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StrengthsFinder 2.0: A New and Upgraded Edition of the Online Test from Gallup's Now, Discover Your Strengths | 
 enlarge | Author: Tom Rath
Publisher: Gallup Press
Category: Book
List Price: $21.95
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Avg. Customer Rating:  215 reviews
Sales Rank: 140
Media: Hardcover
Edition: 1
Number Of Items: 1
Pages: 192
Shipping Weight (lbs): 0.7
Dimensions (in): 7.1 x 5 x 1
ISBN: 159562015X
Dewey Decimal Number: 658.314
EAN: 9781595620156
Publication Date: February 1, 2007
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Product Description
DO YOU HAVE THE OPPORTUNITY TO DO WHAT YOU DO BEST EVERY DAY?
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 StrengthsFinder helped millions to discover their top five talents.
In its latest national bestseller, StrengthsFinder 2.0, Gallup unveils the new and improved version of its popular assessment, language of 34 themes, and much more (see below for details). While you can read this book in one sitting, you'll use it as a reference for decades.
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.
AVAILABLE EXCLUSIVELY IN THE NEW & UPGRADED EDITION OF STRENGTHSFINDER 2.0
(using the unique access code included with each book)
* A new and upgraded edition of the StrengthsFinder assessment
* A personalized Strengths Discovery and Action-Planning Guide for applying your strengths in the next week, month, and year
* A more customized version of your top five theme report
* 50 Ideas for Action (10 strategies for building on each of your top five themes)
* The more user-friendly StrengthsFinder 2.0 companion website, with a strengths community area, library of downloadable discussion guides and activities, a strengths screensaver, and a program for creating display cards of your top five themes
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| Customer Reviews: Read 210 more reviews...
 "Mirror, mirror on the wall...." April 4, 2007
93 out of 109 found this review helpful
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."
Identifying Talents: Not "Become Anything that You Want to Be" June 13, 2008
10 out of 10 found this review helpful
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 list 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.
Optimal Solution for Understanding Yourself September 23, 2007
9 out of 9 found this review helpful
I've been a senior leader of several organizations, and consequently have been exposed to a gauntlet of industrial psychologists, personality tests, intelligence tests, leadership training, cultural orientations, yada yada.
This book/body of knowledge/tool does 2 things extremely well. By well, I mean in an optimal way measured by the degree of understanding relative to the time investment. First, for an investment of maybe an hour at minimum, and an additional few hours to explore the guidance and begin to consider the implications and choose new behaviors, etc. you get, in my opinion, the best single, and correct perspective about yourself than any combination of the other methods mentioned above, period. It is not just directionally correct, like a horoscope type paragraph that would be true for anyone who read it, but rather a set of desciptions of your strengths that just "nail it" and descibe you as you know yourself. It tells you about yourself in a way that you can understand, regardless of whether you or anyone who is around you has ever articulated it.
The second thing it does well is offer a rational and empirically validated framework that is just long overdue. It is a simple truth that has been so elusive. It addresses a major reason why leadership is so rare in business - the modern organization strangles out your ability to contribute by trying to fix what you will likely never be much good at, or hate doing even if you end up with some level of proficiency at it.
Get it, read it (25 minutes) and take the online test (35 minutes). If you are like me and the 50 people around me who've infectiosuly taken and immediately recommended this thing to their inner circle of friends and family, you will absolutley find value in it. But like anything, an idea or a tool is only as good as it is put to use. A master craftsman never blames his tools. Remember to act on it and that is something for which only you can be responsible.
New and Improved. YES! February 13, 2007
53 out of 67 found this review helpful
I just received my 5 copies this past week (yes, I'm a "dealer")and I'm greatly impressed with the upgrades they've made to the book. Gallup has streamlined the book to serve more like a small manual for people taking the online instrument, without the other data and commentary present in "Now, Discover Your Strengths". They have wisely put the codes in an enclosed envelope to prevent "code stealing". The book is also linked to a new version of their website that contains improved interpretation resources and personalized reports. (There are even options for what type of "certificate" you want to print out. Fancy)
The book also includes small stickers for each of the 34 talent themes so you can stick your "top 5" on its glossy red and white cover for a convenient reminder. Cute to some, essential for others. Buying the book is still the only way to take the online instrument, but now it's more affordable and streamlined. Let the Strengths Revolution continue!
Enjoyed it September 19, 2008
6 out of 6 found this review helpful
As a professional Human Resource developer, I have designed and implemented curriculum for the development of leaders, supervisors, managers, and executives. All of these supervisors are involved in professional endeavors. They are aware they have talents. It is a variety of situations that challenge them in their use of their talents. Usually, these talented people also know, no one working for them will honestly comment on their perceptions of those talents. If they do comment it is in a heat of anger or a splash of praise, not usually in an honest evaluation for formative purposes. In fact, most supervisors do not solicit nor value subordinate evaluations. Therein lies the value of 'Strength Finders.' It allows the supervisor / executive to honestly do a self evaluation by applying an objective criterion. It is useful, used, and helpful to motivate self - managed change. Thus, using the 'Strength Finder' a supervisor can honestly participate in their own honest evaluation. It's value is given the weight of the participant not some external evaluator. It is an evaluation interpreted by the participant, too. It truly stands on what the participant puts into the evaluation process for self awareness and development.
Another book that comes with an assessment that I use regularly in sessions with the Strengths Finder 2.0 is The Emotional Intelligence Quick Book The emotional intelligence skills complement strengths psychology well, because your strengths are what you can't change, and the emotional intelligence skills are the soft skills that you can change.
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