BOOK REVIEW
Soar With Your Strengths
by Donald O. Clifton, Paula Nelson (Contributor), Published by Dell Books, January 1996
Although this book is a quick and easy read, it delivers a powerful message: organizations and individuals are better served, more productive, and less prone to frustration, if they focus on practicing and developing their strengths, instead of fixing on weaknesses. True excellence can only be achieved, and potential maximized, by developing inherent talents and strengths.
The author offers a step-by-step process to identify personal and organizational strengths and discuss how doing more of what you do well enables you to achieve success. The book’s mission is clear— to help the reader recognize and use his or her strengths to achieve excellence in all life endeavors.
In the process of elaborating his Strengths Theory, the author batters widely accepted myths about human and organizational development. Misguided notions, such as: that everyone can do anything they put their minds to, and that fixing weaknesses and letting strengths take care of themselves is the logical and rational path to success.
The author defines strength as a particular behavior, thought, and feeling that produces a high degree of satisfaction and pride; generates both psychic and/or financial reward; and presents measurable progress toward excellence.
I personally became convinced of the relevance and validity of the Strengths Theory after reading this book. The author’s arguments in support of his theory are convincing because there are so obvious. Who cannot recall feeling frustrated trying to learn or accomplish a task that deep down they know is beyond their grasp? As opposed to other tasks which play to our strengths, which are approached with confidence and even glee.
What I found particularly revealing about the book were the sections about how to identify strengths and weaknesses. Listening to one’s yearnings, watching for satisfactions and rapid learning, and glimpsing a moment of excellence within a performance offers a practical blueprint for helping one identify strengths. Nevertheless, identifying weaknesses is much easier, because the clues are abundant.
Feeling defensive about one’s performance, slow learning, and consciously thinking through the steps of a process are three of the clearer and more dramatic signs the one is operating in an area of weakness. In this regard, I found extremely liberating the author’s remark: “find out what you don’t do well and stop doing it”.
Equally telling were the author’s insights on the importance of having a mission, for individuals and organizations. Paraphrasing the author’s words a mission is the powerful and ethereal quality that gives purpose to life—the ultimate motivator. Lacking a mission, people are likely to have only temporal or materialistic goals.
Finally, the author discusses the importance for strength development of relationships and proper expectations. The author points out that relationships help to define who we are, and what can we become; most of our successes in life can be traced to pivotal relationships. Therefore, it is in our best interest to actively manage our relationships and view them as an investment, with the potential for future returns.
The author states that many people—particularly those who believe that anything can be accomplished as long as you work hard enough—many times end up losing or failing because their expectations do not match their strengths. Only when you have a perfect match of expectations, relationships, strengths, and rewards, do you have a recipe for success.
In sum, I believe this is an excellent book for anyone interested in personal or business success. It is also valuable for managers, who can apply its principles to help them maximize employee and organizational productivity, by identifying employee strengths and assigning tasks accordingly.