The book ‘Now Discover Your Strengths’ by M.Buckingham and D.Clifton was recommended to me a year or so ago by a former colleague, a senior HR professional who found the book and the StrengthsFinder tool that the book is based upon to be highly valuable for herself. Given the respect that I hold for her, after her recommendation and summary of the benefits it delivered to her, I went online to purchase a copy of this book. However, I made the mistake of purchasing a second hand copy, which does not come with the StrengthsFinder Profile and unfortunately you cannot purchase the assessment separately. Nonetheless, I found the book insightful and a valuable resource for anyone who is keen to advance their career, change their career or is interested in their own personal development and career satisfaction.
The book goes against much conventional training and development theory that suggests we should be focusing time, effort and money on developing our weaknesses. Buckingham and Clifton paint a compelling and logical case for identifying where you excel, the key areas that you excel in and enjoy, and then building upon and developing these strengths to a superior level. The message here is forget your weaknesses, as even if you work on them you will only ever be average.
It is inspirational, practical and instructional. The book cites examples of inspirational people who have built their success around the same philosophy, including Warren Buffet who “identified his strongest threads, wove in education and experience, and built them into the dominating strengths we see today.” He also does was he loves – passion is a key ingredient.
According to Buckingham and Clifton the three themes mentioned below combine to create your strengths:
- Talents are your naturally recurring patterns of thought, feeling or behaviour. Your various themes of talent are what the StrengthsFinder Profile actually measures
- Knowledge consists of the facts and lessons learned
- Skills are the steps of an activity
The StrengthsFinder profile tool helps you to identify your dominant talents; the authors are very conscious of not attempting to label you. The tool is designed to reveal your 5 strongest themes of talent, with the view then that by highlighting your key areas of talent with the greatest potential you can develop these into world class strengths.
Below is a list of the Thirty-Four Themes of StrengthsFinder:
| Achiever | Deliberative | Input |
| Activator | Developer | Intellection |
| Adaptability | Discipline | Learner |
| Analytical | Empathy | Maximizer |
| Arranger | Fairness | Positivity |
| Belief | Focus | Relator |
| Command | Futuristic | Responsibility |
| Communication | Harmony | Restorative |
| Competition | Ideation | Self –assurance |
| Connectedness | Inclusiveness | Significance |
| Context | Individualization | Strategic |
| Woo |
‘Now Discover Your Strengths’ is a recommended read and tool for anyone who wants to get more out of their career, both in terms of the opportunity to excel as well as the chance to experience career satisfaction. Using your talents and feeling good about the work we do is possible but – as demonstrated in this book and by other successful individuals – it requires a great deal of effort on your part. However, the upside of this effort is that the rewards are there also!
