Product Description

The Number 1 New York Times Bestselling Business Book Do you have the opportunity to do what you do best everyday? Chances are you don t. All too often, our natural talents go untapped. From the cradle to the cubicle, we devote more time to fixing our shortcomings than to developing our strengths. To help people uncover their talents, Gallup introduced the first version of its online assessment, StrengthsFinder, in the 2001 management book Now, Discover Your Strengths. The book spent more than five years on the bestseller lists and ignited a global conversation, while Strengths Finder helped millions to discover their Top 5 talents. In StrengthsFinder 2.0, Gallup unveils the new and improved version of its popular assessment, language of 34 themes, and much more. Loaded with hundreds of strategies for applying your strengths, this new book and accompanying website will change the way you look at yourself - and the world around you - forever. While you can read this book in one sitting, you ll use it as a reference forever.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #2124 in Books
• Published on: 2007-02-28
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Hardcover
• 192 pages

About the Author
No.1 New York Times Bestselling author Tom Rath leads Gallup s workplace research and consulting worldwide. He co-authored How Full Is Your Bucket? (9781595620040) and most recently authored Vital Friends: The People You Can t Afford to Live Without . He Lives in Washington D.C

Customer Reviews

"Mirror, mirror on the wall...."

You will probably find no head-snapping revelations in this book if you have already read Marcus Buckingham and Curt Coffman's First, Break All the Rules and/or Buckingham and Donald O. Clifton's Now, Discover Your Strengths (especially the latter). Nor does Tom Rath claim to offer any. Rather, this is a new and upgraded edition of the Gallup organization's previous online test (StrengthsFinder 1.0) that enables those who take it to identify and measure their talents relative to "more than 5,000 new personalized Strengths Insights that we have discovered in recent years."

In Rath's two previously published books, How Full Is Your Bucket? co-authored with Donald O. Clifton and Vital Friends, he shares his own reactions to an abundance of research data which reveals the importance of two separate but related forces which have profound impact on the workplace: getting strengths in alignment with work to be done and then developing them even more with strategic delegation and close supervision.

What we have in this book, Strengths Finder 2.0, is a wealth of new research material that Rath examines with exceptional precision and uncommon eloquence. I strongly encourage each reader to take full advantage of the self-diagnostic opportunities that both Rath and the Gallup organization generously offer. Of course, once various exercises are completed, a significant challenge remains: to take effective and productive action to apply what has been learned. It is helpful to be aware of what Jeffrey Pfeffer and Robert I. Sutton so aptly characterize as the "knowing-doing" and "doing-knowing" gaps. It is also helpful to recall Peter Drucker's observation more than 40 years ago: "There is surely nothing quite so useless as doing with great efficiency what should not be done at all."

Presumably Rath agrees that, more often than not, the Yoda is right: "Do or do not. There is no try."

King Herod just opened a crèche
98% Inspiration and 2% Perspiration in the discovery and development of personal strengths must encourage all to uncover what they do best.

Most when asked, "Name four personal strengths you possess". Look at you as though you have just announced `King Herod just opened a crèche on the corner of their road'.

If you want to get ahead in life you should at least understand `what makes you tick' by revealing, even uncovering and discovering what your psychological drives are and how to build them daily, weekly and monthly so you strive to reach maximum enjoyment and satisfaction in all you do.

Tom Rath author offers the above solutions in Strength Finder 2.0. It provides a real return on investment and the WoW factor is sensational. It is `a must' for all seriously wanting to reach the Whitenburgh motto `least effort - maximum benefit' in every aspect of life.

Recommend a buy - bought four additional copies as presents for business friends and my family.

Michael J Whitenburgh
Psychoanalyst

Basically it's just an access code
The code inside enables you to take the test to discover your strengths. Once you have done the test, you get can download your profile as well as a description of the 34 strengths tested by the online questionnaire. This description of 34 strengths you can download is the same as the bulk of the book. Gallup would be better off to arrange for a paid inscription to their website and don't waste time on the book.

I'm sure there has been a lot of research in the making of the test but nothing reflects in the book. Gallup says the results aren't supposed to change a lot over a lifetime and it shouldn't be influenced by your current state of mind, fatigue or stress. But other then "trust us, we've used this tests thousands of times" they offer no proof of those claims.

It's a nice to have the 34 strengths handy but a more developed book would be better.