Book Review – Go Put your Strengths to Work

By dougnau on May 12, 2009 in Book Reviews, Decision Making, Personal Growth, Success

Background

Marcus Buckingham, author of the best sellers First, Break All the Rules and Now, Discover Your Strengths has positioned himself as a world leader in the strengths based movement. Written in 2007, Go Put Your Strengths to Work: 6 Powerful Steps to Achieving Outstanding Performance is 270 pages long - available in hardcover, paperback and audio cd format.

Book Review & Commentary

As a certified life coach and professional wellness coach operating in a corporate environment, I’ve got the opportunity to listen to the challenges that people face in their daily life when their job is misaligned with their strengths. More specifically, I hear what happens when someone’s strengths are not aligned with the day to day actions they spend most their time doing. This leads to a challenging situation in which an employee becomes frustrated and in the worst case scenario feels that the only way out is to quit. But what if there were other possibilities.

Go Put Your Strengths to Work is a well written book that provides the structure and framework for an individual to become more productive, happier, and to more fully expend their time at work on the strengths. Its written as a no nonsense ‘how to’ guide to walk you through the process aligning who you are with what you do.

In my line of work I spend a significant amount of time exploring strengths and weaknesses and I really appreciated the thorough background that this book provided on the history of the strengths movement. Marcus Buckingham provides an excellent description of what the strengths movement is, where it is showing up in the world today, and what the status is of implementation of this movement in the broad workforce – a very interesting introduction. While we’ve come a long way in learning how to identify strengths, Marcus claims that we’ve struggled to take the next step into the action phase. I’ve personally seen this in corporate strengths surveys that seem to fizzle out after a presentation of the tool, you may have seen the same.

Go Put your Strengths to Work provides a six step framework for identifying strengths/weaknesses and building practical methodologies for shifting your time towards your strengths. Throughout the book he references real life examples from corporate clients to suggest how one can implement the strategies he discusses. Marcus poses life coaching questions to consider that have the reader analyze their personal beliefs and how that may be limiting them moving forward. He also refers the readers to his web resource that accompanies the book (www.simplystrengths.com) for video challenges and more. The book is a very interactive experience.

Personally I found the book to be quite well written and its a resource I will definitely suggest for those looking to implement changes in their time spent at work. I feel fortunate to know that I am one of the 2/10 that spends a majority of his time focused on strengths.

One statement Marcus made that really spoke to heart was “as you grow, you become more of who you already are”. This was made in reference to an argument that it would seem people’s personalities don’t change over time. While subtle shifts in personality may occur, the core of who we are stays the same. This does not mean that there’s not room to grow into who we are as we experience new things. This is exciting. I know for myself, I am utilizing my strengths now, but the potential to use even more strengths exist in the future. And perhaps I’ve no idea of the potential I’ve got in some areas. Exciting food for thought.

Who is this book for?

Are you a frustrated employee at work? Are you under-utilized? Are you not getting opportunities you know you can take on? Are you a manager and your employees are not being as efficient as they can be? Are you looking at ways to potentially boost morale? Are you interested in what the strengths movement is, how it started, and in learning practical strategies to identify your strengths at work? If you answer yes to any of the situations above, then this book is for you.

One caution I’d like to heed. If you are planning on reading it just for the sake of reading this book, that’s all good and well. But if you do so, you’ll be caught in the phase of ‘identifying’ which Marcus describes, and without action this book will not provide its intended result. There’s nothing wrong with learning, but keep in mind that this book is about action, and the intended outcome is for you to have a more fulfilling work experience that leverages your strengths.