Strengthsfinder 2.0 from Gallup and Tom Rath: Discover Your CliftonStrengths Hardcover-spiral – January 1, 2017

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.

All the traits that it attributes to you are skills, not personality. One could argue differently, but in comparison to tests like Enneagram or MB, this is distinctly different... it lists a few attributes you are strong at whereas the other tests I mentioned attempt to describe you holistically and completely as a person.I also really dislike the fact that you can only take the test once. I don't have quantitative data like the reviewer who mentioned taking the test twice without looking at the results and coming up with vastly different results. However, I bought four copies for myself and my co-workers and we did all agree that our particular dispositions at the time heavily influenced our results, and if we were to take it in a different mood it was clear we would come up with different results. If you have a more stable, static personality, then obviously you wouldn't have that problem... but for most of us, once you take the test and see the types of questions that are asked, doesn't take a psychologist to see that quite a few answers would change for most people given their circumstantial mood. And that would change your results.I think what bothers me the most about only being able to take the test once is that they throw out a philosophical reason for preventing you from doing it that only too conveniently matches with a security measure to guard against a fear of people allowing their friends to log into their account to take the test as well. The entire experience comes off as disingenuous. The reasons they list are that 1. Your traits will rarely change over time as core personality is set once you have passed a certain age so there is no need to take the test twice and 2. Once you take the test and read the results, you will be biased in a way that would alter your answers during a second attempt. I could attempt to address these reasons logically, pointing out issues of environmental circumstance, pointing out the value of experimentation and learning that comes from taking any test multiple times, pointing out how fragile and susceptible the questions are to your mood once you actually take the test and see them, but I will just skip all my personal reasoning and let you judge their rationale using your own common sense.With any body of knowledge, power comes from sharing of information and abundance. Gallup takes the other route and guards their tools closely, keeping walls of secrecy and coming from a place of scarcity and fear. What bothers me the most though is that they aren't honest about it... They could be up front and say that they only allow you to take the test once because they don't want people to share the test with friends or reverse engineer it. Instead, they use altruism as their reasoning. It ends up really souring the otherwise positive experience.Anyway, it suffices to say that it is their loss and it's ours.One other thing I dislike is that there is no attempt at trying to describe you fully, the test just highlights a few of your key strengths. That being said, I really enjoyed their philosophy of trying to lift up what is strong and develop THAT, rather than point out what is weak and focus on the negative. I do think that the traits are valuable to find out, and the comparative exercise of sharing results with people who also have taken the test is enlightening.I'm giving 4 stars instead of something lower because of the inherent value of the test itself, even though these other issues are so flawed. That being said, I'll say that sometimes I shop at Walmart, because it simply has what I need, not because I like how they conduct themselves.

Very disappointing to received a used and damaged book. This book was meant to come with a one time code to a strength finder exercise, the seal containing the code was broken and of course, the code had been used by someone else. Only found out when I got to the chapter to do the exercise, I hope the recovery service will be reasonable.

I did the self assessment included in the book and the result was exactly how I am. It seems Tom Rath knows me in person, as a professional and a real life person, he used expressions my husband uses with me. I really recommend this book to show your strengths and to have an inner time to understand your behaviors.

本書は、「苦手なことに取り組むよりも自分が強い分野に集中して能力を高めたほうが成功しやすい」という考え方のもとに、自分の適性を知るためのテストを専用Webサイトで提供しています。本書にとじ込みのアクセスコードがついており、それを専用サイトで入力すればテストを受けることができます。（日本語でも受けられます）テスト結果（英語のみ）はPDF形式で、本書に書いてあることなどがほぼそのまま書いてあるため、本書を読む必要はほとんどありません。アクセスコードを購入するために本書を買うようなものですが、適性テストを受ける代金だと思えば安いと思います。自分がどういった分野の職業に向いているか、ある程度の傾向を知ることができて有用だと思います。また、同時にメールマガジンのニュースレターも無料購読できるのですが、このニュースレターがとてもきちんとした知的な英語で書かれており、英語の勉強にも良いと思いました。注意点として、中古で買う場合はアクセスコードがすでに使用済みの場合が殆どなので、中古ではなく必ず新品を買うことをおすすめします。

Muito bom, recomendo!

The access code only grants you access to your top 5 strengths and you have to pay again to get all 34. And it doesn't look like the 34 are discounted either.