Now, Discover Your Strengths | 
| Authors: Marcus Buckingham, Donald O. Clifton Publisher: Free Press Category: Book
List Price: $30.00 Buy Used: $3.49 You Save: $26.51 (88%)
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Avg. Customer Rating: 310 reviews Sales Rank: 269
Media: Hardcover Edition: 1 Number Of Items: 1 Pages: 272 Shipping Weight (lbs): 0.9 Dimensions (in): 9.4 x 6.1 x 1.2
ISBN: 0743201140 Dewey Decimal Number: 658.409 EAN: 9780743201148 ASIN: 0743201140
Publication Date: January 29, 2001 Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days Shipping: Expedited shipping available Condition: We pack with recycled materials whenever possible. 100% Satisfaction Guarantee or you Money Back!
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| Editorial Reviews:
Amazon.com's Best of 2001 Effectively managing personnel--as well as one's own behavior--is an extraordinarily complex task that, not surprisingly, has been the subject of countless books touting what each claims is the true path to success. That said, Marcus Buckingham and Donald O. Clifton's Now, Discover Your Strengths does indeed propose a unique approach: focusing on enhancing people's strengths rather than eliminating their weaknesses. Following up on the coauthors' popular previous book, First, Break All the Rules, it fully describes 34 positive personality themes the two have formulated (such as Achiever, Developer, Learner, and Maximizer) and explains how to build a "strengths-based organization" by capitalizing on the fact that such traits are already present among those within it. Most original and potentially most revealing, however, is a Web-based interactive component that allows readers to complete a questionnaire developed by the Gallup Organization and instantly discover their own top-five inborn talents. This device provides a personalized window into the authors' management philosophy which, coupled with subsequent advice, places their suggestions into the kind of practical context that's missing from most similar tomes. "You can't lead a strengths revolution if you don't know how to find, name and develop your own," write Buckingham and Clifton. Their book encourages such introspection while providing knowledgeable guidance for applying its lessons. --Howard Rothman
Product Description Unfortunately, most of us have little sense of our talents and strengths, much less the ability to build our lives around them. Instead, guided by our parents, by our teachers, by our managers, and by psychology's fascination with pathology, we become experts in our weaknesses and spend our lives trying to repair these flaws, while our strengths lie dormant and neglected.Marcus Buckingham, coauthor of the national bestseller First, Break All the Rules, and Donald O. Clifton, Chair of the Gallup International Research & Education Center, have created a revolutionary program to help readers identify their talents, build them into strengths, and enjoy consistent, near-perfect performance. At the heart of the book is the Internet-based StrengthsFinder Profile, the product of a 25-year, multimillion-dollar effort to identify the most prevalent human strengths. The program introduces 34 dominant "themes" with thousands of possible combinations, and reveals how they can best be translated into personal and career success. In developing this program, Gallup has conducted psychological profiles with more than two million individuals to help readers learn how to focus and perfect these themes. So how does it work? This book contains a unique identification number that allows you access to the StrengthsFinder Profile on the Internet. This Web-based interview analyzes your instinctive reactions and immediately presents you with your five most powerful signature themes. Once you know which of the 34 themes -- such as Achiever, Activator, Empathy, Futuristic, or Strategic -- you lead with, the book will show you how to leverage them for powerful results at three levels: for your own development, for your success as a manager, and for the success of your organization. With accessible and profound insights on how to turn talents into strengths, and with the immediate on-line feedback of StrengthsFinder at its core, Now, Discover Your Strengths is one of the most groundbreaking and useful business books ever written.
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| Customer Reviews: Read 305 more reviews...
Career Changers "must have" reference May 2, 2008 Tight times, job changes, they are frightening. Knowing your strengths is a major 'coping' tool. It really helps writing job-getting resumes. This is a 'must have' book. Mine is on loan about 70% time.
Great Book! April 26, 2008 This a great book that will help you identify your signature themes. THe book is an easy read and will definitely keep your attention. Worth the purchase alone, just to have access to the StrengthsFinder poll.
Personal Development April 7, 2008 This book suggests working on your strength rather than your weaknesses. With help from the on-line resource, you are able to identify your top 5 strengths.
NOW, discover this book March 26, 2008 1 out of 1 found this review helpful
Ever wanted to be a professional athlete when you grew up? And with each year passing, your skills stayed behind regardless of how much work you put in. When you arrive at the end of your teen years, you decide to go to college and pursue a career. This may actually be a true story to most of us, as we lack skills, talent or health to reach the goals we dream of as a child. Live with it.
Now get real and reflect on your own life. Ok, you couldn't hit a ball but can you make an absolute smashing sales pitch? Or is your life so organized you have spare time? With this book you will learn to make the best of the talents you have, and not slightly improve the talents you lack.
Being a business owner this book was of great help managing personnel and putting together teams that complement on each other's strength. This makes some people valuable as a team member where they lack qualities as an individual. In sports this term is also complemented with the word 'chemistry' which is actually a direct result of a balanced and complementing team.
For anyone interested in self-improvement or having to work with teams, this book shares a wealth of knowledge and puts you behind the wheel of improvement within your life.
I disagree with the basic premise March 21, 2008 2 out of 3 found this review helpful
My issue with the book is nothing to do with codes or upselling to other products. It's the basic premise that I have a problem with and its lack of reality in the real world.
To a large extent I'm always slightly wary of books by people who have merely studied others and haven't really been out there at the coal face of human achievement but the hype for Mr Buckingham is huge so I thought I'd give it a go. It reads very much to me like a wonderful and highly marketable theory that could only really work in a large company. Most small enterprises would be ludicrously stifled if all their staff went around "only working to their strengths". Sometimes to really make a difference and to really get things done you have to bully your way through your weaknesses too. I doubt there is an entrepreneur on the planet who wouldn't agree with that.
Perhaps I'm viewing it from too entrepreneurial a perspective but I also take great solace in the fact that Tiger Woods regards one of his key skills as being his ability to work on his weaknesses. At the time of writing Tiger looks like being the world's first sports billionaire and has just won seven tournaments in a row. That's somebody whose advice I would take.
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