Barry Conchie

I read this books as part of a reading group at work. It is a mediocre book with highly valuable information if you are willing to dig through the business speak and find it. As such, reading it in a group worked well. At our meetings, we were able to weed out the valuable information.

The theme of this book is that people do best when they focus on their strengths. This flies in the face of much popular wisdom which says that you should work to improve in your weakest areas. Instead, the authors of this book are of the opinion that focusing on your weaknesses will, at best, bring you up to mediocre. Focusing on those areas where you have natural talent and passion will bring success. They say that successful teams are balanced, but successful individuals invest in developing their unique talents.

Strengths Finder 2.0 has the word "strength" in the title, but it is actually about talent themes. A strength is what you get when you combine a talent theme with certain skills and knowledge. Strengths change over the years but talent themes tend to be fairly stable. The book has a brief introductory section followed by a catalog of talent themes. The catalog discusses how each talent theme can be applied to leading others.

To help you determine your talent themes, this book comes with a one time use code (i.e., never buy these books used) which gives you access to an online quiz which determines your strengths. Unlike some personality tests, this one is based off of years worth of research by Gallup. The result of the quiz is your type five talent themes. If you want to know how the other 29 talent themes rank, you have to pay Gallup a whole lot of money. Annoying.

Each talent theme is highly specific and actionable. This list of the short descriptions gives some idea of their specificity, but the descriptions in the book have more information that make it clear that some talent themes fit you well and others are terrible (even though you might want to have it). My top five talent themes are, in order, Input, Intellection, Learner, Harmony, and Responsibility.

Like any program, the real value is proportional to the amount of time you are willing to put into it. The answers the books give you are just a start. I found my talent themes to be valuable starting points in figuring out how I could really apply my strengths to my job.

If you aren't a leader or are interested in exploring the talent themes in more depth, I recommend [b:StrengthsFinder 2.0|56454|StrengthsFinder 2.0|Tom Rath|http://d.gr-assets.com/books/1328851668s/56454.jpg|55015] by the same group.

(Note, when I wrote this in summary in 2010, I felt it was 1 star. I have not gone back and reevaluated the book since I took on a formal leadership position at work.)… (mehr)

A practical guides for any leaders. The thing I like about this is that the points / knowledge are short / precise and the recommendation for actions are the most part of the book. Would recommend this for anyone who wants to be a great leader.
"Without an awareness of your strengths, it's almost impossible for you to lead effectively. We all lead in very different ways, based on our talents and our limitations. Serious problems occur when we think we need to be exactly like the leaders we admire. Doing so takes us out of our natural element and practically eliminates our chances of success."
"The litmus test of a great leader is whether they can quickly write down on a piece of paper all of the people they have developed."… (mehr)