The BEST Strengths Book

I think this is the best of the "Strengths" books.  The author, Marcus Buckingham, has written or co-written a variety of best-sellers, beginning in 2001 with Now, Discover Your Strengths.  As a researcher with the Gallup Organization (the people with the famous Gallup polls) he and colleagues such as Donald Clifton, analyzed over 1.7 million interviews to define 34 positive personality themes that help people succeed and, more importantly, learned that we are all different--we each have several dominant personality themes that cause us to do well at some activities, but not others.  They developed an online test that they thoroughly tested to verify that, if you take the test, it will accurately identify your personal themes.

This was followed by StrengthsFinder 2.0, Strengths-Based Leadership, and several others.  Everyone in my family has taken this test and the results feel true for all of us.  I also have known lots of people at work who have taken this test in the past and found it insightful.

So why do I think Buckingham's latest book is his best?  Because the previous books left me and others wondering how to apply the insights that came from the on-line test.  OK, so my themes are "Includer", "Focus", "Connected", "Maximiser", and "Woo".  What do I do with this information?  EVERYONE I know who has taken the test has told me the same thing.  Everyone has said, "Now what?"

I suspect Buckingham has heard this feedback for the last 10 years.  He finally gets practical in Go Put Your Strengths to Work: 6 Powerful Steps to Achieve Outstanding Performance.  The book is step by step method to identify your strengths, to build on them, and to fill your work with activities that leverage these strengths.  In addition, he does something the other books never did.  He addresses your weaknesses--those things that conflict with your personality so much that they drain you, even if you're good at them.  His method helps you identify these and gives you strategies to minimize these activities in your job.

The methods are simple but require commitment.  For example, in the course of each day, you take notes on what you were doing when you felt engaged and absorbed in what you were doing and what you couldn't wait for the activity to be over.  By the time you complete the process, if you follow it with rigor and dedication, you are likely to transform your daily work into something that invigorates you instead of something that drains you.

I feel as if there is no excuse anymore.  With the information I've seen in this book, if I don't use my strengths at work, I have nobody to blame but myself.  Buckingham has given me all the tools.  But it's up to me to use them.