Authors: Marcus Buckingham, Donald O. Clifton
ISBN-13: 9780743201148, ISBN-10: 0743201140
Format: Hardcover
Publisher: Simon & Schuster Adult Publishing Group
Date Published: January 2001
Edition: (Non-applicable)
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.
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.
Please note that the code for the Online Strengths Finder Test is found on the inside of the dust jacket or in the sealed sleeve bound into the book just before the end paper.
Introduction: The Strengths Revolution at Work | ||
The Revolution | 5 | |
Two Million Interviews | 11 | |
I. | The Anatomy of a Strength | |
Chapter 1. | Strong Lives | |
The Investor, the Director, the Skin Doctor, and the Editor | 19 | |
Tiger Woods, Bill Gates, and Cole Porter | 25 | |
Three Revolutionary Tools | 28 | |
Chapter 2. | Strength Building | |
Is He Always This Good? | 39 | |
Knowledge and Skills | 41 | |
Talent | 48 | |
II. | Discover the Source of Your Strengths | |
Chapter 3. | StrengthsFinder | |
The Traces of Talent | 67 | |
The StrengthsFinder Profile | 76 | |
Chapter 4. | The Thirty-four Themes of StrengthsFinder | |
Achiever | 83 | |
Activator | 84 | |
Adaptability | 85 | |
Analytical | 86 | |
Arranger | 87 | |
Belief | 88 | |
Command | 89 | |
Communication | 90 | |
Competition | 91 | |
Connectedness | 92 | |
Context | 93 | |
Deliberative | 94 | |
Developer | 95 | |
Discipline | 96 | |
Empathy | 97 | |
Fairness | 98 | |
Focus | 99 | |
Futuristic | 100 | |
Harmony | 101 | |
Ideation | 102 | |
Inclusiveness | 103 | |
Individualization | 104 | |
Input | 105 | |
Intellection | 106 | |
Learner | 107 | |
Maximizer | 108 | |
Positivity | 109 | |
Relator | 110 | |
Responsibility | 111 | |
Restorative | 112 | |
Self-assurance | 113 | |
Significance | 114 | |
Strategic | 115 | |
Woo | 116 | |
III. | Put Strengths to Work | |
Chapter 5. | The Questions You're Asking | |
Are there any obstacles to building my strengths? | 121 | |
Why should I focus on my signature themes? | 131 | |
Is there any significance to the order of my signature themes? | 134 | |
Not all of the phrases in the theme description apply to me. Why? | 136 | |
Why am I different from other people with whom I share some of the same themes? | 137 | |
Are any of the themes "opposites"? | 139 | |
Can I develop new themes if I don't like the ones I have? | 141 | |
Will I become too narrow if I focus on my signature themes? | 144 | |
How can I manage around my weaknesses? | 148 | |
Can my themes reveal whether I am in the right career? | 160 | |
Chapter 6. | Managing Strengths | |
"Fidel," Sam Mendes, and Phil Jackson | 171 | |
One By One | 176 | |
Chapter 7. | Building a Strengths-based Organization | |
The Full Story | 213 | |
The Practical Guide | 218 | |
Appendix | ||
A Technical Report on StrengthsFinder | 247 |