People often know enough information to draw a proper conclusion, but haven't made the proper connections. When they get the conclusion from someone else, they often get a reaction like "duh! I knew that already; I just never got it until you just said it." This book will give you that reaction. It will identify the top 5 personal paradigms you work with, and gives you strategies and tactics that will help you feature them more productively in your life. You might ask "is that it?" A common question according to the book, but focusing on more than the top five is spreading yourself too thin, as is any focus on avoidance of what doesn't work for you. Aside from my own "duh" factor and curiosity, I felt this book was extremely good at what it does.

I am the manager of a large Salon/Day Spa and we purchased a copy of this book for each of our employees. It is helping us learn how to manage each person based on their personality strengths rather than their weaknesses. They are also having a great time learning about each other in a different way. We all have a better understanding of each other.
I would highly recommend this book.

I enjoyed the book and found it to be quite insightful. I'd definitely recommend it. Buyers need to be aware, however, that in order to take the test, you must have a code to use at the publisher's website. Each book has only one code, which means each person who wants to take the test must purchase their own copy of the book. The codes that come with used or borrowed books are probably not valid any more.

The book helps uncover talents related to people's 'DNA', that otherwise could stay undiscovered a lifetime. Recommended.

Could be a magazine article though.

This book is half of a tool that includes an on-line assessment of one's 5 dominant talents. It is a valuable assessment tool if you are interested in developing strengths related to your career. The book itself is not as informative as the original StrengthsFinder 1.0, Now, Discover Your Strengths. I used both, plus Go, Put Your Strengths to Work,the sequel. Together, I believe you get the complete picture on talents, strengths, weaknesses, and how to leverage your talents to build strengths where there is room for improvement.

I found this book and survey easy to use. I thought it was very insightful!

This is a great tool! It not only gives you better insight into how to leverage your own strengths, it gives you tips on how to work with people whose strengths may be different than yours. I use it DAILY for my professional as well as my personal life.

I did the Strengths Finder for work and then asked my family if they wanted to do it too. We bought four books and all took the test. It revealed some new information not already covered by Meyers-Briggs, Enneagram, and other systems we've taken and analyzed extensively. SF2 correlated a bit with Meyers-Briggs but explained some things in new ways. Although it would be nice if people automatically gave each other the benefit of the doubt, these systems help explain and legitimize coworkers' and family members' apparent quirks and hang ups, showing the rest of us how these things can be beneficial to teamwork and efficient functioning. Fun concept. Quick read. The blurbs about each strength are general in the book but tailored to you in light of your other strengths when you get the online results. So my advice is read just the introductory sections of the book and wait to read the descriptions of your strengths online after you take the online test.

I purchased Strengthsfinder 2.0 upon the recommendation of Cristina Favreau. Although I usually enjoy doing assessments and learning more about myself, I was not overly impressed with this one.

For starters, it's hard to comprehend the value in a question that asks "Would you rather read a book or eat an apple?" (This is not a real question, but an illustration of the type of unrelated things you're asked to choose between in some cases.)

In addition, I think it should be possible to purchase additional access codes without having to buy more copies of the book. It's not just about the cost of the book (not to mention shipping), but in this age of environmental consciousness, no one should have to buy a book in order to access an online service, especially if they already own a copy.

Although the results were interesting, I was somewhat disappointed in the lack of direction as to how to make use of them. Fortunately, when I posted a comment to that effect on Cristina's blog, Lara, The Data Digger was kind enough to point me to "Sort Your Life into Place! The Strengths Card Sort," a blog post by Margaret Greenberg, which helped me take it a step further.

This book really helps the readers to focus on their strengths vs. weakness fixing. It is one of the books where you catch yourself saying "oh that is why I do that or think like that". The concepts allow us to learn more about ourselves and have a broad application from home to work. This is a true culture change of thought and I am surely on board with it. Invest your time with the assessment and the development plan. It really does allow customization specifically to YOU!

This is a great follow-up read and test to "First, Break All the Rules", and is very helpful when building a team and investing in team development.

This is a pretty good aptitude assesment tool. It breaks out of the typical test mode and is easy to use and provides some interesting insight. I would recommend it for anyone want to evaluate their strengths, interest, and values.

This book and test help you find your strengths and when you do so, you will understand your self better

With the book Strengthsfinder 2.0 you get access to an online self-assessment the result of which is a list of your five personal strengths. All the possible strengths are described in the book (online you also get a printable PDF of the same descriptions). Though I thought the results of the test were interesting and accurate, I was disappointed by the reference pages that told about each strength. They didn't offer me much insight, it felt a bit generic. What was there seemed valid, but only scratched the surface and offered little direction to further personal development.

I think the first book has more information about the topic. The only benefit is the size-factor. This book is more compact. I think Gallup could just sell access code to the test on-line.

Strengths Finder 2.0 not only helped me to learn more about myself, but it gave me a greater understanding (and tolerance) of those around me. It is an interactive book that requires the reader to take a test that helps to reveal one's strengths. It can also be quite fun to partake of the test with family, friends and co-workers. Another interesting book is Personality Plus by Florence Littauer.

How To Keep Your Man: And Keep Him For Good

Real Life Dramas - Volume One

Darren G. Burton

The StrengthsFinder 2.0 assessment helped me understand myself better. I was so impressed with how this knowledge empowered me I bought the book for all of my family members so they could understand their strengths. The knowledge of our strengths helped our family communicate more effectively and gave guidance to each of us to perform our daily responsibilities more effectively. Knowledge is power, this kind of knowledge about yourself can be used in your personal life as well as your profession. Excellent read!!

I didn't learn a whole lot about myself, but did learn more about others. It's interesting to read how differently people process information.

I bought this book used and it is a waste of money. The book hinges on using the online evaluation test and then reading the book to analyze results. Buying the book second hand means you do not have access to the online account. In fact, inside the book it specifically says not to buy the book used.
The book descriptions do not make this clear. The seller posted anote saying the access code was used, but it is not clear that the book is useless without. I contacted the publisher about buying the online access code separately, their reply was "buy a new book." what a waste!

This book is a must for everyone. It give you your strengths and ways that you can build on them to make you the best you can be. Stop trying to strenghten your weaknesses, start improving your strenghts. A feel good book that will help with your personal and professional life.

While the information was interesting, I think the biggest "a-ha" was that these folks get everyone to pay money to read the book. In order to get anything out of the book, you have to buy your own copy. The quiz is only good once. I also would have liked to see a number attached to my "strengths". I am curious to find out how close I am to other strengths or what was the really big strength.

This book is being used for our department to better use our strengths and be more productive. Thank you for getting this too us quickly and for a competitive price.

As I had mentioned in the previous post "The Matrix: Lessons in sales", I recently had something short of an epiphany while having a conversation with my boss. The conversation reminded me of the scene in The Matrix where Neo was sitting in the room with Morpheus for the first time. Walking away from the discussion I started really thinking about `who' I am at work and not so much with `what' I do at work. I've always been an overachiever but walked a line that kept me from being all I could be. I had a conversation with a friend of mine that pointed me in the direction of a book called Strengths Finder 2.0. I ordered the book from Amazon and was eager to get the results.

The book is based around an online test of approx 75-100 questions that took about 20-30 minutes for me to complete. The answers to the multiple choice questions were going to identify my top 5 talents and explain where my strengths are. Once the test was done the answers were calculated and the results were given to me.

My Strengths

1. Achiever
2. Maximizer
3. Relator
4. Focus
5. Self-Assurance

Out of 34 "themes" a person could fall into, these were identified at my top 5.

The book arrived precisely as expected, in mint condition packaged very well and never touched. That wonderful rigid feeling the first time you crack open a book was there and the included membership key (online profile test activation) was securely sealed in the enclosed envelope. Overall satisfaction of a scale from 1 to 10 was easily a 15 and I will absolutely use this company again to purchase books in the future!

Great buy, great read, great tool!

"Connectedness, Adaptability, Individualization, Strategic and Communication"

-Mitch

While not a cure-all, this book could be helpful to most people and especially beneficial to recent grads, job changers, and the mass of bored workers.

The concept of the book is: people spend too much time trying to fix their deficiencies and that's the wrong way to improve (the path of most resistance). We should be focusing on strengthing those talents that we have naturally. This is not a new concept, but the book outlines it clearly and with good examples.

The only value of the book, aside from a few short chapters, is the strengthsfinder access code. And this is pretty valuable. Strengthsfinder.com is a 30 minute quiz to determine your talents. After determining your top 5 talents the website creates an action plan for you. It's more than a basic personality test. I found it to be accurate, but your results may vary. The action plan was especially helpful to me. It gave me insights into my personality that I didn't see before. I suppose the best praise I can give it is I've recommended to my friends and family. I am also considering buying it for a few others in my office. It can't hurt and for a reasonable price it may help you understand yourself and others and make you more productive.

My boss purchased this book and its associated personality test for our department. I was so impressed with its results that I purchased three copies for family and friends.

The book focuses on ways to identify and enhance your strengths rather than how to bring up your weaknesses. While both approaches have value, this book was the first to look at enhancing strengths. You purchase in all likelihood find the book an amazing and pleasant surprise.

DJ

This is the one resource that every manager and leader should require their employees to complete. It identifies the employee's core thinking which allows the manager and leader to direct employees into roles that match their thinking. This drives employee engagement and performance.

A must for everyone in business.

What a great book! The concept of how we are encouraged and accept the idea of "being" a certain type of person "when we grow up" versus "who we really are" speaks volumes in the assessment test of this book's Gallop's test. My hat is off to the concept!StrengthsFinder 2.0: A New and Upgraded Edition of the Online Test from Gallup's Now, Discover Your Strengths

It is relly uncanny, how dead on this test is. Use this to better understand yourself and put your strengths to work. Don't think you'll get step-by-step answers on "what to do next". But, if you are really interested in understanding yourself, and putting some effort forth to make changes for the better, then these are the books for you. I say books, because I read both the original "Now, Discover Your Strengths" and "Strengths Finder 2.0". I'm glad I did - "Now, Discover.." provides more information on the subject.

Are you on the right track? Do you wonder about why you love doing certain things and dislike others? Do you wonder why you react in certain ways? Are you looking for a better way to make right decisions, enjoy peace of mind, and live in harmony with others. This may be the book for you.

"Strengths Finder 2.0" is an extension of "strengths" research begun more than forty years ago by the late `Father of Strengths Psychology," Dr. Donald Clifton of the Gallup Organization. For over 40 years, Clifton researched the natural patterns of thought, feeling, and action of two million people in more than 25 countries. The goal was to begin a conversation about what's right with people. The result is the Clifton "StrengthsFinder," a tool that reveals a person's top five themes of talent - one's "Signature Themes."

A "Strength" is the ability to provide consistent, near-perfect performance in a given activity. This ability is a powerful, productive combination of talent, skill, and knowledge. Talents are naturally recurring patterns of thought, feeling, or behavior that can be productively applied. Unlike skills and knowledge, talents exist within you and cannot be acquired. We must first need to identify, affirm, and apply our unique mix of talents then apply them.

Clifton's research highlights folly of the widely used "weakness prevention" model - to be successful, we must "fix" our weaknesses. This thinking is wrong. Building a life around one's greatest natural abilities rather than trying to repair weaknesses is the path to success.

The book is organized around the use of the StrengthsFinder (provided with the purchase of the book) to identify, assess and affirm our Signature Themes (talents), and how to apply them for growth and life success. There are thirty four identified talents ranging from achiever, maximizer, ideation, individualization, and significance to woo. The StrengthsFinder assessment tool has been translated into more than 20 languages and is used by businesses, schools, and communities in more than 100 nations around the world to create strength-based families, communities, and workplaces.

The Signature Themes are unique to the individual. According to Gallup, the chance of finding someone with your Signature Themes, in the same order, is 1 in 33 million and the chance of finding someone with your top ten themes of talent is 1 in 3 trillion. Finding one's themes and understanding their uniqueness should help one to gain a better appreciation of how special they are and how special the people around them are - deeper self-respect, deeper mutual respect. Studies indicate that people who do have an opportunity to focus on their strengths are three times more likely to have an excellent quality of life in general.

"StrengthsFinder 2.0" has been written to provide the reader with the latest discoveries and strategies for application, providing a much more in-depth analysis of one's strengths. The book also provides 10 "Ideas for Action" for each of the themes. Each reader will get 50 specific actions - culled from thousands of best-of-practice" suggestions.

The entire focus of this book is application. If you want to improve your life and the lives of those around you, you must take action. The chances are, if you do, that you will find yourself in a much more positive and productive environment.

Unless this is a corporate requirement, you shouldn't buy. The book is only valuable in obtaining code necessary to take on-line questionnaire. The on-line information is much more complete than anything in the book. A better solution would be for Gallup to offer on-line registration (they may already, but it is not apparent on the WEB site)

This is an essential guide to understanding your top strengths. It is also helpful when guiding your employees to do their best by focusing on their strengths and not on their weaknesses.

Author, "Trust is Everything: Become the leader others will follow"

I was VERY disappointed by this book, for four reasons.

First, it seems geared to those who will live their lives inside organizations. What if you are able to see and appreciate beauty and want to be an artist or create your life as a work of art? What if you are fascinated with and drawn to nature and want to live close to it and teach others to appreciate it? You won't find your strengths in these areas acknowledged here, and you won't get any help with shaping your work accordingly. The test finds what it looks for, and what it looks for seems stuck in some very early management behavior paradigm.

Second, you're given no help with figuring out how your five top strengths might be knit into a meaningful career/life.

Third, if you take the test on a off day, when you're not feeling good about yourself or are overly influenced by something that just happened, and then you want to retake the test on a better day to verify the results, you can't. You can only use the passcode one time to go through the test.

Fourth, the 34 themes are titled so sloppily that it appears the publisher didn't want to pay a good editor to make them parallel in construction. Why name the themes Achiever, Adaptability, Belief, and Command? What would have been wrong with revising these to be Achiever, Adaptor, Believer, Commander? This seems symptomatic of some really sloppy thinking. And no, Analytical was not one of my strengths, but I took the test on an off day.

I frankly don't understand all the five-star reviews and Tom Rath's success.

This book is a must buy for all employees. I have had my teams take this test as well as write my dissertation on it. The book Elephants Can't Change but Leopards Can!!! has 2 chapters documenting results of employees who have found their path based on strengths versus weaknesses.
My traits are:
Command,
Maxmizer
Strategic
Competitive
Self Assurance

This is my second time completing an order for the StrengthsFinder 2.0 and I am yet again, satisfied. I experienced a issue with my shipping address as I failed to update. While I thought it would create a problem for me, your company was very helpful in getting everything resolved. For that, I will always be a loyal customer. Thanks so much.

We have all heard the adage that, if you work hard enough, you can become anything you want to be. Rath challenges this. We all have different strengths, and very seldom is someone very successful in something that is not his/her strength. Don't follow the path of greatest resistance!

Rath criticizes the widespread societal practice on dwelling on failure instead of success. For instance, there is excessive attention paid to poor grades in school instead of to the good ones. He also believes that talents are innate, and change little through life. He even cites a study (p. 18) that indicates that the child's personality traits at age 3 are very similar to those at age 26.

After extensive research, the Gallup Organization developed a lists consisting of 34 common talents, each of which is described in this book in a separate chapter. I will briefly describe a few of them. A person with the Analytical talent is good at picking apart ideas, projects, etc., not to destroy them but to make them work better. He/she would do well in marketing, database management, or medical research. A person with the Intellection talent likes mental activity. He or she would do well in studies of philosophy, literature, or psychology. The Learner constantly wants to learn something. He/she might learn best by teaching.

Evidently, this book has hit the chord. It has been a bestseller for many years, has been translated into several languages, and has been used by businesses, schools, community groups, etc.

We used this book for our management team. Although many of us have worked together for a number of years, it was great to see where each person's strengths were. It was a fun and informative tool that was used to build on our successes.

Upon reading numerous reviews about this book the one thing driven home to me over and over again is how narcissistic we all are. It's all about me! That being said, Because of it's concise nature, I really enjoyed this book and contrary to many reviews I actually like owning the book. It allows me to annotate those people who's strengths I need to be reminded of on a regular basis and I carry it with me from home to the office. Although many of my own strengths were not much of a surprise, I was surprised by a few and the action plans were helpful to focus. But primarily, the value of this book is communicating with others that you think you know. We misread others all the time. Our interpretation of them is not often who they really are! This book has really assisted me in bringing clarity to relationships at work and at home. If you have never taken a similar assessment buy this one and enjoy.

Good book. Very helpful. We used it for our management team to help the different personality understand one another.

Who wants to know "what's wrong with you"? Let's find out what's RIGHT and build on that! This book will help you find your strengths so you can do just that. Great book!

The stated goal is to help people do more of what they do well. The author's methods are designed to uncover our key talents via thought patterns, feelings, and behaviors. The patterns are then categorized into 34 broad themes such as Achiever, Relator, and Ideation. The broad themes point to a person's natural talents, which can be further developed. One interesting aspect of the book is that it points out that no amount of training will help a person excel in an area of natural weakness. In fact, it stresses that we cannot do or be anything we choose since we are not good at everything. But if we figure out what our natural talents include and develop those, we can be extraordinary in those areas. The book emphasizes that in business, people enjoy their work and accomplish a lot more if they are doing something for which they have some natural talent.

The author rejects the idea that we can each be anything we want if we just try hard enough. I think the premise has a lot of merit, and there are people who try and try and never succeed and should have moved on to something for which they were naturally inclined. The author advocates putting effort into what you are naturally good at rather than spinning your wheels forever and inevitably failing anyway. Nevertheless, there are plenty of examples where someone dreamed and achieved beyond their natural talent.

I believe that we are not always fully aware of all of our natural talents. So don't automatically reject pursuing a dream because you may mistakenly believe you lack natural talent and it is therefore beyond your reach. Sometimes our talents don't emerge or develop until later in life. This is a thought-provoking book in an important area - finding your dreams. Another book that may also help you find and achieve your goals is THE 3:00 PM SECRET: Live Slim and Strong, Live Your Dreams.

StrengthsFinder is a great value. Tom Rath, with both the book and the online assessment, confirmed some strengths and revealed others to me in an "aha!" way. My husband and I both took the assessment; now we see yet more ways in which we complement each other, in marriage and professionally. The hints about communicating with people with different strengths themes are almost worth the price of the book. Strengths-based living is the way to go.

this was a very insightful tool to myself and my office. we were better able to under stand eachothers strenghts instead of picking out eachother's weeknesses. we flow much better now.

This book consists of a few introductory pages and then descriptions of all the different strengths available.

You are really paying to take the $20 test. And you can only take the test ONE time only. It describes your top 5, and then that's it. It doesn't tell you which career is best for your strengths or anything else.

If you have no idea at all of your strengths, then this is a good start. However, if you're looking for some great insight, look somewhere else.

Take a look at the bookstore before purchasing to see if it is right for you. You'll never reread again.

Taking a version of "Strengths Finder" was an assignment for a graduate level class. Posting a review to amazon.com was also part of the assignment. I had not completed any of the previous versions of "Strengths Finder", and appreciated this format - short narratives and concise analyses for the various traits. I found the descriptors and explanations to be fairly consistent with previous personality assessments, but it was a worthwhile 30 minutes to re-visit this type of exercise. And, the exercise is another assignment that is now complete.

Strengths Finder 2.0 and the accompanying test on the website of the same name doesn't tell you anything about yourself that you probably don't already know. This is especially true if you've been out in the work world for more than 10 years and are looking for a new career; or are in any way introspective about your own feelings, i.e. whether you like or dislike certain tasks, people or processes at work. Save your money and take one of the free Myers-Briggs tests at humanmetrics or any other free MB website, then read everything you can about your MB type in the book "Do What You Are" by Tieger and Baron-Tieger. "Discover" also lists what other careers people with your type have. Way more helpful than Strengths Finder 2.0.

Good simple book with useful information to help add some language and structure to what makes me unique.

I bought 10 copies for our management staff to assist us in understanding our strengths and what they mean. I highly recommend this tool.

I am the manager of a large Salon/Day Spa and we purchased a copy of this book for each of our employees. It is helping us learn how to manage each person based on their personality strengths rather than their weaknesses. They are also having a great time learning about each other in a different way. We all have a better understanding of each other.
I would highly recommend this book.

I suppose if there is some value in confirming what you already knew, then Strength's Finder has some value. It doesn't cost that much, so it is worth the money just to confirm what you already know about your self. Nothing new. After I did the survey and read the results, I doubt I will ever look at it again.