Now, Discover Your Strengths

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.

FROM OUR EDITORS

Now that you've memorized the expert advice in Marcus Buckingham's previous audio First, Break All the Rules, you're ready to move on to step two. In his new audio, Buckingham teaches listeners how to find their vital talents that could be utilized in every aspect of home and work life. And as an added bonus, this audiobook includes a unique ID number for accessing the StrengthFinders® web site, where a full evaluation of your strengths will point your life in the right direction.

ANNOTATION

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.

FROM THE PUBLISHER

Unfortunately, most of us have little sense of our talents and strengths. Instead, guided by our parents, our teachers, our managers and 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.

At the heart of Now, Discover Your Strengths 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.

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 themes. Once you know which themes you lead with, you can leverage them for powerful results for personal development, for management success, and for the success of the organization.

FROM THE CRITICS

AudioFile

The authors of First, Break All the Rules explain how value can be added to your life's work if you know your strengths and develop them in the right business context. They conducted a study that identified 34 such strengths, and you can find out what your strong suits are by logging onto the StrengthFinder Web site with the ID number included in the audio package. This is great stuff—a provocative and interesting audio combined with an online assessment tool, and all for $18.00. While I can't vouch for the validity of the test, it's worth taking to get some data on yourself and to be part of the first wave of online personal assessment resources. T.W. © AudioFile 2001, Portland, Maine

WHAT PEOPLE ARE SAYING

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.  — Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi

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!  — Mike Morrison

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.  — Ed Diener

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.  — Frank Schmidt

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 E.P. Seligman

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