| | |  | Career Books | Home » » StrengthsFinder 2.0 | | | | | | | Description: | | Do you have the opportunity to do what you do best every day?
Chances are, you don't. All too often, our natural talents go untapped. From the cradle to the cubicle, we devote more time to fixing our shortcomings than to developing our strengths.
To help people uncover their talents, Gallup introduced the first version of its online assessment, StrengthsFinder, in 2001 which ignited a global conversation and helped millions to discover their top five talents.
In its latest national bestseller, StrengthsFinder 2.0, Gallup unveils the new and improved version of its popular assessment, language of 34 themes, and much more (see below for details). While you can read this book in one sitting, you'll use it as a reference for decades.
Loaded with hundreds of strategies for applying your strengths, this new book and accompanying website will change the way you look at yourself--and the world around you--forever.
Available exclusively in StrengthsFinder 2.0:
(using the unique access code included with each book)
* A new and upgraded edition of the StrengthsFinder assessment
* A personalized Strengths Discovery and Action-Planning Guide for applying your strengths in the next week, month, and year
* A more customized version of your top five theme report
* 50 Ideas for Action (10 strategies for building on each of your top five themes)
| | | Features: | |
• Published by Gallup in 2007
• Renowned author Tom Rath
| | | Product Details: | | | Author:
| Tom Rath | | Hardcover:
| 183 pages | | Publisher:
| Gallup Press | | Publication Date:
| February 01, 2007 | | Language:
| English | | ISBN:
| 159562015X | | Product Length:
| 7.5 inches | | Product Width:
| 4.9 inches | | Product Height:
| 0.93 inches | | Product Weight:
| 0.68 pounds | | Package Length:
| 7.0 inches | | Package Width:
| 5.1 inches | | Package Height:
| 0.9 inches | | Package Weight:
| 0.7 pounds | | Average Customer Rating:
|  based on 644 reviews |
| | | | Customer Reviews: | |
Average Customer Review:
 ( 644 customer reviews )
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Most Helpful Customer Reviews
305 of 343 found the following review helpful:
 What are the strengths YOU can rely on?Jul 14, 2009
By Strengths Fanatic
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.
156 of 178 found the following review helpful:
 Took the test twice and only one talent remained the same!Oct 23, 2009
By Urban Sprawl
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.
871 of 1016 found the following review helpful:
 Beware: You Only Get Your Top 5 Themes And Not All 34 In OrderMar 24, 2008
By Gary Corbin
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.
51 of 56 found the following review helpful:
No help for artistsJun 17, 2008
By Aspen Leaf
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.
28 of 29 found the following review helpful:
Should be called "Strengths Reminder"May 26, 2008
By Busy Me
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.
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