Now, Discover Your Strengths
by Donald O. Clifton, Marcus Buckingham
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Book Reviews of Now, Discover Your Strengths
Book Review: Now, Discover a Limited Number of Your Strengths - and prepare to pay BIG dollars to learn about the rest....
Summary: 1 Stars
As so many other reviewers have noted, the basic premise of this book is logical - identify and use your strengths, minimize time and effort applied to using and fixing your weak areas. What the title promises is to help you "discover" your strengths through the use of the online testing tool. After taking the test you receive a "report" with a rather simplistic summary description of each of your top five strengths (out of the 34 possible that they identify). As one reviewer noted, this information might be illuminating to a young person starting their career, but most self-aware adults who have been in the world of work for a while will probably find that the results either confirm what they already know about themselves or as others have noted, give every indication of being innacurate. My experience was that 4 of the top 5 essentially confirmed what I already knew and the fifth (Adaptability) was only a partial fit according to the authors' description of it. My real interest was in the whole picture of the full spectrum of my strengths and weaknesses. Do I only have 5 strengths and everything else is a weakness I should avoid? Do I have other strengths that can be used in conjunction with or support of these top 5? The website offers me the "opportunity" to learn about my strengths 6-34 but only if I plunk down $550 for a one-hour (that's $550 for ONE HOUR) long call with a "Strengths Performance Coach" for an "in-depth" consulting session. So by my math, that means approximately 2 minutes per additional item - hardly in-depth. IMHO this is an outrageous amount of money to pay on top of the price of the book simply to see the complete results of the test.
Aside from that issue, the book provides superficial descriptions of the various strengths but no real content regarding what to do with the information regarding your top 5, how to map them to roles or do much of anything else with them. The only section I felt had any real practical value was about managing people with different strengths - useful if simplistic and it slightly fleshed out the profiles of the strengths previously mentioned.
This would have at least some value as a means of gaining self knowledge if one could get the full results of the test (without paying an exorbitant sum for "consulting"). Ideally this would be included in the results by default but if not Gallup should at least offer this option and at a reasonable price. Without any additional information regarding where the other 29 characteristics fall in my profile, knowing the top 5 is like having a recipe with 34 ingredients, but only knowing the proper amounts for 5 of them and no direction on mixing and cooking time. This book feels more like a sales pitch for very expensive consulting services than anything from which the average person seeking self knowledge will benefit. If you are looking for some in-depth insight into your strengths and temperment, you'll get more bang for your buck by taking the Myers-Briggs, the Kiersey Temperament Sorter or working through What Color is Your Parachute.
Book Review: What you already know
Summary: 3 Stars
I anxiously awaited the arrival of "Now, Discover Your Strengths," much like waiting for the return of my beloved pet at the end of a day, with great expectations. Irrespective of a general happiness about my life, I harbor a subtle element of discontent. It is a feeling that my life may not be fulfilled, that my career will not provide the greatest satisfaction for me, that I might never find the right one. It is a lack of conviction about my life's mission or purpose. I had always shunned self-help books, because I thought I knew best how to lead my life. But after years of discontent, I figured I could use some help to resolve some uncertainties in my life. Hence, I eagerly waited, and I was disappointed.
Marcus Buckingham & Donald Clifton point out that the mission of organizations and educational institutions should be to enable people to discover their strengths and to perfect them. But in reality, people tend to identify their weaknesses rather than their strengths. People expend great energy to remove such weaknesses, so that they may become well rounded. The authors note that this is completely wrong. Instead, people should learn to focus on their strengths and maximize their potential by winnowing away the weaknesses. Authors call this finding ways "around" the weaknesses.
Of the three factors that go into building strength: talent, skill and knowledge, talent is paramount and is enduring. The authors define talent as "any recurring pattern of thought, feeling, or behavior that can be productively applied." The cornerstone of the authors' argument is that talent is chief over skill and knowledge because of its biological origin. We are good at what we do because of certain synaptic pathways that we developed as adolescents. And because our neural network does not change until advanced age, our talents are enduring. If we do not align our talents with what we do, then we will grow weary (counter-productive). If we find the right talent to develop in our lives, then we will blossom and be fruitful (productive). For instance, the authors cite Warren Buffet, who said, "I get up every day and have a chance to do what I love to do, every day. If you want to learn anything from me, this is the best advice I can give you."
This is plausible and sounds like an aphorism to abide by. But is it possible to find and hone one's strengths? I'm not certain; I found the authors' thesis a bit hard to swallow. For example, what should become of those who can never practice the trade that suits their strengths? For every example that the authors cite of people who discover and use their strengths to great effect, even in their old age, there surely exists many more who do not. Must that mean that the mass of mankind must lead unfulfilled lives? For all my skepticism, I would like to close with a great point that the authors make, that "talents, like intelligence, are value neutral." Hence, it is up to each one of us, whatever our talents may be, to put it to good use. But, then again, I knew that without reading the book, and so did you.
Book Review: A timely guide to job satisfaction
Summary: 4 Stars
This is not only a co-written book, it is backed up by the Gallup Organisation and a survey of over two million people over a thirty year period. Although it is written with career and team management in mind, it is worth reading simply for personal development. The first learning point of the book is an understanding of how everyone's brain is wired in a unique way to give each person a unique combination of talents. This is fascinating information. A hundred billion neurons in the brain each with fifteen thousand synapse connections by the age of three. But by the age of sixteen, half of those synapse connections have disappeared to create a unique pattern for each of us in what we find difficult and, crucially, what we can perform with consummate and consistent ease. The second learning point is to understand that success and excellence do not come from fixing our weaknesses, but from developing our strengths. For years, employers have made the mistake of directing staff training to the improvement of weak areas while taking strengths for granted. The misguided aim is to produce a well rounded performer. But, as the book shows, the real performers are those who concentrate almost exclusively on their natural talents. The unique strength of this book is that each copy comes with a unique reference number for the reader to get access to the StrengthsFinder Profile, a dedicated website questionnaire of 180 questions designed to identify your own top five talents, taken from a list of 34 "themes". It is the identification of those themes, and the kind of questions needed to elicit them, which has emerged from the exhaustive survey of over 2 million people. Your profile will not necessarily tell you that you are in the right or the wrong job. It may point you to a more effective role you could be taking within that job. Undoubtedly it will help you to identify how you can improve your performance and job satisfaction by playing to your strengths more of the time. The book is particularly good at explaining how a different balance of strengths can produce excellent job performance even in the same type of job, because there are any number of ways to do an excellent job in the same field of work. It also provides practical damage limitation strategies for managing your weaknesses. If you are a manager or work within a team, the remainder of the book will help you determine the strengths of your team and the best way to approach each type of person. Having taken the StrengthsFinder profile, you can repeat it at any time and there is ongoing support in the form of email advice on how to make the most of your own strengths. The information offered through this book and the StrengthsFinder profile will provide a great deal of insight into your present circumstances and challenges, and prove an invaluable resource for contemplating any future career development.Book Review: If You Can Afford It, a Good Tool for Building Your Staff
Summary: 4 Stars
The authors of Now, Discover Your Strengths say "Most organizations are built on two flawed assumptions about people:
"1. Each person can learn to be competent in almost anything.
"2. Each person's greatest room for growth is in his or her areas of greatest weakness." (p. 7)
They say that the best managers follow two other assumptions that are somewhat contrary to these: That "each person's talents are enduring and unique" and that the greatest opportunity for growth for each person is in developing more fully his or her greatest strength. In doing so, these managers focus on the outcomes of their employees' efforts, rather than forcing them into a particular pattern.
The way to truly excel is to build on your strengths. They say that you cannot change a weakness, though you can learn to compensate for it. Furthermore, you can only excel "by maximizing your strengths, never by fixing your weaknesses." (p. 26)
A strength is something you are able to do consistently and enjoy doing. Your talents, knowledge and skills combine to create a strength, with "talents" being the most important element. "The key to building a bona fide strength is to identify your dominant talents and then refine them with knowledge and skills." (p. 30)
The key element of all this is the StrengthsFinder Profile, a 180-question survey. Over 30 years, the Gallup Organization interviewed two million successful professionals, asking open-ended questions about their strengths. From these interviews, the authors identified the 34 most prevalent strengths and developed the StrengthsFinder Profile, an online assessment instrument to help you identify your five strongest "themes of talent." A talent may not yet be a strength but it can be developed into a strength. The book includes a description of each of the 34 StrengthsFinder themes so you can get a brief overview of your five key strengths and read about other strengths.
To take the assessment, you must buy a copy of the book or audio-book. Each purchase entitles one person to take the StrengthsFinder Profile one time. If you want to know the strengths of your staff or your friends, they will each have to purchase the book and take the assessment.
One reviewer said that Now, Discover Your Strengths may be a better pop psychology book than a management book. This is probably true. The biggest thing that I took out of the book was an understanding that, to a large extent, I should accept my weaknesses and focus on my strengths and talents. I had each of my staff take the assessment so we could then consider how to best utilize and develop our talents to find greater success and avoid frustration and burn-out.
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.