Now, Discover Your Strengths

Rating:
Summary: Good message but ...
Review: The authors definitely presented some contrarian - if not completely original - thinking. The book started out promising and did indeed contain some gems, but I was left somewhat unsatisfied, given some of the stellar reviews I had read here.

I felt they included a good bit of filler to make 257 pages. I would have rather they spent more time on a complete review of the case studies; as it is, they just cited parts and pieces, leaving the analytical reader questioning if these examples were contrived.

Two-thirds into the book, the authors switched gears, moving from self reflection and managing one's own strengths and weaknesses to the area of managing others' strengths and weaknesses. They had not fully developed the first subject, but yet they ambitiously introduced a new one - which really warrants its own book.

I was also disappointed in the StrengthsFinder tool website. Only one pass is allowed and I could not find much explanation on how answers are processed, much less an objective third-party review of the test. This seems strange for a "25-year, multi-million dollar effort".

Rating:
Summary: Now Discover Your Strengths
Review: Now Discover Your Strengths describes a revolutionary way to approach managing people by placing them in positions that capitalize on their strengths rather than positions in which they would work tirelessly in attempts to correct weaknesses. The implications of the concepts and strategies found in this book encompass all organizations from business to education. An important concept that is discussed in the book is that leaders should focus on the strengths of individuals and place them in positions in which their strengths will produce the best results for the organization. This concept does two things. The first is that the individuals placed in positions that capitalize on their strengths will tend to enjoy their job more. The second is that the organization will benefit from the strengths of the individual.
Educational organizations can use the information in this book to help guide administrators when making personnel decisions. Teachers can use the concepts in this book to help students realize their strengths and reduce the anxiety about their weaknesses. As an educator I have used the book to identify my own strengths. I also read a small section of the book to my Anatomy and Physiology class to support materials I had presented regarding the brain and how people learn.
The thirty-four themes provide a description of the different strengths followed by short examples of what the strength sounds like. The book then discusses common questions asked, how to manage your strengths, and how to build an organization based on strengths. This book is enlightening and challenges people to view themselves and others in a different light by asking themselves, "what does he/she bring to the table and how can we best utilize it".

Rating:
Summary: Lead through strength
Review: This book pinpoints a philosophy I have held throughout my corporate career. Know where you want to go, identify your greatest resources and lead through strength. When activity utilizes strengths there is a healthy flow in the organization. Bravo, Buckingham and Clifton.

Rating:
Summary: Implications for Education
Review: On its own, "Now, Discover Your Strengths" is a very interesting read for anyone in a leadership position, but paired with its prequel, "First, Break All the Rules," one can be armed with a self-awareness and understanding of others to create paradigm shifts in nearly any organization. As an educator, I recognized immediately the implications of exploring the thirty-four talents outlined in this text for all levels of an educational organization. Teachers would do well to read this book to help bridge students' natural talents with curricular knowledge and skills (multiple intelligences), building-level administrators would do well to tap into various staff members' talents in order to develop and manage a school culture where each staff member is valued and, therefore, serves with a common goal of helping students reach their full potential. Central office administrators would do equally well to understand the talents outlined in this text as they go through their recruiting and hiring routines. Working from the text's premise that it is best to develop people's talents into strengths instead of trying to 'fix' weaknesses, evaluation and professional development practices in schools have the potential to be dramatically improved. Overall, this book, either alone or with its predecessor, would be a valuable read for any aspiring or practicing instructional leader.

Rating:
Summary: Unbelievable
Review: The road is clear to newfound strength in life by these easy guidelines to your business self. What about the other side though? We all need a guideline to the other side of ourselves. Dreams: Gateway to the True Self is just that.By managing our lives through self realization we become more of the person we want to be. This book has changed my philosophical introspection resulting in a better self--the one I've always wanted to recognize.

Rating:
Summary: This book is a strong Second...
Review: For a manager who desires increased productivity and a happier work place, start with "First Break all the Rules." It has much better advise about how understand and manage people to their maximum productivity than any other management book I have ever read. This is a follow-up book that goes more deeply into the basic "talents" that people have. At first I thought it was almost devoid of content when set against the marvelous first book from the Gallop Organization. But now that I have used its concepts for six months I am rereading it again and again.

The on-line "Strengths Finder" is very much geared toward corporate (or non-profits) organizations and finding strengths that help you in an organization. But once you have these defined, and if you actually use them in your organization, these "themes" are extremely helpful. Because you not only use them yourself to understand why you are good at some things and struggle with others, your manager and coworkers can also use them to understand you better. This really works best if the entire organization works toward a strengths-based organization, but I have seen miracles in the groups that blazed the path first at our company. One manager (who has no empathy) told me that she uses the themes like a black box. "I can't really understand what it is like to have Harmony or Woo, but now I know if I put X type of person in Y type of situation, Z will result. It has simplified my life as a manager tremendously. No longer do I ask someone with Harmony to go to meetings filled with controversy, I send someone with Woo. When the details are critical, I give the job to a Deliberative person. When thought and planning are required, I make sure that the team has plenty of Strategic and Arrangers. But when I need the fire put out now, I ask an Activator to get it done now. My people are much, much happier, the work expectations are much clearer, and our productivity is up. The concepts in this book and in First Break All the Rules have made a huge impact on our company, our employees, and our stress levels. I highly recommend it!

Rating:
Summary: remedial
Review: this is a fine book for those who've never done a self analysis course or personality test. unfortunately, that's all this really is and the multiple references to sales and the word "empathy" make it clear that the authors were lazy in their providing the depth that this topic deserves. "now, break the rules" was infinitely better than this half written effort to make more money.

Rating:
Summary: A worthwhile concept well explained
Review: I really enjoyed Strengths and have recommended it countless times. Of course, access to the web site (through a code nu,ber hidden inside the book's jacket)and development of my own personal strength profile have helped me to transform this book into a genuinely practical, enduring experience. I highly recommend this book.

Rating:
Summary: worth it
Review: This book is worth purchasing just for the Strengthfinder online "test". I've been through these types of assessments before-- this was by far the most insightful & helped me understand WHY I work the way I do. It has helped to keep me on track in capitalizing on my individual strenghts. Now I don't view my "quirks" as impediments. I understand that these are the motivating factors that keep my work ethic afloat.
Of course, knowing the strengths of your boss will help you respond & react to him/her in the most productive way. And with subordinates, you'll be able to help them work in a way that is more gratifying to them, which will sustain their morale & most likely generate a lot of new ideas for your workplace.
Buy it for yourself, and some for co-workers. Then share your Strengths!
(Once you get your online assessment, you can also sign-up to receive for Strength-specific tips on a regular basis!)

Rating:
Summary: Very refreshing, decent social science
Review: The book's strength, to turn the tables a bit, is not in its length (less than average amount of words per page, about 250 pages), not in its style (written at a relatively low level), and not in its technical explanations (very little justification and explanation for the theories it proposes). The strength of the book is how it introduces a new vocabulary for identifying an individual's potential strengths and talents.

The reader must go to a web site and take an assessment test rather early in the book. After the reader takes the test, Buckingham and Clifton work at unraveling old ways of looking at performance and standard practices. For example, they dare to suggest that the paradigm of improving a person's weaknesses as a strategy to implement optimum performance on the job or elsewhere is faulty. You may disagree, and you may find the test useless if you take it. In my instance, the test clearly verfied my areas of talent. So I gave the book five stars, because it's an amazing groundbreaking book - we now have a way to identify and talk about 34 different groups of human talents - and I don't care how Gallup, Buckingham, and Clifton arrived at the results they did if the results are clearly true, as in my case.

Now, Discover Your Strengths doesn't tell you how to find a career based on your top five strengths. It's a very personal decision, and also impractical, given that about 33 million combinations of five exist. Buckingham and Clifton give examples of successful people and what they chose as careers, which utilize some combination of their strengths, and other useful suggestions, such as strategies to mitigate weaknesses.

Highly recommended. I never would have known any of this had someone not suggested I read the book, and now a whole new way of looking at myself and the world is open to me. econ