Customer Reviews

StrengthsFinder 2.0

5 star:		(309)
4 star:		(108)
3 star:		(58)
2 star:		(46)
1 star:		(82)

 

 

Strengths Finder 2.0 is the follow up to Gallup's Now, Discover Your Strengths. The book includes a revamped version of the StrengthsFinder test that shows you not just what your top five strengths are, but also how you rank in the rest of the 34 strengths from Clifton's model. The new book is light on content (very light) but the test is a substantial improvement.

Here's how the book is set up:

StrengthsFinder: The Next Generation
(A short introduction explaining the need for the enhanced edition of the test based upon new thinking and research in strengths psychology)

I: Finding Your Strengths
(A 30-page overview of strengths psychology and how the Gallup system works)

II: Applying Your Strengths
(150 pages outlining each of the 34 themes including what people with that strength look like, how to manage them, and ideas for action if you have that strength).

The StrengthsFinder
(If you haven't taken it before, the code to take the test is provided in a packet inside the book. You actually have to buy the book to take the test)

Emotional Intelligence 2.0 is another book I really enjoyed that follows the SF 2.0 format. Obviously, that test measures emotional intelligence (EQ), but Emotional Intelligence 2.0 has a unique format where the test tells you which of the book's 66 strategies will increase your EQ the most.

The book is a quick read and very helpful in getting one to think about one's strengths and the potential complementary strengths to look for in others to offset one's weaker areas, if you work in a team environment. However, once I completed the online test and obtained the resultant reports, I was shocked to learn that I would only get the Top 5 Themes, and the other 29 remain a mystery. Upon contacting the company, I learned that for an additional $550.00 I could then obtain the other 29 themes, as well as their order of ranking. It is obvious to me that this book is being used as a sales "hook" to try to get you to spend more money with the company and may also be being used as a "beachhead" sales device to penetrate into potential corporate accounts. I was not surprised or enlightened at all by the results, as I have been through a number of these types of profiling and behavioral characteristics tests over the years. However, they were "somewhat" useful to reconfirm some of my prior findings as still being current as of today. I would recommend the book and online test if you have never been through something like this before. They are quick and very easy to use. Just be aware that the top 5 themes are only a glimpse of your total "being" and the other 29 are just as important to your knowledge about yourself. However, unless you are willing to cough up another $550.00, you may end up disappointed and still a bit "in-the-dark" about your overall strengths. Good luck.

The main concepts of the book can be summarized in 4 pages or gleaned from the reviews here, but what you are really paying for is a one time chance to take the online test to assess your strengths.

Unfortunately Gallup provides only your top 5 strengths without providing your actual score or an indication of how they measure relative to general population. Their claim is that telling you the score will distract you from the value of the strength and that only the top 5 strengths matter. I suspect the real reason is that they don't want to let anyone reverse engineer the test and find out how the scoring is done.

All this would still be fine by me if test scores were not important. But that is not the case. I took the test twice just to verify the publisher's premises that the results don't vary much based on your mood or from one test to another. As it turns out only one of the top 5 traits in the test existed in both results. The other 4 out of 5 were not shared. This makes the test of limited value.

To be fair, there was a common thread between the two sets of tests. For example in one test I was the "Futurist" who is concerned with "What if..." and "Wouldn't it be interesting if..." type of scenarios. In another test my strength was "Ideation" that is the ability to bring fresh ideas to the table. But this raises another key question, how reliable are the categories as whole if 4 out of the 5 strengths can be replaced with each other? This makes the strength categories defined here more like zodiac descriptions than real statistical clusters. At the very least then, Gallup should publish all your "strengths" that fall within some margin.

Given all of the above, you are probably more aware of your own strengths that Gallup can tell you. The test would be of more value if it provided your score for each of your strengths and how they measure relative to the full database.

Strengths Finder 2.0 and the accompanying test on the website of the same name doesn't tell you anything about yourself that you probably don't already know. This is especially true if you've been out in the work world for more than 10 years and are looking for a new career; or are in any way introspective about your own feelings, i.e. whether you like or dislike certain tasks, people or processes at work. Save your money and take one of the free Myers-Briggs tests at humanmetrics or any other free MB website, then read everything you can about your MB type in the book "Do What You Are" by Tieger and Baron-Tieger. "Discover" also lists what other careers people with your type have. Way more helpful than Strengths Finder 2.0.

I bought this book used and it is a waste of money. The book hinges on using the online evaluation test and then reading the book to analyze results. Buying the book second hand means you do not have access to the online account. In fact, inside the book it specifically says not to buy the book used.
The book descriptions do not make this clear. The seller posted anote saying the access code was used, but it is not clear that the book is useless without. I contacted the publisher about buying the online access code separately, their reply was "buy a new book." what a waste!

If you've read Buckingham's books (esp. "Now, Discover Your Strengths") it's hard to say there's much more here. In fact, there isn't. The stickers you can paste on the front of the book and printable door hangers are silly gimmicks, and there is very little new information on your themes.

Is the test really any better or more accurate? It's impossible to say. The book says in most cases you'll end up with four of the same five themes.

If you take the test again and get one or two "new" top 5 themes, you've gained some insight I suppose. This begs the question, why doesn't Gallup rank your strengths 1 through 34 instead of giving you a glimpse of the top 5 only?

This is merely an extra entry fee to move the curtain only slightly. If you're a strengths-based fanatic like me, go ahead and buy it. But be warned, Rath is no Buckingham. "Now Discover" is a vastly superior book.

...there should be a way to purchase additional assessments online without buying another copy of the book. My wife and I don't need two copies. Better yet...all of the information from the book could be better organized online for a fee. In an age where most people are trying to become more "green", I am surprised that the exclusive online format did not get more consideration from Gallup or the author...

It is also worth pointing out that the book is worthless on the secondary market and there is no use checking this type of book out of the library.

I was VERY disappointed by this book, for four reasons.

First, it seems geared to those who will live their lives inside organizations. What if you are able to see and appreciate beauty and want to be an artist or create your life as a work of art? What if you are fascinated with and drawn to nature and want to live close to it and teach others to appreciate it? You won't find your strengths in these areas acknowledged here, and you won't get any help with shaping your work accordingly. The test finds what it looks for, and what it looks for seems stuck in some very early management behavior paradigm.

Second, you're given no help with figuring out how your five top strengths might be knit into a meaningful career/life.

Third, if you take the test on a off day, when you're not feeling good about yourself or are overly influenced by something that just happened, and then you want to retake the test on a better day to verify the results, you can't. You can only use the passcode one time to go through the test.

Fourth, the 34 themes are titled so sloppily that it appears the publisher didn't want to pay a good editor to make them parallel in construction. Why name the themes Achiever, Adaptability, Belief, and Command? What would have been wrong with revising these to be Achiever, Adaptor, Believer, Commander? This seems symptomatic of some really sloppy thinking. And no, Analytical was not one of my strengths, but I took the test on an off day.

I frankly don't understand all the five-star reviews and Tom Rath's success.

You will probably find no head-snapping revelations in this book if you have already read Marcus Buckingham and Curt Coffman's First, Break All the Rules and/or Buckingham and Donald O. Clifton's Now, Discover Your Strengths (especially the latter). Nor does Tom Rath claim to offer any. Rather, this is a new and upgraded edition of the Gallup organization's previous online test (StrengthsFinder 1.0) that enables those who take it to identify and measure their talents relative to "more than 5,000 new personalized Strengths Insights that we have discovered in recent years."

In Rath's two previously published books, How Full Is Your Bucket? co-authored with Donald O. Clifton and Vital Friends, he shares his own reactions to an abundance of research data which reveals the importance of two separate but related forces which have profound impact on the workplace: getting strengths in alignment with work to be done and then developing them even more with strategic delegation and close supervision.

What we have in this book, Strengths Finder 2.0, is a wealth of new research material that Rath examines with exceptional precision and uncommon eloquence. I strongly encourage each reader to take full advantage of the self-diagnostic opportunities that both Rath and the Gallup organization generously offer. Of course, once various exercises are completed, a significant challenge remains: to take effective and productive action to apply what has been learned. It is helpful to be aware of what Jeffrey Pfeffer and Robert I. Sutton so aptly characterize as the "knowing-doing" and "doing-knowing" gaps. It is also helpful to recall Peter Drucker's observation more than 40 years ago: "There is surely nothing quite so useless as doing with great efficiency what should not be done at all."

Presumably Rath agrees that, more often than not, the Yoda is right: "Do or do not. There is no try."

StrengthsFinder 2.0 is not so much a book as it is an online personality profile. The major premise of this book is that people can take one of two avenues for success (in business, love, life, etc.), they can either focus their efforts on minimizing their weaknesses or focus their efforts on maximizing their natural strengths. StrengthsFinder 2.0 (as one might assume from the title), advocates the latter approach and is intended to assist the reader in identifying and maximizing his strengths.

The book is divided into two parts. The first part is a presentation of the above mentioned thesis. In books if this genre, one would expect a dizzying amount of anecdotal evidence; but while a couple examples are given, Rath refreshingly bucks the trend and gives the reader "the meat." The second part of the book is a brief description of various "strengths" (what you naturally do better than most of the population, alphabetically arranged) and tips for utilizing these strengths in the workplace.

I'll admit that this is the only book I've reviewed that I haven't read cover to cover. Instead, I read the introductory section and the brief descriptions of my particular "strengths" (as determined by the on-line test). Since (for example), I don't have the "woo" strength, I don't feel competent evaluating it. However, I found that the strengths I did score well in accurately identified where I tend to excel and described my approach to things well. I feel that I've grown by understanding myself better and the strength-oriented advice has thus far been fruitful.

The opening section on the premise was short and to the point. They forcefully argue for the reader to identify and focus on his strengths yet are careful to recognize that there may exist some weaknesses that necessitate minimizing. Their arguments are logical and compelling; I enjoyed reading it and buy into their thoughts.

As other reviewers have pointed out, StrenghsFinder 2.0 is not so much as book as it is an online test cleverly marketed as a book. Aside from the first section (framing the premise), the rest of the book is pretty useless. After using the sealed code inside the book to access the online test, you receive a printer-friendly recapitulation of the "strengths" in section 2 that pertain to you. You may only take the test once and must purchase another book to gain another access code should you want a co-worker, spouse, or other person to take it. Like other reviewers, I had difficulty actually getting to the online test. I imagine this is party due to my lack of computer skills, and partly due to the awkward layout of their advertised web page. The test takes about 30 minutes, questions are timed (so that you don't think about it too much and answer the way in which your mind naturally works).

In all, StrengthsFinder 2.0 is an excellent premise, a fine analysis of common strengths, and sound advice for persons exhibiting said strengths. But is it really a book? If book is defined as a series of sheets of paper with words/pictures on each page...yes, I suppose it is. If book is defined as a logically presented, complete thesis...then it's not really a book...it's more along the lines of a thick instruction manual, telling you how to take an on-line test. And while the premise, analysis, and advice is good, I argue that it's still incomplete. I find myself wanting to know more about my particular strengths--theory as well as practice, anecdotal as well as statistical. It is my hope that a follow up book (without an on-line component) is forthcoming.

In all, I would recommend this "book" and believe it will be a great aid in leading to vocational excellence and fulfillment.