Now, Discover Your Strengths by Marcus Buckingham, Donald O. Clifton
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Book Reviews of Now, Discover Your Strengths
Book Review: Great Book Go Buy It, Read and Apply The Information
Summary: 5 Stars
First off, if your a manager you should probably read First Break All The Rules.
Any book written by Marcus Buckingham is well worth your time.
Now Discover Your Strengths seems like it applies more towards personal development rather
than managing people, which is why I bought it. However you can use the information to become a better manager.
Can't really say there is anything I didn't like about this book. It provides tons of insight into YOU and answers
almost every single question that pops into your head.
The only question I had that they didn't answer is this. After taking the Strengths Finder 2.0 Test you get back
your 5 main themes. My question is this. How close were your next 5 themes that didn't make it into your top 5...?
This is one of those books that after you read it your going to re-read it and constantly go back to it again and again.
I would recommend for Entrepreneurs and other people serious about finding out their strengths and weaknesses also
take the Kolbe A Index assessment. It will provide more insight in helping you identify your strengths and weaknesseses.
I took the Kolbe through Strategic Profits. Why..? After you take the Kolbe A Index your left with, so what do I do with this now.
Rich provides an hour video and 30 page ebook to help with this. Kolbe also has some great audios to listen to as well.
Book Review: Implications for Education
Summary: 5 Stars
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.Book Review: Super
Summary: 5 Stars
I'm a coach -- personal, business and EQ -- and I find this book to be an invaluable tool in my practice. The nomenclature for the strengths is wonderful, and makes sense. As a helping professional, I can generally see what's going on with a client, but can't see the forest for the trees, and wasn't that easily able to describe my own strengths. Taking the test myself was most illuminating and I found out, with some feedback, that I wasn't really portraying my stengths in relations with others. I immediately compared it with the profile of someone I was working with, and it made it clear to us both the one area in which we were 'clashing'. Tension eased as we saw each other for what we were, and it's been smooth sailing. It's a shortcut to understand the person you're managing, relating to, living with, or working with. No single assessment is going to explain a complex living being, but this one will put together a lot of pieces for you and for your client, employee or S.O. The book is very easy to read; clear, well written and informative. Yes, we DID need words for strengths. It's time we quit focusing on "weaknesses". Everyone has them, but everyone also has strengths, and, as the authors say, your best chance at attaining excellence is by increasing your strengths, not shoring up your weaknesses, and it's also a much surer path to contentment.Book Review: Groundbreaking and Very Useful!
Summary: 5 Stars
Now, Discover Your Strengths goes beyond just strength finding. After reading the book and completing my own Profile, I found the profile to be so accurate it was almost frightening. The concepts in the book teach you how to focus on the positive and improve yourself. As I begin graduate work, this book gave me insight as to the specific direction I should go. This concept is also currently being put to test in two colleges in the U.S. The "Strengthsquest" text takes the next step in aiding incoming college students to discover their strengths, develop them as part of their 4 year college career and use them in selecting a field of study. All of this is a result of Now, Discover Your Strengths. My son attends one of those colleges, and we now know why he does the thing he does. We know his top five strengths and he knows mine and my wife's. Strengthsfinder goes beyond business and can be used in every endeavor we undertake; our marriage, home, church and other relationships. For those who have read the book and feel slighted, review your strengths and you will know why you felt slighted. Also, sign up for Gallup's e-mail service at the Strengthsfinder web-sight and you will get plenty of information to continue to use and develop your strengths. I also recommend reading Now, Soar with Your Strengths.Book Review: A point well taken, but...
Summary: 5 Stars
The idea of the book is to help you find your talents, build your strengths, which will in turn, improve your performance.
Building your strengths is indeed somthing that is often overlooked, as most of the time we seek to improve our weaknesses- that's a point well taken- and a good reason to buy the book. However two more things also need to be mentioned. First, why can't we work on building both our strengths AND our weaknesses? In other words, why do we have to necessarily pick just one? I feel that many weaknesses can be improved upon.
Secondly, discovering your talents and doing what you're good at may not necessarily improve your performance. Why? Because there are lots of things we're good at, but still hate to do nonetheless. For instance, I'm really good at cleaning houses and debating, but I don't like to really do either one. People really perform well when its something that they know how to do AND when there's something meaningful/important in it for them. Anyway, just some food for thought. Readers may also be interested in Go Put Your Strengths to Work: 6 Powerful Steps to Achieve Outstanding Performance.