Now, Discover Your Strengths: The Revolutionary Gallup Program That Shows You How to Develop Your Unique Talents and Strengths

 

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.

"Now, Discover Your Strengths is the logical, pracitcal 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." Mike Pucci, Vice President, Glaxo Wellcome

"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, Dean, University of Toyota

Based on a massive Gallup study of 2 million people, this book shows 1) individuals how to cultivate their own career strengths and strengths, 2) managers how to capitalize the talents of their people, and 3) executives how to build an entire organization around the talents of each employee. By the principal author of the national bestseller First, Break All the Rules.
-Most Americans do not know what their strengths are. When you ask them, they look at you with a blank stare, or they respond in terms of subject knowledge, which is the wrong answer.-
With this remark last year, Peter Drucker captured an enduring and unfortunate truth: most of us fail to build our lives around our strengths and talents. 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 paper over these cracks. Our talents remain in the background, like sundials in the shade.
This book will right our skewed perspective. It will throw light on each person's unique set of strengths and talents and show him how to focus and perfect these strengths.
At the heart of the book is the StrengthFinder Profile, the product of a twenty-five year, multimillion dollar effort to identify the most prevalent human talents. Gallup has conducted psychological profiles with over 2 million individuals--from the world's best teachers to the world's best hockey players, from great nurses to great insurance salespeople. This last year the data was meta-analysed and from all these interviews emerged thirty-four distinct talents or -themes.- In this book we introduce these thirty-four themes and, using the StrengthsFinder Profile, reveal to each reader which of the thirty-four represent his or her most dominant.
Here are just a few of the individual talent themes, of which there are countless possible combinations:
Achiever: Your Achiever talent helps explain your drive. You feel as if every day starts at zero. By the end of the day you must rack up some numbers to feel good about yourself. Achiever is the power supply that causes you the set the pace and define the levels of productivity for your workgroup.
Activator: -When can we start?- is the recurring question in your life. You believe that action is the best device for learning. You know that often you have to make a decision without every last bit of desirable information. This does not frighten you.
Belief: If you possess strong Belief talent, you have certain core values that are
Each copy of Now, Discover Your Strengths includes a unique access code to the Clifton Strengthsfinder assessment and website. This code is valid for one use only. If you have a problem with your code please visit strengthsfinder.com for help.

The 20th anniversary edition of Now, Discover Your Strengths comes with an access code to the Clifton StrengthsFinder 2.0 assessment. This updated assessment includes reports and resources that go far beyond the standardized reports of the older assessment by providing you with personalized insight statements unique to your specific combination of strengths.

The original publication of Now, Discover Your Strengths in 2001 launched a worldwide strengths revolution. To date, more than 20 million people have discovered their strengths, and tens of thousands more are discovering theirs every week. Gallup Press has published numerous strengths-based books, and Gallup Strengths Center has become a worldwide destination for strengths-based development.

Since the book's release, Gallup has continued to dedicate countless hours to developing our strengths science, the brainchild of the late Dr. Donald O. Clifton, who was named Father of Strengths-Based Psychology by the American Psychological Association. Part of that investment resulted in Clifton StrengthsFinder 2.0 -- a refined upgrade of the original assessment for discovering your strengths.

To ensure that you have the best possible experience in discovering and developing your strengths, we have made Clifton StrengthsFinder 2.0 available to those who purchase the 20th anniversary edition of Now, Discover Your Strengths.

The updated assessment includes new reports and resources, including the Strengths Insight and Action-Planning Guide. This guide goes far beyond the standardized reports of the older assessment by providing you with personalized insight statements unique to your specific combination of strengths.

These highly customized Strengths Insights are an in-depth analysis of your top five strengths. They describe who you are in astonishing detail and provide you with a comprehensive understanding of yourself, your strengths and what makes you stand out.

These updated resources, in combination with the 20th anniversary edition of Now, Discover Your Strengths, give you the best opportunity to soar with your strengths -- at work and in your life.

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 ResearchandEducation 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.

Marcus Buckingham spent seventeen years at the Gallup Organization, where he conducted research into the world's best leaders, managers, and workplaces. The Gallup research later became the basis for the bestselling books First, Break All the Rules: What the World's Best Managers Do Differently (Simon & Schuster) and Now, Discover Your Strengths (Free Press), both coauthored by Buckingham. Buckingham has been the  subject of in-depth profiles in The New York Times, Fortune, BusinessWeek and Fast Company. He now has his own company, providing strengths-based consulting, training, and e-learning. In 2007 Buckingham founded TMBC to create strengths-based management training solutions for organizations worldwide, and he spreads the strengths message in keynote addresses to over 250,000 people around the globe each year. He lives in Los Angeles with his wife Jane and children Jackson and Lilia. For more information visit: marcusbuckingham.com