Go Put Your Strengths to Work

Beginning with First, Break All the Rules and Now, Discover Your Strengths, Marcus Buckingham posited the idea that, because excellence is not the opposite of failure, all that can be learned from mistakes are the characteristics of mistakes. Thus, in order to learn about success, it is necessary to study success. This radical idea jump-started the strengths movement, which has since been dominated by efforts to label what is right with things.

Although this movement is now sweeping the worlds of business, public service, economics, education, faith, and charity, research has shown that most people still do not come close to using all of their strengths on the job. With Go Put Your Strengths to Work, Buckingham progresses into the second phase of the movement—the action stage, grounded in the pragmatic premise that people and organizations will excel only by amplifying strengths and never by simply fixing weaknesses.