Now, Discover Your Strengths by Marcus Buckingham, Donald O. Clifton
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Book Reviews of Now, Discover Your Strengths
Book Review: Outstanding
Summary: 5 Stars
This book quite simply can change your life. I took the StrengthsFinder test earlier this year, and I have looked at life differently ever since. Donald Clifton has spent twenty years monitoring and discovering patterns of strength in the best of the best.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.
I always wondered why I had, without trying, met over 200 famous people in my life, and always wanted them to remember me, the strength significance played out in my life. If you are a business or educational institution this book and test can radically alter how you select employees, leaders, and how you can communicate more effectively with existing employees.
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.
Book Review: Top-Notch Tool
Summary: 5 Stars
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.
Book Review: See Yourself and Others in a New Way
Summary: 5 Stars
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.
Book Review: Excellent tool for self-discovery
Summary: 5 Stars
There are thousands of self-help books in the management section of your local bookstore, covering a bewildering spectrum of ideas about how to bring out the best in people. Few of them are helpful, beyond trite statements about human behavior, and even fewer of them are based on more than a modicum of research. Now, Discover Your Strengths is an excellent book on both counts. The Gallup organization has studied excellence in many fields for over thirty years. This book summarizes some of that research from the perspective of identifying and bolstering people's talents.
The writers worked hard to make the book clear, precise, and readable. The book never sacrifices clarity, even when faced with complex ideas. I had to read the book twice to make sure that the straightforward writing wasn't masking conceptual problems. It wasn't. The writers lay out the main idea right away; they write that "to excel in your chosen field and to find lasting satisfaction in doing so, you will need to...become an expert at finding and describing and applying and practicing and refining your strengths." They go on to describe precisely what they mean by "strengths," then they give you a tool to discover your own strengths by taking an on-line test.
The outstanding thing about Now, Discover Your Strengths is the foundation of research that supports it. The Gallup folks are serious about their research. The claims in this book are based on reliable studies of almost 2 million employees. If you have any doubts about their research methods, the writers supply a technical report on the StrengthsFinder tool in an appendix. I almost wet my pants with glee, reading about interrater reliability, modern test theory, and "big five" personality factors. All of this is safely ignored in favor of the practical suggestion in the main sections of the book, but it makes a skeptic like me confident in recommending this book to everyone on my team.
Here are the main reasons why I recommend this book with no reservations:
1) It's based on exhaustive research
2) It comes with a free test...a similar tool would cost hundreds of dollars if you bought it from a career counselor or management consultant.
3) It is carefully written and eminently practical.
Now, go buy yourself a copy, take the test, and start a strengths revolution at your own workplace.
Book Review: Great coaching tool-without hiring a coach
Summary: 5 Stars
Proactive people who want to make positive changes in their lives will like this book. By focusing on a person's individual talents--and emphasizing the uniqueness of that combination of talents--the authors have given readers a forward-looking, personal development tool.
Coaches love this book because it gives them a cheap and easy diagnostic tool to use with their clients. Many coaches (including me) combine the StrengthFinders data with other objective feedback from other diagnostic sources when working with clients. However, clients seem to respond to the StrengthFinders feedback in particular, perhaps because it is so positive. It really celebrates the best in a person.
I have observed how much clients (lawyers) enjoy looking at their individual feedback and applying that information to their current careers. Many have enhanced their current law practices by emphasizing their natural strengths; for example, lawyers who score high in "Winning Over Others" or "WOO" ensure that their client development/rainmaking efforts include lots of person to person contact (as opposed to indirect client development by writing articles etc...)
The StrengthFinders data can validate someone's natural talents--talents which the person might have sensed but never articulated. I've seen unhappy lawyers who were thrilled to get their StrengthFinders feedback because it confirmed what they had always sensed: their natural strengths were different than those required by their particular jobs. In some cases, this has helped lawyers to tweak their jobs to make them more satisfying--and in others, to leave law practice entirely.
Other previous reviews have described the book's weaknesses. It is clearly not perfect as a management tool. However, as a tool for quick, easy and inexpensive feedback-which feedback appears to be accurate-it's quite worth the price.