like science. Then there is - as the title suggests- the self-help/self-evaluation part. The authors are members of the Gallup organization, which has developed a scientific method and a tool that allow the grouping/evaluation of people according to their talents. Due to the high amount of experience that Gallup has in gathering and evaluating data as well as the discussions in the book this part works very convincing and academically sound. The tool has been implemented on the internet and anyone with an internet connection and a unique copy of the book can evaluate her-/himself. This is the core of the book. It is highly convincing and required reading for anyone in business. The third and final part of the book covers ways in which you / your manager / your organization can implement the insights of the two previous parts. Here we again read a lot of common sense and well-meant advice, but no research to back up the advice. The shift in paradigm for the general public presented here is so large that the authors must have felt obliged to write parts I and III. However, these parts need to ripen further. Buy this book. Then wait for the next revised edition or for books carrying this work on.
Rating:
Summary: Nw, Discover Your Strengths
Review: A follow-up to "First, Break All The Rules", this book brings home how little emphasis our culture gives to our natural strengths and aptitudes. Based on the findings of a Gallup study of nearly two million people, the authors share how much more successful organizations are when they design programs that will enhance an employee's strengths rather than try to overcome weaknesses. The authors define a weakness as "...anything that gets in the way of excellent performance." P.148. They make distinctions among a skills weakness, a knowledge weakness and a talent weakness. Skills and knowledge weaknesses can be overcome. It is the talent weakness that takes tremendous resources, focus and energy with little result. One of their prescriptions for a talent weakness is to focus on your strengths to overwhelm the weakness. Another is to find a partner who complements your talents and weaknesses. Thirty-four talent themes are defined as a result of the Gallup study. Purchasers of the book are given a passcode that enables them to take an on-line assessment test that will surface their top five themes. With these in mind, the authors then offer tips on how to best utilize your strengths.
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