Now, Discover Your Strengths: How to Develop Your Talents and Those of the People You Manage - Softcover

Buckingham, Marcus; Clifton, Donald

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0743207661 ISBN 13: 9780743207669

Publisher: Free Press, 2002

Synopsis

Based on a Gallup study of over two million people who have excelled in their careers, this text uses a programme to help readers discover their distinct talents and strengths. The product of 25 years research, the "StrengthFinder" programme introduces 34 talent or themes and reveals how they can best translate into personal and career success. After going through the programme, and discovering which of the 34 themes dominates their profile, readers can make practical applications for change: within their own lives, as a manager and within an organization. The book shows readers what environments they flourish best in and helps them to make changes around them, how managers can better cultivate their employee's talents, and how organizations inhibit the talents of their people and need to change.

About this title

Review:

Marcus Buckingham and Donald O Clifton's Now, Discover Your Strengths proposes a unique approach to managing personnel: focus on enhancing people's strengths rather than eliminating their weaknesses. Effectively managing personnel--as well as one's own behaviour--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. 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 Maximiser) and explains how to build a "strengths-based organisation" by capitalising 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 Organisation and instantly discover their own top five inborn talents. This device provides a personalised 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

Review:

Mike Pucci Vice President, Glaxo Wellcome "Now, Discover Your Strengths" is the logical, practical application of the theories uncovered in "First, Break All The Rules." We have rewritten our management development curriculum as a result of this important and defining research in leadership. Dr. Frank Schmidt Ralph L. Sheets Professor of Human Resources, Department of Management and Organization, College of Business, University of Iowa This book is built around a unique vision of the high-performing individual and the high-performing organization -- and that vision is built on a recognition of individual differences and the unique strengths of each person. A truly important book. Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi C. S. and D. J. Davidson Professor of Psychology, Peter Drucker School of Management, Claremont Graduate University, Author of "Flow""Now, Discover Your Strengths, " based on years of research by The Gallup Organization, is a refreshingly sensible and user-friendly way to assess your psychological assets and build on them a successful and satisfying life. Ed Diener, Ph.D., Alumni Distinguished Professor of Psychology, University of Illinois A brilliant book that will help readers to discover and capitalize on their specific strengths, as well as assist managers in supervising people with varying strengths. Martin E.P. Seligman Fox Professor of Psychology, University of Pennsylvania, Director, Positive Psychology Network, Author of "Learned Optimism" 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. Mike Morrison Dean, University of Toyota The code for managing has been broken and the secrets for success are here in this book! We know this from first-hand experience -- with over 2,000 Gallup 'strengths' program graduates (and growing) -- we will never look at our jobs, or our lives for that matter, the same way again. To achieve our greatest potential, this is by far the most important investment an individual or organization can make! Normal 0 false false false EN-US X-NONE X-NONE /* Style Definitions */ table.MsoNormalTable {mso-style-name: "Table Normal"; mso-tstyle-rowband-size:0; mso-tstyle-colband-size:0; mso-style-noshow: yes; mso-style-priority:99; mso-style-parent: ""; mso-padding-alt:0in 5.4pt 0in 5.4pt; mso-para-margin:0in; mso-para-margin-bottom: .0001pt; mso-pagination: widow-orphan; font-size:11.0pt; font-family: "Calibri,""sans-serif"; mso-ascii-font-family: Calibri; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-hansi-font-family: Calibri; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi;} "This book has been instrumental in how we think about developing talent at Facebook."--Sheryl Sandberg, Facebook CEO, as quoted in the New York Times &

About this edition

• Publisher: Free Press
• Publication date: 2002
• ISBN 10: 0743207661
• ISBN 13: 9780743207669
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 288