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Book Review

Now, Discover Your Strengths
By Marcus Buckingham and Donald O. Clifton

According to Peter Drucker, most Americans don't know what their strengths are.  When you ask them, they look at you with a blank stare, or they respond in terms of subject knowledge, which he says is the wrong answer.

Be ignorant no more!  Discover your strengths!

"The keystone of high achievement and happiness is exercising your strengths, not correcting your weaknesses.  The first step is knowing which strengths you own, and this superb book gives you a powerful and accurate way to find out." 

- Martin Seligman, Fox professor of Psychology, University of Pennsylvania, author of Learned Optimism

 

In their first book, First, Break All the Rules, Buckingham and Clifton introduced us to a paradigm shift in our approach to developing people.  The great organization must not only accommodate the fact that each employee is different, it must capitalize on these differences.  It must watch for clues to each employee's natural talents and then position and develop each employee so that his or her talents are transformed into bona fide strengths. 

Most organizations take their employees' strengths for granted and focus on minimizing their weaknesses.  They become expert in those areas where their employees struggle, delicately rename these "skill gaps" or "areas of opportunity," and then pack them off to training classes so that the weaknesses can be fixed.

At the heart of Now, Discover Your Strengths is the internet-based StrengthsFinder Profile.  The profile helps you identify your top five strength themes (out of 34 identified through research by the Gallup organization).  The book shows you how to develop your unique talents and strengths - and those of the people you manage.

This book captivated me and I read it in one sitting.

Back to GL Gems - "Must Reads" for Your Leadership Library