Business Book Review: Strengthsfinder by Gallup

Welcome to another edition of Business Book Reviews on The Indiepreneur! I love reading, and business books get caught in that tangled web, so here’s my attempt to pass that knowledge along to those looking to see if they should pick through the pages. This week, we have Strengthsfinder by Gallup.

High Level Summary of Strengthsfinder by Gallup

Worth a Read for Indiepreneurs: It’s hard to recommend the price for most Indiepreneurs. Very little text (though what’s there is very good), mostly a test whose usefulness varies based on your situation.

What It Does Well: Helps focus in on strengths and points out weakness

What It Doesn’t Do: Go into depth. Justify the add-on price.

Overall Thoughts

A few years ago, I developed a bit of a crush on Tom Rath. As a member of Colorado Thought Leaders Forum, I was invited to one of his presentations, and he really opened my eyes. He challenged so many of the typical ways business is done, and he backed it up with data.

Afterwards, I picked up all the books that he wrote (which I’ll no doubt include in my business book review at some point in the future). Which tangentially includes this one, Strenghtsfinder by Gallup, also known as Strenghtsfinder 2.0, or ClitonStrenghts.

It took me a bit to justify. I’m a generally frugal person, and the $34 list price for a book that’s only 174 pages was hard to swallow. But eventually, I did.

And the first 30 pages are absolutely fantastic. Including ta highlighted quote that should be on the wall of every classroom:

“You cannot be anything you want to be–but you can be a lot more of who you already are.”

But then, the book part ends. You take a test at gallup.com with an access code included in that $34 book. Once you do, you go back to the book to get some explanation as to what the test means. About 5 pages per result.

The Strengthsfinder 2.0 Test Results

The book as 34 strengths (a dollar for each!). Your test results will give you your top 5 tests in order.

The test results are definitely interesting. For example, my results are, in order, Harmony, Learner, Responsibility, Intellection, and Developer.

If I take that to the book and read the description for the strengths, it sounds exactly like the things I love. And then it gives me suggestions on how I can focus on those things.

Definitely good. I’m a HUGE fan on focusing on strengths rather than developing weaknesses. This is a great feature of the book…IF you have a way to pivot to focus on those strengths.

What About Weaknessfinder?

So if the test lists out what you’re best at, it should also be able to determine what you’re worst at, right? Finding things to avoid could be as helpful as finding things you should focus on.

Turns out that test CAN list out ALL 34 test. Which you can unlock for the low ADDITIONAL price of $39!

I know a lot of time and effort go into making these tests, but $73 was a little too rich for my blood for how I was using the test results.

If you have a team and you want to figure who should do what, that $73 per person could be invaluable. Or if you’re looking to better design your life, this could give you a jumpstart on doing that. But since I was just taking the test for my own enlightenment, I still haven’t whipped out my credit card for that expansion pack.

Key Takeaways from Strengthsfinder by Gallup

Now to the fun part: my key takeaways from Strengthsfinder by Gallup:

Engage In Your Job

Do you really hate your job? It’s probably because you don’t focus on your strenghts.

I’ve been in this position before. I was working hour after hour, trying to make my position work, but I was miserable. It really didn’t take long for me to realize I was the wrong person on the bus, but I couldn’t just walk away (see that Responsibility strength up above? This is the downside of it).

Turns out I’m not alone.

Gallup has surveyed more than 10 million people worldwide, and the book claims that only a third strongly agree with the statement “At work, I have the opportunity to do what I do best every day.”

And guess what, for those who “strongly disagreed” or “disagreed” with that statement, per the book, “not one single person was emotionally engaged on the job.”

Conversely, it says that those who do focus on their strengths every day are “six time as likely to be engaged in their jobs and more than three times as likely to report having an excellent quality of life in general.”

If you hate your job, it’s probably because you’re not focusing on your strengths. If it’s because you don’t KNOW your strengths, that $73 for Strengthsfinder by Gallup will likely be well worth it.

Though, based on personal experience, even if you have figured out your strengths, it can still be tricky to find a position where you get to use them on a regular basis.

Rudy Was Wrong

Everyone loves an underdog story. To use a weird vocabulary word I learned in high school, we’re a nation of infracaninophiles.

Or, like the example they give in the book, we all love Rudy. He practiced for thousands of hours…to run a single live play at the college level after the game was already in hand.

Such stories inspire us, but the truth is that Rudy wasn’t genetically designed to play football. No matter how many hours he put in, he was never going to be more than 5’6″. And 5’6″ players (almost) never play in the NFL.

Instead, invest your time on your natural talents. That gives you your strengths.

Drop the Focus on Weakness

Here’s a crazy quote from the book: “in every culture we have studied, the overwhelming majority of parents (77% in the United States) think that a student’s lowest grades deserve the most time and attention.”

This is insane. And with kids of my own, I’ve had the struggle. For example, my daughter scores very high in math. And she has dysgraphia, so she really, really struggles to write and spell. In a better world, she would put much more focus on developing that math talent. Instead, she has, on multiple occasions, felt like a bad student because she typically gets only a handful of words right on spelling tests.

We, as parents, try to push her strengths. But it’s SO HARD to not push her to work on her spelling. Because that’s where she’s struggling.

We do this to ourselves all the time, too. Find that weakness, make it better. But if we instead focused on things that we’re already good at and make it better, we’re going to go much farther.

Manage Weakness

There’s one obvious problem with all of this, which the book points out: “Most of us don’t have the luxury to simply stop doing necessary tasks just because we aren’t naturally good at them.”

It gives two suggestions: (1) managing your lesser talents, or (2) partnering with people who have strengths in our weakness.

Of course, the best option of all is to avoid those areas of lesser talent completely.

Conclusion

I feel like my key takeaways from Strengthsfinder by Gallup are about as long as the book itself. Which is too bad, because I love the direction the informational section is heading.

To reiterate, I REALLY liked the first 30 pages. They are fantastic. But the book is mostly a test. If you are miserable in your role and aren’t sure why, or if you have a team that you’re trying to optimize, this test can help you figure out your issues.

If you already have a good idea of your strengths and weaknesses, you’re likely better off starting elsewhere.