Go Put Your Strengths to Work Book Summary

Book Summary

15 min

Brief Summary

"Go Put Your Strengths to Work" is a book written by Marcus Buckingham. It focuses on helping individuals identify and leverage their strengths to achieve greater success and fulfillment in their careers. Buckingham argues that traditional approaches to personal development often focus on fixing weaknesses, which can lead to frustration and limited growth. Instead, he advocates for a strengths-based approach, encouraging readers to identify their unique talents and capabilities and align their work and goals accordingly. The book provides practical strategies and tools for assessing and maximizing individual strengths, allowing readers to increase their productivity, engagement, and overall satisfaction in the workplace. By capitalizing on their strengths, individuals can unlock their true potential and create a more fulfilling and successful career path.

About the Author

Marcus Buckingham is a best-selling author and an internationally renowned consultant. A graduate of Cambridge University, he has worked with numerous multinational corporations including Toyota and Disney.

Buckingham has authored and co-authored five best-selling books which have sold more than 3 million copies. As a keynote speaker, Buckingham has addressed more than 250,000 people around the world. His workshops are highly successful and his workshop for talented women has been downloaded more than a million times.

Originally from the United Kingdom, Buckingham now lives in Los Angeles.

Topics

Career & Success

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Key Insights

We all make mistakes, it’s a normal part of life. It’s how we deal with those mistakes that is important. Do you focus your energy on learning from mistakes or do you concentrate on your successes instead? Research has suggested that when you focus your mind on your wins instead of losses, you are better for it.

However, like most people you probably find it easier to list your weaknesses. If you want to become better at your job or improve your overall performance, you have to change your mindset. Although this may seem hard to put into practice, there are ways to achieve your goals and improve your strengths.

Learn to evaluate your strengths and weaknesses so that you understand where to improve. With a better understanding of your abilities, you can increase your performance potential and make your role truly enjoyable. By incorporating some simple methods of analysis, you will become an asset to your team and improve your daily work life.

Personal growth is an essential part of improving your performance.

Choosing what to focus your energy on is integral to your success. If you spend most of your time correcting mistakes you will never achieve what you want. While it is necessary to correct obvious mistakes, this should not be an effort that takes up the majority of your energy. To achieve real personal growth you need to work on building on your strengths.

You will also need to overcome some of the myths that surround the process of personal growth. These myths can be a hindrance and prevent you from making any meaningful change. One of the most common misconceptions about personal growth is that when you improve your habits, your personality changes. In reality, you are only building on the foundations of who you are and what you want to achieve.

Contrary to popular belief, there isn’t more room to grow in your areas of weakness. Although you do need to work on your weaknesses, improving your strengths will result in greater overall improvements. When you do something well, it is much easier to make minor improvements to your strengths than to waste more time trying to fix weak spots. Emphasizing your strengths will yield greater results than highlighting weaker areas.

Concentrating on your strengths will also help you when you work as part of a team. Traditionally, it has been common for people to work under a mentality that what is best for the team outweighs what is best for the individual. However, you will be more of a benefit to the team when you play to your strengths.

Bringing your best efforts and strongest talents to a team will only enhance it. Think about it another way, if you are in a role where you can’t work to your strengths you are only going to use a small percentage of your potential. If you want your team to achieve outstanding results, you have to contribute an outstanding performance.