Marcus Buckingham and Donald O. Clifton, Now, Discover Your Strengths (Follow up to First Break All the Rules – includes online assessment). Simon & Shuster, 2001.
Referenced in: Strengths-Based Leadership
LifeandLeadership.com Summary
This is a sequel to Buckingham and Coffman’s popular volume, First, Break all the Rules, which recounts his research through Gallup that revealed great managers help people discover and optimize their strengths. This can be quite valuable to overall ministry leadership effectiveness, to strengthening ministry teams, and to motivating congregational volunteers.
This was the first volume to reveal the Gallup research which discovered a set of 34 dominant themes that indicate people’s unique talents and strengths. These were arranged into a profile that was validated on over two million participants, the Clifton Strengths Finder that helps people assess where they are among the 34 themes. Since the publication of this text, Gallup released an updated version, Strengths Finder 2.0. The newer volume gives a better explanation of the 34 themes, but this text, alongside Now, Put Your Strengths to Work and Strengths Based Leadership, provide a more thorough guide into how the strengths-based understanding improves one’s life and work. In short, Rath’s Strengths Finder 2.0 updates and explains the profile, and the other volumes by Buckingham and Rath develop the application. See the breakdown of titles in the Ministry Resource Guide.
Remember, since each of the titles in the Strengths-Finder series includes a code for you to take the online version of the profile , it may be important to get a NEW copy, else someone may have already activated the code.
Publisher’s Product Description
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 threelevels: 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.
About the Authors
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.
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Related Areas
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