By Marcus Buckingham Now, Discover Your Strengths: How to Develop Your Talents and Those of the People You Manage [Hardcover]

I have a strong interest in personal and team development, and found Buckingham's book to be insightful and a true reflection of reality and human nature. Amidst all the various paradigms for development, I find the StrengthsFinder approach to be fresh and meaningful.This book includes a significant amount of material aimed at managers and organizational directors--helpful specifics on how to implement ideas of being a strengths-based organization--but which can be skipped by those who are focusing on the personal growth opportunities that the book affords.Although I haven't yet taken the StrengthsFinder assessment, the whole perspective of investing in developing strengths seems hugely significant, even without yet knowing my "signature themes" and areas of talent as described within this particular paradigm.This book is recommended for followers and leaders alike. As a follower, it encourages us to consider our roles and contributions in light of the unique aspects of who we are, and gives us impetus for developing ourselves without waiting on our managers to figure it out for us.I am looking forward to seeing how this new perspective will play out in my personal journey and in my role as a team building consultant.Highly recommended.

Great book, fast delivery, amazing price, good condition. The only thing I wish I had known, is that there is a code to enable you to take the online strength test (integral to the book), and because it had been used, I could not use it, and had to pay for the test, which probably wiped out any saving I made on getting the book 2nd hand. I feel this should be made clear when people are selling this book.

Too many things to comment on in the book but looking at the bigger picture I think it's fabulous that the book is reducating people on how to view themselves and others - about their strengths rather than their weaknesses. I career changed recently for the better and this just affirms that I'm heading on the right track. This message alone really can change work forces remarkably. And this knowledge about yourself ripples out to your personal connections also. For that reason I give it five stars - any book that has an impact on your real life, for the better, should receive that - especially when so few do and fail to deliver what they promise. People want to buy self improvement books for self improvement and a lot give a long list of rules and steps to take but do not have the power in their words to actually change anything - there is no take away message. As this book quite clearly describes, it's very difficult to become good at something or change things drastically with just will power alone, so other self help books that force you to keep all kinds of diaries and change X,Y, Z are being unrealistic.I've read a fair few self-help style books and also done careers quizzes. I know the authors will be annoyed that I'm even lumping it in that category but all I want to say it that this book has a simple message really, though does expand with lots of detail. If you take away that simple message, that you should focus on your strengths and forget your weaknesses, and really grasp that concept then that is an incredible transformation mentally and then physically if you choose to live by it. Fewer books manage to give such a strong message that actually changes your life and for that reason it's worth the five stars.Side note: This books says that connections in your brain cannot be changed after childhood. I've read other books which say it's totally possible to create new ones with repetitive actions. Therefore my thinking is now somewhere in the middle!

Many books of this type are written from a "because I am successful therefore I know what I am talking about" or "this or that writer thinks this and I agree" or "this is what I attribute my success to and you can simply copy it" stance. This book stems from a great body of work from research taking real world successful people and analysing how they think and what they attribute their success to. Yes I am aware of strengths finder 2.0 but this book gave me a more relevant and usable analysis of my strengths. The book is very relevant in its message which is about focusing more of your attention on the things that you naturally want to do rather than reluctantly trying to overcome your weaknesses. Because it has some data and research behind it, paid for by massive organisations the reader gets something relevant to them rather than a "copy the author's road to success" type of approach. The book describes a number of success traits and takes quotes and stories of real poeple putting those qualities into practice in real life situations. Thus it makes it easy for the reader to say this person is a bit like or quite unlike me. Interestingly, people who are effective in a particular role may do so with entirely different skills from their peers. It helps to build teams who will respect difference as having value and although I bought this book "as new" from Amazon, it turned out that the previous owner had not even bothered to try out the tests to see what their particular strenghs were so I was able to use the code to take the test. This book originated from a team at gallup. Donald Clifton died in 2003 and Tom Rath produced a smaller book called strenths finder 2.0.

this book would be a lot better if i actually received the supposed access code that lets you access the quiz the whole damn thing is about. I've been trying to get amazon to actually send it to me which they have failed to do but its like paying for something and only getting half and waiting on the worse service in the world to fix it.

great book for mamagement techniques and out of the box thinking. Of you are looking to motivate your team and are looking for some different corporate one liners... You won't be disappointed. Makes you think about YOUR OWN ability too and not just those around you.

This book is amazing. It help me understand myself and I completely changed my life course. Highly recommended

worth reading and doing the test - an excellent book