Rating: 
Summary: Shallow
Review: The basic premise of the book is great, and the on-line tool is useful. However, there is very little discussion of how to use these strengths. Also, I tend to be skeptical of the results when I'm not allowed to complete the survey again, 6 months or a year later, unless of course I buy another copy of the book!
Rating: 
Summary: Top-Notch Tool
Review: This book quite simply can change your life. Since I took the StrengthsFinder test, I have dramatically increased my effectiveness in my current job.Donald Clifton has spent twenty years monitoring and discovering patterns of strength in the best of the best. This testing and research shows in the accuracy and precision of this test. Whether you have achiever, context, futuristic, emphathy, restorative, or whatever, this book and test is going to dramatically change the way you look at the world. I currently work in the field of Leadership Identification and Development and this test time and time again shows students and young adults ages 18-30, a new way to approach life. If there is a weakness in this book, it is that is does not go deeper. Clifton does a great job showing how he and others developed this process over years and years of study. Personally I want to be compared against the best, and this is what the book and test do. Have you ever wondered why you always size yourself up against everyone else and if you knew you could not win you did not even play? --Competition. The beauty of this book is that your personal combination of strengths can put you as unique as 1 in millions, and the chances of meeting someone that is your exact double is next to impossible. How great is it that we are all so unique? Does not lend much credence to the theory that we are all here by some cosmic accident. Our society, educational systems, businesses, and so many other institutions always try to build us up where we are weak. I worked at a company in Washington, DC and was utilized as an office manager and executive assistant, a job I was clearly not wired to do. With the the themes of competition, achiever, activator and significance, how could I ever handle ordering pens and pencils and organizing a contact database? I could not! I want to change the world, and now I know why-- I was wired to do it. Do you know instantly how people are feeling when you walk in a room? I cannot, and I know my emphathy is low or non-existent. My dreams of becoming a counselor were misguided at best. This book, and the test will help you find out how you are wired and what a perfect job for you would be. Can you wake up and say, I am doing what I was created to do and enjoying it? If not, I suggest you read this book and meditate over the information you receive back from it. Thanks to Donald Clifton for an excellent and cutting edge work.
Rating: 
Summary: A refreshing approach to success.
Review: Based on extensive research done by Gallup (the polling organization), NOW, DISCOVER YOUR STRENGTHS is about developing human strengths instead of trying to improve weaknesses. The authors begin by making a remarkable point: that people succeed better in their careers when they go with what comes naturally to them instead of trying to develop abilities they are lacking in. They illustrate their ideas from the point of view of an employee as well as from a management viewpoint. After a 30-year study including interviews with over 2 million people, the authors condense the results into a detailed description of 34 strengths - patterns or themes that can contribute to your personal and professional success. They provide a website where you can take their online strengths test, and they stress the fact that it is not the type of test you fail. It is more about observing yourself without judgment. The tone of the book is good-natured and encouraging: "Spontaneous reaction, yearnings, rapid learning, and satisfactions will all help you detect the traces of your talents." One of the most valuable things I read in the book was how often people are reluctant to build on their own strengths because mediocrity and failure are so much less risky. I encourage anyone attracted to this book's ability to present new possibilities for your life to read a copy of WORKING ON YOURSELF DOESN'T WORK by Ariel and Shya Kane. The Kanes are masters in the art of showing people how to transform possibilities undreamt of into everyday realities.
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!
| 
