- Strengths Finder 2.0 by Tom Rath
You are at a job interview. It’s going well- you’ve already been meeting with your potential new boss for half an hour. Then the question comes: “What are your strengths?” You blink once or twice, then launch into a description of strengths that is primarily comprised of what you think the interviewer wants to hear. Maybe you get the job- maybe you don’t- but the question settles into your mind. What ARE my strengths?
That was my question to myself too. Over the years I’ve worked on developing leadership skills, and that work has affected my personality to the point where I wasn’t sure what my true strengths were. I was excited to have a chance to explore the subject with Strengths Finder 2.0. Below is my review.
Did I learn anything new? The basic concept of the book is that you should discover what your strengths are, and spend more time developing them than you do on improving your weaknesses. Tom Rath used over forty years of Gallup research on human strengths to identify thirty-four different personality “themes.” You discover what your top five are by taking an online quiz. I learned what my themes are, but more interestingly, it shed a lot of light on why I do some of the things I do.
Was it interesting and entertaining? The book is comprised of a brief introduction section, and the rest of it is devoted to descriptions of the thirty-four different themes. It wasn’t entertaining, but reading about my strengths was certainly interesting.
Could I relate to the author? It wasn’t that kind of book. The author did talk about himself and his experience.
Was the writing style and the format easy to follow? Yes. I particularly liked the way that the different strengths were written in block style down the right-hand side of the pages, and they were listed alphabetically. That made them easy to find.
Did I finish the book? I read the introduction, took the online test and read about my strengths. I also scanned the other strengths, but I didn’t read all of them.
Was it worth the time I invested to read it? Absolutely. It was a quick read and the information I gained from it was definitely worth the time.
BUSINESS MOM’S RATING: 4 If you are interested in getting to know yourself a little better, pick this book up. It’s an inexpensive quick read. My only criticism of the book is that two of my five strengths were not right for me. I spent a couple of weeks mulling the test results over before I decided to ignore those two and replace them with two others that I felt should have been in my top three. I’m not sure if it is the test itself, or if I over-thought my answers. Regardless, I now have a much better understanding of what my strengths are.
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