Now, Discover Your Strengths by Marcus Buckingham, Donald O. Clifton
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Book Reviews of Now, Discover Your Strengths
Book Review: At last, a book that makes sense!
Summary: 5 Stars
How many of us, well into our careers, still live with the mistaken idea that the purpose of most of our activities is to work on those weaknesses and somehow turn them into strengths? I would venture to say, the majority of us, certainly those of us who grew up with post war parents who themselves believed that success in working life and achievement can be measured by the extent to which his has been accomplished.
In the meantime, strengths, natural aptitudes, and in most cases the activities that enhance our well being are almost ignored, simply because so much energy goes into working on those weaknesses.
When put this simply, none of us should be surprised at the level of unhappiness sustained by a lot of people in their jobs.
So, in the face of this general discontent, Marcus Buckingham comes along to shake us up and wake us up. With the help of his, dare I say it, easy to understand theory, we can turn our professional and personal lives around.
What you need to do, is rediscover the strengths that are an integral part of your own personality, and by strengths he means, not only the things you excel at but that also give a sense of satisfaction and contentment. Then to increase well being it is essential to take these discoveries seriously and ensure they can be put to use to either help you choose a new career path or to improve your situation in your current job.
Bosses, he says, must be aware of the natural strengths of employees and work on finding ways of utilising these instead of regularly planning training programmes to help them identify weaknesses that subsequently should be worked on to transform them into strengths because that just isn't about to happen. It takes much more energy and investment to work on weaknesses than it does to enhance strengths.
Simple, yet it took Marcus Buckingham to point it out. A definite eye opener. I recommend it to bosses and employees alike.
Book Review: Discover an Excellent Starting Point
Summary: 5 Stars
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.
Book Review: Very refreshing, decent social science
Summary: 5 Stars
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
Book Review: Great OD advice for business leaders
Summary: 5 Stars
As an Organizational Development professional and a business leader, my first thoughts after finishing the book are that the majority of the information and guidance in this book is great food for thought for corporate executives. In the current economy where "business as usual" is anything but, senior executives continually turn to old-school methodologies of sustaining their business viability. While the focus on individuals areas for improvement are a standard approach to ensuring corporate success, it bears little evidence that there is a direct correlation that focusing energies on individuals' weaknesses results in positive improvement in corporate morale and performance. And that is what this book is all about - no-nonsense, backed by extensive research from a notable research corporation, stick-to-your-ribs data and evaluation. Does it provide singular actions that individuals can take to leverage their strengths to overshadow their areas of weakness? The process of doing so would require individualized performance plans related to the multitude of variations in the theme combinations. Readers should not expect this book to provide step-by-step actions to take in order to give the illusion of different themes. Take heed - this book does provide the baseline guidance of which every reader can not only identify aspects of their own organization, but also identify areas of strength on which to explore further on a self journey. While corporate America continues to struggle with improving performance by focusing on the weaknesses of its employees, the light is at the end of the tunnel, awaiting to be read. I applaud Marcus Buckingham, Dr. Clifton, and the Gallup Organization in having the courage and guts to "tell it like it is" and send out a wake-up call to business leaders everywhere. Kudos!Book Review: Transformation in the Workplace!
Summary: 5 Stars
"Now, Discover Your Strengths" is a breath of fresh air. I can relate, as authors Marcus Buckingham & Donald O. Clifton describe in their book, to people who tend to focus on their weaknesses instead of identifying their talents and building them into strengths. Before reading this book, I used to focus on everything that I thought needed improvement instead of seeing that there were natural areas in my workplace that I excelled in. I am a loan servicer at an investment bank, and I have discovered that I am currently performing in a job that capitalizes on my strengths and my talents. My knack for organization and discipline has earned me the role of training new hires in my department. Without recognizing this talent, I may have turned down the opportunity when my supervisor suggested that I take on this responsibility. I really enjoy my work.
I've also found satisfaction with my workplace from reading books by authors Ariel & Shya Kane. Before reading their book, Working on Yourself Doesn't Work: A Book About Instantaneous Transformation, I would complain about my job, thinking that it was just a job that paid the bills, always dreading 9:00AM on Mondays and day dreaming about 5:00PM on Fridays. My existence at my workplace was so unsatisfying that I was miserable. After reading their books, including How To Create a Magical Relationship and Being Here: Modern Day Tales of Enlightenment, I have discovered that if I fully engage in the moment with my life, the mundane tasks in life become magical. Magical - as in fun, easy, and satisfying. Not only have I found that I have unique strengths by reading "Now, Discover Your Strengths", I have found a life of ease in my workplace, by reading the award winning books by Ariel & Shya Kane.