Now, Discover Your Strengths by Buckingham & Clifton

"Most Americans do not know what their strengths are. When you ask them, they look at you with a blank stare, or they respond in terms of subject knowledge, which is the wrong answer." Peter Drucker

"If there is any difference between you and me, it may simply be that I get up every day and have a chance to do what I love to do, every day. If you want to learn anything from me, this is the best advice I can give you." Warren Buffet

Most organizations are built on 2 flawed assumptions about people:

Each person can learn to be competent in almost anything.
Each person’s greatest room for growth is in his areas of greatest weakness.

2 Assumptions that guide the world’s best managers:

Each person’s talents are enduring and unique.
Each person’s greatest room for growth is in the areas of his or her greatest strength.

Identify recurring patterns of behavior and figure out a way to develop these patterns into genuine and productive strengths.

Strength: consistent near perfect performance in an activity.

Excellent performers are rarely well rounded, on the contrary they are typically sharp (very strong in one or two areas and weak in other areas).

You will excel only by maximizing your strengths, never by fixing your weaknesses.

Beyond a certain age you are not going to be able to stitch a completely new design—your talents are enduring.

Your brain does what nature always does in situations like these: it finds the path of least resistance, your talents.

At the age of 16 your mental network (synapses—mental T1 lines) is relatively fixed.

Most people surveyed believe weaknesses deserve more attention than strengths.

This fixation with weakness is deeply rooted in our education and upbringing.

All humans crave prestige. Our great error is thinking that all humans crave the same kind of prestige.