Now, Discover Your Strengths

Rating:
Summary: Discover an Excellent Starting Point
Review: Now, Discover Your Strengths is a provacative and extremely practical book with a gem of an on-line survey instrument. Do you want to know your strengths? This is a book + survey instrument that will help you. Well worth the investment.

One of the big nuggets of value in this book is the amount of research that Gallup conducted to back up the on-line strength surveying mechanism.

The survey is uniquely focused on identifying your strengths. This is not a test like Myers Briggs (that focuses more on personality traits). The test takes 30-40 minutes on-line and the results are tabulated instantly with summary and full-text interpretation reports. Your customized report is printable or viewable (at a later date) on-line. (You must purchase the book to get the secret password to take the test.)

I asked for an additional code for a family member to be able to take the test and the on-line customer service rep agreed and sent me a new code within a couple hours - very courteous. I imagine that the survey will be available without the book at some point, but the book adds important information that helps readers understand other people.

The authors are credible and the Gallup organization adds deep practical underpinning. This book will appeal to the pragmatic reader. Educators and theorists will appreciate the inclusion of the appendix/technical report describing the testing theory and apparatus.

The book is not focused so much on the application of talents as it is the discovery of talents. The author chose not to draw a stronger correlation between strengths and possible career fit. (Richard Bolles does a great job with career matching in his books: What Color is Your Parachute and The Three Boxes of Life.)

In closing: the survey very accurately identified and articulated my key strengths. It probably will help you, too.

Rating:
Summary: A timely guide to job satisfaction
Review: This is not only a co-written book, it is backed up by the Gallup Organisation and a survey of over two million people over a thirty year period. Although it is written with career and team management in mind, it is worth reading simply for personal development. The first learning point of the book is an understanding of how everyone's brain is wired in a unique way to give each person a unique combination of talents. This is fascinating information. A hundred billion neurons in the brain each with fifteen thousand synapse connections by the age of three. But by the age of sixteen, half of those synapse connections have disappeared to create a unique pattern for each of us in what we find difficult and, crucially, what we can perform with consummate and consistent ease. The second learning point is to understand that success and excellence do not come from fixing our weaknesses, but from developing our strengths. For years, employers have made the mistake of directing staff training to the improvement of weak areas while taking strengths for granted. The misguided aim is to produce a well rounded performer. But, as the book shows, the real performers are those who concentrate almost exclusively on their natural talents. The unique strength of this book is that each copy comes with a unique reference number for the reader to get access to the StrengthsFinder Profile, a dedicated website questionnaire of 180 questions designed to identify your own top five talents, taken from a list of 34 "themes". It is the identification of those themes, and the kind of questions needed to elicit them, which has emerged from the exhaustive survey of over 2 million people. Your profile will not necessarily tell you that you are in the right or the wrong job. It may point you to a more effective role you could be taking within that job. Undoubtedly it will help you to identify how you can improve your performance and job satisfaction by playing to your strengths more of the time. The book is particularly good at explaining how a different balance of strengths can produce excellent job performance even in the same type of job, because there are any number of ways to do an excellent job in the same field of work. It also provides practical damage limitation strategies for managing your weaknesses. If you are a manager or work within a team, the remainder of the book will help you determine the strengths of your team and the best way to approach each type of person. Having taken the StrengthsFinder profile, you can repeat it at any time and there is ongoing support in the form of email advice on how to make the most of your own strengths. The information offered through this book and the StrengthsFinder profile will provide a great deal of insight into your present circumstances and challenges, and prove an invaluable resource for contemplating any future career development.

Rating:
Summary: Common Authors - Why
Review: This book is very expensive and the authors tell you that taking multiple surveys are helpful in the book. They actually do not let you take the surveys multiple times and do not return your phonecalls when you leave a message on the 800 number that they list in the book. Do not waste your money until they allow more tests - especially for the price that they charge! You can buy 2 or 3 other good books for the price of this one.

Rating:
Summary: Now, Discover Your Strengths
Review: In order to get the maximum benefit out of this book, you have to read the first book, "First, Break All the Rules". As someone who has been in education, and then sales, training, management and marketing, I found both these books refreshing and right on the money. Corporations spend way too much of their training dollars focused on what people do wrong ("improvement opportunities") and not nearly enough expanding on people's strengths. One of the highlights of "Now, Discover Your Strengths" is an internet-based quiz you can take to discover your own strengths and talents. Mine was right on the money and helped me clearly identify my true talents. Once you know what they are you can strive to place yourself in workplace situations where these talents can shine. When individuals shine, so then do their organizations. Both these books are a must for any executive who wonders why their organization isn't as successful as they would like.

Rating:
Summary: Stingy with the tests - not professional.
Review: The authors want you to buy more books in order to take the test more than once yourself. This is very unprofessional and makes the book useless, don't waste your money.

Rating:
Summary: left hanging!
Review: A great start to understand your personality strengths but not enough information on what to do with this evaluation. You can purchase a subscription to a newsletter that discuses topics on this book, but again it is vague on disclosing what you get for your dollars. I guess I'll be left here hanging until a book comes out: "Now that you have discovered what you really already knew, here is how you can use it."

Rating:
Summary: Good overall point -- Lousy evaluation tool
Review: I love the overall point of the book: Individuals and companies would do better identifying and focusing on strengths rather than trying to fix weaknesses. There are neurological reasons why focusing on strengths is the more rewarding direction to take.

However, I found the evaluation tool offered by the authors to be weak (i.e. inaccurate). After completing the evaluation I read through all 34 "themes" and evaluated them for myself using the principles outlined in the book (e.g. you are energized when expressing the theme). Of the 5 themes uncovered for me by the evaluation, only 2 are accurate. The other 3 are far overshadowed by other themes in my life. So...like much else in life, to thine own self be true. Skip the evaluation and just read the book; either on your own, or with the help of family and friends you'll be able to figure out your own themes. Also, like some of the reviewers before me, I think the restrictions around the evaluation (only one per book, and no retakes) are suspect.

Rating:
Summary: GREAT INFORMATION AND ADVICE
Review: Having a lifetime of experience as a teacher and counsellor of business management and a background in psychology, I find this to be an excellent book, on the same level as the book, "First Break All the Rules". Believe me, Gallup has good reason from both a logical and psychological point of view why the quiz found here cannot be taken a second time. It is also a known fact that once individuals take a test for the first time, they often tailor their answers to fit the questions the second time around.

It is a major plus, particularly in business, to expand your knowledge by studying psychology. After all, business is all about dealing with people, i.e., customers, employees, suppliers, competitors. If you do not understand people from a psychological point of view, their patterns and behavioural characteristics, you are already at a disadvantage. You can bet "the big guys at the top" know all about their competition, their customers, their employees, and what makes them tick from a psychological viewpoint. They have already done their homework and that is one of the major reasons why they have made it to the top of the corporate ladder.

The only reason this book seems to be deserving of a four-star rating rather than a five, is simply because of the theory, "Concentrate on your talents, not you weaknesses." While it is correct to say one should concentrate on their talents, it is equally important to identify weaknesses. There is a timeless business philosophy that holds much truth - "Know what you don't know." Those tasks that you do not do well, should be delegated to someone who does excel in that area. If you are the only person in the business, and the jack-of-all-trades, then you better learn "what you do not know" very quickly or you will have an extremely short-lived business venture.

This book contains some strong, valid points which can be applied to both your business and personal life and, overall, is well worth reading.

Rating:
Summary: A free, second test is available if you ask for it.
Review: This book "locks up" any one else's opportunity to take the test as soon as the code provided is used once. Their web site provides a help number where you can obtain a free second code for a family member, which is an annoyingly un-advertised option which no one knows unless you call and forcefully complain. Bah. This is hardly professional. The test seems fairly right-on; although the results were no surprise, the authors' phrasings of strentghs and their characteristics are insightful, and useful within a process of self-understanding. The book would rate probably a bit more star if the authors were not so stingy as to how many tests were available per book.

Rating:
Summary: Good idea, but needs to refocus its approach
Review: "Now, Discover Your Strengths" provides valuable information not found in the first book ("First, Break all the Rules") on how to find your strengths, but does it in a curious way:

First, the Web-based quiz, keylocked to the code on the paper cover inside, raised more questions than it provided (IMHO). Why only allow buyers of the book to take the quiz? Why can they take it only once? Why must you only have 20 seconds per answer before it goes on to the next question. It is not difficult to double guess the answers even within 20s limit. I also found Gallup's answer to my query - "can I take the test again later" ("no" was their short answer...) - to be surprizing. This leads me to believe that the respondent answers do change over time - perhaps significantly, even though Gallup claims otherwise (the "ergodicity" question). Why else time-limit the answer to each question if the results aren't stable? I think that Gallup should "fess up" to this aspect a little more straightforwardly. The subject is fascinating enough to pull readers in - pretention of results is really not necessary. (Even if I'm wrong, letting people take the test again after an time interval should be an obvious way to squelch this kind of argument).

Second, much of the example materials (and most of chapter 2) really border on rubbish - the author seems to pretend to know famous personalities, and to ascribe why s/he is successful, etc. to certain ascribed strengths. In addition the author implies to take psychology and neurology as a second strength subject areas, but clearly doesn't have the background to do so. Most of the information given is as murky as a astrophysicist writing on sociology - at some point it becomes a stomach-churning affair to continue reading (e.g., brain development).

Chapters 4 & 6 (the 34 strength attributes explained, and how to manage individuals in each of the 34 strengths) seemed to have some utility, but there seemed to be a certain shallowness in the answers - something that I didn't expect to see from the depth of analysis done in the first book. Chapter 5 was clearly a "FAQ" chapter for test-takers. This chapter was uneven in its subject matter expertise, and resulting utility to the reader. Chapter 7 "Building a Strengths-based Organization" is again uneven - Gallup should stick to the facts and hard data, not preaching to their more gullable fraction.

In short, it shouldn't be surprizing that the Gallup organization was strong in areas where they do their business (polls and statistical inference, etc.) and extremely weak in those areas where they clearly don't operate (psychology, neurology and "self-help" advice, etc.). What was surprizing is that they allowed one of their own to write in these non-expertise areas. I would have thought that they would have hired someone who was expert in those areas to write those sections of the book.

Overall, the book provided good information - just be prepared to skim over certain chapters. This is somewhat disappointing noting the very good start in the first book. I do recommend Peter Drucker's "Management Challenges in the 21st Century" (the whole book) and especially Chapter 5 "Managing Oneself" for those that want to know how to manage your strengths.