Books
StrengthsFinder 2.0: Tom Rath
AMAZON REVIEW
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.
Whistle While You Work: Richard J Leider, David A Shapiro
AMAZON REVIEW
In Whistle While You Work, Richard Leider and David Shapiro counter the clichéd query about what you want to be when you grow up with a more intriguing question: "What is your life's calling?" The authors define calling as "the inner urge to give our gifts away in service to something we are passionate about in an environment that is consistent with our values." Drawing upon psychologist James Hillman's metaphor of the acorn programmed to grow into an oak tree, Leider and Shapiro guide readers to discover their "core gifts" and the work they were born to do. Each chapter describes a conversation with a cabdriver in a different city to introduce a key idea about the process of heeding your life's calling. These lively conversations are followed by stories of individuals--from a Motorola executive to a building security guard--who have identified their calling. The stories are paired with bulls-eye exercises that allow readers to discover their calling. Tools include "calling cards" to identify core gifts, a "calling journal" and the "calendar/checkbook" exercise to align values with time management.
The book would have been strengthened with more narrative about the relationship between choosing a calling and maintaining a positive cash flow. Yet the clarity and conviction of its approach sets this book apart from other do-what-you-love career books. It is an eloquent and practical blueprint for being at home in the world by making a living with your uniqueness. --Barbara Mackoff
Now, Discover Your Strengths: Marcus Buckingham
AMAZON REVIEW
Effectively managing personnel--as well as one's own behavior--is an extraordinarily complex task that, not surprisingly, has been the subject of countless books touting what each claims is the true path to success. That said, Marcus Buckingham and Donald O. Clifton's Now, Discover Your Strengths does indeed propose a unique approach: focusing on enhancing people's strengths rather than eliminating their weaknesses. Following up on the coauthors' popular previous book, First, Break All the Rules, it fully describes 34 positive personality themes the two have formulated (such as Achiever, Developer, Learner, and Maximizer) and explains how to build a "strengths-based organization" by capitalizing on the fact that such traits are already present among those within it.
Most original and potentially most revealing, however, is a Web-based interactive component that allows readers to complete a questionnaire developed by the Gallup Organization and instantly discover their own top-five inborn talents. This device provides a personalized window into the authors' management philosophy which, coupled with subsequent advice, places their suggestions into the kind of practical context that's missing from most similar tomes. "You can't lead a strengths revolution if you don't know how to find, name and develop your own," write Buckingham and Clifton. Their book encourages such introspection while providing knowledgeable guidance for applying its lessons. --Howard Rothman
Go Put Your Strengths to Work: Marcus Buckingham
AMAZON REVIEW
Beginning with the million-copy bestsellers First, Break All the Rules and Now, Discover Your Strengths, Marcus Buckingham jump-started the strengths movement that is now sweeping the work world, from business to government to education. Now that the movement is in full swing, Buckingham's new book answers the ultimate question: How can you actually apply your strengths for maximum success at work?
