StrengthsFinder 2.0

I ordered a used copy of the book for a class and had two assignments based on taking the strengths assessment. New copies of the book come with an access code to be used to take a roughly 30-minute strengths assessment. Unfortunately, the access code that came with the book I ordered had already been used, which made the purchase pretty meaningless. The book gives you helpful information about your assessment results, but if you haven't taken the assessment, the book is pretty pointless. I requested and received a refund for the purchase, then ordered it on Kindle. The access code arrived separately via email almost immediately after the Kindle purchase receipt email. The code worked perfectly, I took the assessment, learned some things about myself, wrote two essays on the experience, got full credit on both assignments. Yay! The only reason to buy this book used is if you've already taken the assessment and know your top strengths. I think my strengths assessment results were pretty accurate, although it took me a while to understand that a few of my unique characteristics weren't just quirky, they could actually be considered a strength, if I simply choose to accept that perspective instead of trying to hide those odd quirks. Like any type of assessment or personality quiz, it's not perfect or always completely accurate, but it can be helpful way to learn more about yourself. Recommended (as long as you buy a NEW copy only in order to take the assessment).

I have taken quite a few similar assessments when I worked in a corporate world. I worked for an investment bank, and the obligatory week of training every year brought in an army of consultants who sliced and diced your personality like a mad chef on a 30-minute cooking show. I actually got this book for a book club reading at my last job, so it found me. I could honestly say that as I looked through the book prior to taking the assessment, I thought I had all of these strengths to some degree, and so I was curious to see what came up for me. Fundamentally, I agree with the approach that we should emphasize and play to our strengths - I think about it as not going against my nature. My top strengths came back as strategic, self-assurance, positivity, learner and activator, and I agree with all of these. The assessment is very accurate. Here's where it got even better: when I scanned through the ideas for action, I was initially too lazy to highlight the actions to take, and so I put it aside. Then, a few days ago, I was pondering a course of action to take in a difficult situation with competing priorities. I was drinking a cup of coffee in sort of a state of stupor over what I needed to do. Right in front of me, in a pile of papers on my desk, there was a page with Ideas for Action for my Strategic strength. The first item read, "Take the time to fully reflect or muse about a goal that you want to achieve until the related patterns and issues emerge for you. Remember that this musing time is essential to strategic thinking." It was right on the money. I kind of always knew it, but I'm a doer, and I feel guilty about giving my plans some time to hatch. I took notice of this, and thus my conclusion that this assessment is more useful than I originally thought, as long as I stay with it and slowly go through my Ideas for Action over a few months. Nothing struck me as inaccurate as far as the Ideas for Action are concerned, but I found it funny that my Strategic profile urged me to "partner with someone with strong Activator talents" and my Activator did the same for Strategic. (The Strategic strength is anticipation, and the Activator strength is a need for action). Since I have both, can I partner with myself? Or do I need two other people? Of course, this is harmless. If you like these sorts of tests, there a few good ones available for free as well. A friend and I have been compiling a list, which we will post on my site at [...]. Each of them puts a mirror to our face at a slightly different angle.

After lead researcher Donald Clifton left this world and Marcus Buckingham left to found his own firm, Gallup leadership must have wondered how they could milk the Now, Discover Your Strengths cash cow. It seems Strengths Finder 2.0 a "NEW & UPGRADED Edition of the Online Test from Gallup's" was their answer: a beautiful little book in a shiny white cover, with a powerful red font and the "2.0' that was all the rage in `07-'08. Since "2.0' embodies new, what's new? Well, the author: Tom Rath, Global Practice Leader for Workplace and Leadership, and author of great books we will review in time: How full is your bucket?, Strengths Based Leadership. My question to him is: what did you write in this one? Anything else? Yes. The book is a lot lighter, and unfortunately, it really is what they say on the cover: a "NEW & UPGRADED Edition of the online test"; not a new book. As far as content, you will find: * a short section explains what strengths are in Clifton/Gallup speak. Section is verbatim the first edition's. * a longer section describes one by one the 34 strengths from the Clifton StrengthsFinder. It has a lot less content. The litte additional content is already available on the website. As far as "real change": ..1. Two strengths have changed name: Consistency became Fairness and Inclusiveness became Includer, but the descriptions remain the same, verbatim. ..2. The strengths descriptions are a little different from Now, Discover Your Strengths: the "Introduction" and "examples" remain the same; the "Ideas for action" replicate the recommendations you on the website after passing the test, and the "Working with others who have..." section is a shorter version of Now, Discover Your Strengths "Managing Strengths" section. * a passcode, the real core of the book, enables you to pass the test on Gallup site. The test is said to be shorter, but I did not notice a significant difference. It is said the insights are better, but I am not convinced I did get anything that was not in the first book. Enough for the rant. What will you get from this book? In case you would not know the Clifton Strengths Finder, it is the result of a massive study on the workplace that Gallup conducted over the course of 25 years, interviewing millions of people. One of the results, the 34 strengths are patterns that can be combined, in the spirit of architect Christopher Alexander's work The Timeless Way of Building, to create not building and communities but individuals. You will learn two key principles from this study: * "You cannot be anything you want to be. But you can be a lot more of who you already are." * Strengths (ability to consistently provide near-perfect performance) = Talent (a natural way of thinking, feeling or behaving) x Investment (time spent practicing, developing your skills, and building your knowledge base) You will learn about the 34 strengths: Achiever, Activator, Adaptability, Analytical, Arranger, Belief, Command, Communication, Competition, Consistency, Context, Deliberative, Connectedness, Developer, Discipline, Empathy, Focus, Futuristic, Harmony, Ideation, Includer, Individualization, Input, Intellection, Learner, Maximizer, Positivity, Relator, Responsibility, Restorative, Self-Assurance, Significance, Strategic, Woo. This is a long list. You do not need to learn them or know them all. You will learn about your own strengths, how they manifest, and how you can play on them. This awareness will be a great foundation or accelerator for your personal or professional development effort. You will also be sensitized to the diversity of strengths. And you will discover ways to help others contribute as only they can and build productive interactions with them. This is important for anyone who works with others (everyone?), but is critical for a leader or manager. Is this book worth the price? A thousand times yes, if you need to pass the test! The test itself is undeniably 5 stars. It seems to hit the nail every time, and people I have offered it to and debriefed had a feeling of "yeah, that's who I am", with a little bit of pride: a good basis of awareness and self-acknowledgment. A good gift for people you want to coach or mentor. As for the book, less content really means less outcome and still means less trees. Gallup Boo. In closing, if you do not have Now, Discover Your Strengths, buy Stengths Finder 2.0, just to get a key at a lower cost, and get hold of a copy of Now, Discover Your Strengths, used or at a library, to read the insights of the final section. If you have read Now, Discover Your Strengths and would like to pass the test again to see if these have changed or if the results are consistent, by any means, get Strengths Finder 2.0. It is $10 cheaper, and the insights are worth the price. In both cases, it's just a pity to kill so many trees for so little new content.

If you like to figure people out or even just want to figure yourself out this is an excellent place to start. 40 years of research went into the making of this useful book. If you are tired of trying to improve your weaknesses this book takes a different approach. It focuses on your top talents instead and explains how to use them in reality. Like I am highly analytical so I'd be good at editing. Basically this book encourages you to invest in what has the most potential to make you a great person in life and work. It takes a few hours to read this book from cover to cover but I found I could skip over some of the talents that just were not important to me. When reading about each talent you can quickly see if it applies to you or not. You really can just take what you need from this book and leave the rest. I found out that my top talents are: Analytical - find patterns and organize ideas Intellection - like to think and read Belief - gives life meaning Communication - love to write Discipline - like routine and organization Buy a new copy of this book if you are interested in taking the StrengthsFinder assessment as each book has a unique code that can only be used once. However I found the book also stands alone as an educational tool. I would have liked to have taken the test but on the other hand I did learn quite a lot just from reading the book. Thank you to the reviewer who recommended I read this book. ~The Rebecca Review

This book gives you a description of about 32 different strengths that people have, and at its core is an access code to an online Myers Briggs type assessment you can take to identify your strengths. The book is merely a reference for the strengths that an online assessment helps you identify, along with strengths that others may have and how you might identify these in people to work better in teams together. The strengths identification is worthwhile, but only if you buy the print version (otherwise you don't get a code and can't take the test!) I originally bought the hardcopy of the book a few years ago and took the test, and then my girlfriend and I were recently reading over my assessment. Wanting her to take the test too, I searched the Gallup website in order to purchase another code. Ridiculously, the only way that it seems that one can take the test is by purchasing another (hardcopy) book to get a new code. Not wanting to uselessly own two of the exact same hardcopy book on my shelf, and before I knew, I paid $14 for the Kindle version just to get a new code. I would be happy to pay $14 just for the StrengthsFinder assessment tool for my girlfriend. As said, it turns out that the Kindle version doesn't contain a new code. I'm basically asking Gallup to take my money in any which way that doesn't include buying and shipping me the same useless hardcopy book again. To be fair I'd recommend the hardcopy book and taking the test once, but not buying the Kindle version, or owning the hardcopy twice. It's been around for years and I've seen many people with complaints about not being able to purchase just a code. That's pretty lame.

I started by buying this book used from an Amazon seller. Bad move. The code in the back that lets you actually take the test was already used, and the website has NO WAY of buying a fresh code (I even emailed and asked), so I was stuck shipping the thing back and buying a new copy. I didn't realize this was going to be an issue until I was a third of the way through the book and it told me I was finally done reading about how great the test is and was ready to take the test itself. So a week later, I get my new book, I take the test, get my results, and really enjoyed looking through the results. I then read the entirety of the book to see what other attributes could have been ascribed to me. I had to agree with the test that they pegged my attributes correctly. It was really interesting reading about all the possible strengths and "seeing" some of my friends and relatives in those strengths. I had a really fun time taking the test and reading about the attributes, but two weeks later - has the knowledge changed my life in any real way? Not really. I am already in a well-thought-out career path, have carefully thought about how I interact with others and use my time, and the insights they provided me with were excellent, but the action steps to put them into practice weren't very helpful to me personally - they were too obvious and were almost all things I had already done or am aware of. I think if you're not yet very aware of who you are and what your natural tendencies are, then this book could really revolutionize your life, career path, and how you do everything. For me - I'm fairly self-aware, so while it was fun, I didn't get any life-changing benefits from it. I'm also honestly a bit insulted that they made us buy the book when most of the info is available online or could easily have been. Why not make this a simple online test that we can pay online to take? Save the trees, save the gasoline... The idea that in order for my partner to take the test he needs to buy his own book is just dumb. He could easily share mine and not need to waste more resources. I think the test would be more useful in my life if I could get a few relatives and friends to enjoy taking it with me - but the idea of getting them each to buy their very own copy of a book to take an online test is just puzzling and odd to me, so I'm moving on. Some good stuff here, but they need to come into the internet age.

I purchased StrengthsFinder for each member of my team and then brought in a facilitator to walk us through our results, our individual strengths, and how we can work better together. The book itself is excellent and insightful, but what really makes it impactful is the action and conversations it sparks. It created a shared language around strengths and helped our team better understand how to collaborate more effectively. Highly recommend — especially when paired with intentional discussion and follow-through.

I’ve shared this book with many people. It’s relevant, interesting and memorable.

Me describió totalmente. Te dan una pequeña contraseña para hacer el test, lo puedes hacer en español o en ingles. La reseña también la puedes tener en español o en ingles. Únicamente el libro esta en ingles. Es un libro muy bueno, me ha ayudado a enfocarme más en que quiero hacer y hacia donde quiero ir. Descubrí cosas que no sabía de mi. Se los recomiendo.

最初に出版された「さあ、才能に目覚めよう」を購入し、セカンドエディションが出ていることに気がつき購入しました。本書を購入することにより、Strengths Finder Version2のオンラインテストを受けることができます。テストを受けるまでの設定は英語ですがテストの質問事項は、日本語で受けられます。より良くなった点は、行動のアドバイスが得られたり、掲示板での意見交換が行えます。2冊購入し、妻との結果を比較したのですが、一致しているものは、一つもありませんでした。お互いを補いあえるということで、この方がよい結果であるといえるように思われます。信憑性のない占いをするよりは、統計データに基づく本書の利用をお勧めします。

Ok, let's be clear. What you're really buying access to is the fantastic online psychometric test. I bought the kindle version of this as it's slightly cheaper. The book itself is fairly short: it contains an intro (about a fifth of the book) which explains the Gallup point of view. This is basically that if we all understood and focussed on our strengths rather than our weaknesses, we would be happier and far, far more productive (after decades of work on this, they have the research to back this up). It's articulated really well, and is really convincing. The rest of the book is a summary of each of the different strengths, including how people with that strength might want to make the most of that strength, and how to work with people like that. But the truth is you don't need to read that for yourself, because when you take the test (relatively short) you get a personalised report on each of your strengths (ok, it's not totally personalised, but it adapted for exactly *how much* you have each strength, and the mixtures you have). And here's where the transformative bit comes in. This personalised report really affected me. When I read some of it, I welled up. I hadn't felt that *got* for ages. And it opened up all sorts of things: I understood why I had left a particular job, which had mostly been a great job, I understood why I was so attracted to the career path I am developing into. And I just know that I will be able to use this going forward. I work as a coach now, and I often recommend this to clients. Mostly they don't do it, because it costs £10 or so, and you can get free psychometric tests about strengths online. But the ones who take it find it transformative, too. It's WAY better than the free ones, and for me the £10 is one of the best £10s I've ever spent. Go on, get it!

The delivery is fast and no defects.

I bought the book especially to have the code for the test, I opened the book a few months after I bought it to use the code in the back which was sealed shut, but for some reason it did not work. It said it had already been used before, which was not possible in my case because I took scissors to cut the envelope open to see the code. For the rest the book looks completely new and good.