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Summary: Editor, EbonyInvestor.com
Review: First of all I want to say the themes and your top five findings should not be taken as the gospel. Now having said that, I really think the books provides guidiance to individuals who want to identify or confirm their beliefs about what talents come natural to them. And yes, everyone has talents! I think it is an excellent read for up and coming high school freshmen who are on the verge of discovering themselves and potential careers. While for the most part, the book should not steer one away from a particular career (in some cases maybe it should), it should help determine how your talents can best be used in your choosen career path. It should be required reading for raising freshmen prior to entering high school.
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Summary: Now,Discover Your Strengths
Review: Up to the point and very easy to understand by foreigners.
Everybody should read this book and take the test. Why did I not have access to this book before ??Denise D'Hondt - Brussels (Belgium)//
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Summary: If you liked First Break All The Rules, you'll enjoy this
Review: We all have asked or been asked the interview question, "What are your strengths?" Buckingham and Clifton provide convincing rationale for asking that question as well as concrete terminology to answer the question. But this is not a "get you through the interview" book. The authors clearly articulate why you should be asking this question to both yourself and to those you hire. "First Break All the Rules" (the precursor to Now Discover Your Strengths) challenged managers to concentrate on, search for, hire for, and nurture strengths. "Now Discover Your Strengths" gives managers the tools (an on-line strengths assessment and several open-ended questions) and language (34 signature themes) to make that possible on the individual, departmental, or organizational level. Why would any person or organization want to focus on strengths? Buckingham and Clifton claim 8 out of 10 employees are in positions that do not capitalize on their strengths; thus, they are not performing at maximum or even baseline levels of productivity. Certainly, this is an unacceptable level regardless of the size of your organization or the type of industry in which you work. If that isn't enough, the authors posit other reasons including: 1) increased employee retention, 2) increased job satisfaction, 3) decreased absenteeism, 4) decreased on-the-job accidents and worker compensation claims - just to mention a few. However rather than focus on the fact that so many of us function outside of our strengths, take Buckingham and Clifton's advice. Discover your strengths and began the journey that could redefine the paradigms for your organization. Based on the staggering amounts of research data collected by Gallup and the completion of an on-line Strengthsfinder assessment, you can determine your "signature themes." It is then up to you (with some suggestions from the authors) to develop your themes(or the signature themes of the people you supervise) into strengths. A quick and helpful read. Recommended for any manager/supervisor or anyone grappling with career decisions.
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Summary: The only thing this book has going for it is the CD-Rom.
Review: Cute, in other words, but not worth the paper it's printed on in terms of being a useful resource for people wanting to change their lives. The authors obviously show a remarkable strength in the area of making money, if you decide to buy this book. (By the way, if you get it used, odds are the CD-Rom and its mysterious # won't work for you.)
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Summary: Fascinating Skills Inventory - Management , Self Assessment
Review: "First, Break All the Rules" left my wife and me asking, "How do you learn your strengths?" While buying a copy of "First..." for my boss, I found "Now, Discover Your Strengths." The book is fascinating. The concept of locating and concentrating on using strengths (your own and your employees') rather than fixing their weaknesses is well layed out. Strengths are talents, innate or developed tendencies and abilities which have, through experience, education or training been honed to a level placing the possessor in rarified air in this regard. The book and tape give you a code which serves as a password to take an online test to discover your top 5 strengths of 34 identified by the Gallup Organization. I would guess three will not really surprise you, two will send you diving back into the book to read more about them. By the way, my wife called the number on the StrengthFinders Website and explained that I bought the book and she, too, would like to take the test. The phone representative gave her a new code, and she took the test. ... The Talents and Strengths share similarities to some of the elements of the "Inner Self" of "Follow your Bliss" or the "Authentic Self" of Dr. Phil McGraw's "Self Matters." When you find yourself learning a skill with remarkable ease and speed, or doing all the recommended reading in a course during the first week, these are clues. You likely have an affinity for the subject. Others might be a burning desire to please, to help, to inform, to relate and more. The business goal is to put the person with the strength in the position that uses it. Then to use the techniques of Great Managers to guide them to brilliance. I recommend both "First" and "Now."
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Summary: How to identify and develop skills and talents
Review: In Now, Discover Your Strengths, readers learn how to identify and develop their skills and talents, as well as those of your employees. Effectively managing behavior, our own as well as that of others, is an extraordinarily complex task, but the mastery of which is an essential prerequiste for success in the workplace. Now, Discover Your Strengths proposes a new and somewhat radical approach as Marcus Buckingham and Donald Clifton place their focus upon the enhancing of people's strengths rather than eliminating their weaknesses. The authors articulately describe thirty-four positive personality themes (included "Achiever", "Developer", "Learner", and "Maximizer") while clearly explaing how to build what they called a "strengths-based organization" through capitalizing on the fact that such traits are already present within ourselves and those we are responsible for which we have a management responsibility. It is also available in abridged Audio Cassette and Audio CD formats.
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Summary: Capitalize on your strengths
Review: When evaluating ourselves and others, we tend to focus more on weaknesses than on strengths. Likewise, when confronted with problems, we tend to look at defects instead of looking at what makes something work well. A strong assumption underlying this tendency is that in order to solve a problem or to develop ourselves we need to focus on what is wrong. Because we think that fixing what is wrong múst lead to healthy functioning, to problem-solving and to growth.
Based on a large study from the Gallup organization, Marcus Buckingham and Donald Clifton say this kind of thinking is misguided. They say that to excell in you chose field and to find lasting satisfaction in doing so, you need to know and understand your strengths. The authors envision an organization that is built around the strengths of each person. This is in accordance with Peter Drucker, who once said that in the organization of the future, people's strengths will be so well-aligned that weaknesses won't matter. The reality now is quite different: most managers seem to take their employees' strengths for granted and focus on minimising their weaknesses. They euphemistically talk about 'skill gaps' and 'areas of improvement', and then send their people off to training to get these defects fixed. The authors call this 'damage control' instead of 'people development'. The authors say that the best managers are guided by the following beliefs:
1) each person's talents are lasting and unique, and
2) for anyone, the greatest opportunities for development lie in the area of their greatest strength. They argue that you have to capitalize on your strengths and to manage around your weaknesses. The authors define a strength as a talent completed with skills and knowledge. Talents are more important that skills and knowledge. The authors explain that skills and knowledge can be learned relatively easily but a talent can't be. Discovering your talents is therefore of great importance. But hard, because "talents are so interwoven in the fabric of your life, that the pattern of each one is hard to discern. Hiding in plain sight, they defy description. But they do leave traces." The authors provide the following suggestions to read these traces:
1) monitor spontaneous reactions,
2) monitor yearnings,
3) talent involves fast learning and
4) talent often leads to satisfaction Next, the book describes an assessment tool, StrengthFinder, which is based on a framework of strengths. The book does not provide the tool itself though. The theme of this book is an important one: looking at what makes people excell and function well instead of what is wrong with them. In its view on people development this book reminded me of:
1) Appreciative Inquiry: managing at the speed of change by Watkins and Mohr (see my review),
2) the Solutions Focus by Jackson and McKergow (great book! see my review) and
3) Positive psychology (read my review of Authentic Happiness by Martin Seligman), a new school in psychology which aims to understand healthy functioning of people (instead of their dysfunctioning). If you're responsible for, or involved in, employee development in your organization, this book will be very useful for you. Coert Visser, www.m-cc.nl
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Summary: A Unique Twist
Review: One of the best of hundreds of books I have read over the years on the "how-to" of leadership. The only one with a new twist, taking a test on-line to discover your strengths. To be a truly "good-leader" you need to understand the philosophical basis of leadership, as well as learn the how-to of leadership. For that, there is no other book that makes the "philosophy of leadership" so easy to understand than a book called "West Point", by Norman Thomas Remick. After you read "Now, Discover Your Strengths" by Buckingham and Clifton, go on and fill in your leadership education. Become one of those rare birds that knows the rest of the story of leadership.
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Summary: See Yourself and Others in a New Way
Review: REVIEW: While I am generally disappointed with sequels, this book didn't disappoint and stands on its own (see "First Break All the Rules"). "Now" focuses on the individual (except the last two chapters) and their inate strengths. It goes into detail on the 34 different types of talents/strengths that the authors found in their research. "Now" is based on two simple themes: (1) each person's talents are enduring and unique, and (2) each person's greatest room for growth lies in their greatest strengths (not in improving their weaknesses as so much of our society is focused on). "Now" will help you recognize strengths (yours and other) which is the first step to capitalizing on them. I now find myself regularly thinking in terms of the strengths concept when making working decisions. By the way, you don't have to read "First, Break All the Rules" before reading this book. In fact, I recommend this one first! Also, "First" focused on the manager and how he/she should think and act differently in terms of the authors discoveries on talents and strengths whereas "Now" focusses on the individual. This book was also the first book that I've read that included an on-line component. The on-line test took me about 30 min to complete and gave me my top 5 strengths. After reading the detailed descriptions in the book, I believe the test correctly hit 4 out of 5 with the 5th one a close runner-up. STRENGTHS: The book is easy to read and full of examples. I found the concepts and content very well thought out and very effective at changing my thinking. WEAKNESSES: I note some weaknesses, but they were at most annoying and not significant enough to prevent me from enjoying or highly recommending the book. First, as in the "First" book, no index. Second, while the book has lots of examples, a number seemed to be thrown in to touch popular or emotional topics rather than being solid support for the specific topic being discussed. WHO SHOULD READ THIS BOOK: The book is probably best suited to professionals and knowledge workers with an interest in better understanding themselves and those around them. If you're interested in increasing your own effectiveness and the effectiveness of your relationships with others this book is for you. ALSO CONSIDER: Of course, "First Break All the Rules" by Marcus Buckingham & Curt Coffman [either before or after this book]. "The Effective Executive" by Peter F. Drucker.
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Summary: Now, buy the book to help discover your strengths!
Review: This book is really worth reading. The main idea of the book is to enhance our "strength" rather than eliminate our "weaknesses". It does not mean that we totally ignore our weakness but concentrate much on our strengths. I strongly agree with it. I used to put much effort in my weakness but the outcome was not so good, which made me desperate, lacking confidence to do anything. However, the outcome is more likely to be good if I spend much time on my strength. In reality, many successful people also pay attention on what they are good at. There are 34 real life stories supporting 34 positive personality themes described in the book, which is great and realistic!! If you do not know what your strength is, you can buy the book and there is a code come along with it that allows you to join the test and find your strength. Now, come on and discover your strength!
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