StandOut 2.0: Assess Your Strengths, Find Your Edge, Win at Work

by Marcus Buckingham

The Groundbreaking Strengths Assessment from the Leader of the Strengths Revolution

In the years since the publication of First, Break All the Rules and Now, Discover Your Strengths , millions have come to the simple but powerful realization that to get the most out of people, you must build on their strengths. And yet, as Marcus Buckingham astutely points out, though the strengths-based approach is now conventional wisdom, the tools and systems inside organizations—performance appraisals, training programs, and succession planning systems—remain stubbornly remedial and exclusively focused on measuring skills, finding gaps, and attempting to plug them. It’s a crisis for individuals and organizations, with management ideas and everyday practice utterly out of sync.

That’s about to change. StandOut 2.0 is a revolutionary book and tool that enables you to identify your strengths, and those of your team, and act on them. The original edition of StandOut provided top-notch insights from one of the world’s foremost authorities on strengths, as well as access to a powerful, cutting-edge online assessment tool. StandOut 2.0 also includes the assessment and a robust report on your most dominant strengths. The report is easily exported so you can use it to present the very best of yourself to your team and your company.

StandOut 2.0 is your indispensable guide for building on your strengths to further your career—and help your team and organization win.

Genres: Business, Nonfiction, Leadership, Self Help, Personal Development, Professional Development, Management

240 pages, Hardcover

First published July 14, 2015

About the author

In a world where efficiency and competency rule the workplace, where do personal strengths fit in?

It's a complex question, one that intrigued Cambridge-educated Marcus Buckingham so greatly, he set out to answer it by challenging years of social theory and utilizing his nearly two decades of research experience as a Sr. Researcher at Gallup Organization to break through the preconceptions about achievements and get to the core of what drives success.

The result of his persistence, and arguably the definitive answer to the strengths question can be found in Buckingham's four best-selling books First, Break All the Rules (coauthored with Curt Coffman, Simon & Schuster, 1999); Now, Discover Your Strengths (coauthored with Donald O. Clifton, The Free Press, 2001); The One Thing You Need to Know (The Free Press, 2005) and Go Put Your Strengths To Work (The Free Press, 2007). The author gives important insights to maximizing strengths, understanding the crucial differences between leadership and management, and fulfilling the quest for long-lasting personal success. In his most recent book, Buckingham offers ways to apply your strengths for maximum success at work.

What would happen if men and women spent more than 75% of each day on the job using their strongest skills and engaged in their favorite tasks, basically doing exactly what they wanted to do?

According to Marcus Buckingham (who spent years interviewing thousands of employees at every career stage and who is widely considered one of the world's leading authorities on employee productivity and the practices of leading and managing), companies that focus on cultivating employees' strengths rather than simply improving their weaknesses stand to dramatically increase efficiency while allowing for maximum personal growth and success.

If such a theory sounds revolutionary, that's because it is. Marcus Buckingham calls it the “strengths revolution.”

As he addresses more than 250,000 people around the globe each year, Buckingham touts this strengths revolution as the key to finding the most effective route to personal success and the missing link to the efficiency, competency, and success for which many companies constantly strive.

To kick-start the strengths revolution, Buckingham and Gallup developed the StrengthsFinder exam (StrengthsFinder.com), which identifies signature themes that help employees quantify their personal strengths in the workplace and at home. Since the StrengthsFinder debuted in 2001, more than 1 million people have discovered their strengths with this useful and important tool.

In his role as author, independent consultant and speaker, Marcus Buckingham has been the subject of in-depth profiles in The New York Times, Fortune, Fast Company, Harvard Business Review, USA Today and the Wall Street Journal and is routinely lauded by such corporations as Toyota, Coca-Cola, Master Foods, Wells Fargo, Yahoo and Disney as an invaluable resource in informing, challenging, mentoring and inspiring people to find their strengths and obtain and sustain long-lasting personal success.

A wonderful resource for leaders, managers, and educators, Buckingham challenges conventional wisdom and shows the link between engaged employees and productivity, profit, customer satisfaction, and the rate of turnover. Buckingham graduated from Cambridge University in 1987 with a master's degree in Social and Political Science.

Reviews

[AW · Rating 5 out of 5]

Great book! Super easy, quick, applicable read. Relevant for anyone seeking to improve in the workplace or on a team. I often found myself saying, “oh! That’s why I do that.” I’d recommend this to anyone!

[Diane Law · Rating 4 out of 5]

Book for work.
I am a fan of focusing on strengths and found this book well written and easily digestible. Good examples and very thorough. It will be one that I will dip back into in the future as well.

[Ahmad Qassab Bashi · Rating 3 out of 5]

the test results were interesting to me so I like this part of the book but after I took the test I didn't care about the items not related to my results.

[Melek · Rating 4 out of 5]

The idea in this book is as simple as it gets: There are different strength types/everyone's strengths are different, so do the test and find out what yours is, then read a whole book about it.

In this book, the author identifies 9 different types, or "Strength Types" as it's mentioned in the book: Advisor, Connector, Creator, Equalizer, Influencer, Pioneer, Provider, Stimulator and Teacher. I have an ARC, so I wasn't able to do the test, but I thought about which ones I might be and read those ones more carefully to see I was right (I certainly was). Considering that, I can say this book is good enough for having an idea about yourself and strengths, but at some parts, it sounds more like fortunetelling than well-searched information, so keep that in mind. The other seven, you'll have to see for yourself.

Overall, if you're going to go buy it, I'll recommend that. This book is not completely useless if you don't buy it, but you will learn only a little from it.

[Shel Gillen · Rating 5 out of 5]

While I wasn't surprised by my results of the Standout assessment, I felt that the descriptions provided were concise, easy to understand and apply to real world situations, and very helpful in bringing to the forefront some pieces of myself I csn strive to improve even further. I think that the authors have it right when they say you should base performance improvements on strengths.

[Pablo María Fernández · Rating 3 out of 5]

Read in 2020 and re-read (only highlights) in 2023
During most of my adult life I was interested in books that provided tools to improve as a professional. Personal SWOT analysis, find my Myers-Briggs type, identify my competitive advantage. I guess I read about this one on a forum, blog or maybe an answer to a tweet and decided to give it a try.

The main advise is the same one that Seth Godin and modern guru give. Unlike previous approaches in which they recommended you to improve your weakness, the current view is to focus on our strength. But how do you know what are your strengths? In the manner of Schein’s career anchors, Buckingham present nine “Strength Roles”: advisor, connector, creator, equalizer, influencer, pioneer, provider, stimulator and teacher. For each of them he tell you your strengths, how to win in sales, how to win in services and how to manage someone who has this profile. I highlight most of the chapters the go deep into my two top strengths. I found them tooking the Standout assessment (https://www.tmbc.com/standout-assessment). At first I was afraid that they would try to charge something for it but it’s completely for free and available in many languages (I took it in Spanish, for example). After that they provide the results on the website and in a PDF file with more detail.

In the last third of the book the author presents a technical summary of his strengths assessment development and validation by Courtney McCashland. I guess he want to contrast it with other pseudo-scientific test like the Myers-Briggs I mentioned before that may seem similar. Usually this type of books -that relies heavily on a test- functions as a companion booklet. But I think I found more value in this book than simply that: doing the test brings much more value from it but it is worth enough to be read as a standalone also.

In summary, having read so many books on this topic it seems to me that most of them bring the same information with different labels. At the end of the day the concepts are usually the same introduced thousands years ago by the Greeks presented in a modern packaging with excellent branding (for eg. Myers-Briggs is new age Jung adapted for corporations). Having said that and being an skeptic I still find value on this pages.

Favorite quotes:
“Sustained success comes only when you take what´s unique about you and figure out how to make it useful.”
“Edge: where you will have a natural advantage over everyone else. The top two are your multiplier.”
“Your genius is precise.”
“Discipline yourself to express your strengths every day.”

[JP · Rating 3 out of 5]

StandOut 2.0 is useful but didn't resonate with me as a top shelf recommendation. In fairness, I may be strengthed out at this point, so someone starting with this one might find it more helpful. What I appreciated about it was the synthesis of the many strengths into a set of 9 categories. Buckingham explains the general concept and then offers practical advice for each category, e.g. how to make an immediate impact, how to win as a manager, how to be managed. My top criticism is that the website where you can assess yourself isn't working. I managed to setup a profile and logged in on multiple browsers. It kept hanging. In that way, my past experience with this genre paid off, giving me a sense of where I was without the online test.

[Dave · Rating 3 out of 5]

For some reason..I've never wanted to read this book. It came across as pigeon-holing individuals into categories and building paper ideals to work towards improvement.
This book was far from that. I did find the central ideal of spotlighting 2 strengths to unlock your edge at work quite interesting. My issue came with..well we all embody characteristics of all 9 of the Strength Roles. To say "You are an Advisor and a Creator..but not a Teacher or Stimulator" rubbed me the wrong way. Different days I may display different characteristics. I'll take the skills assessment and we'll see what my results dictate.
I'm glad I read this but will more than likely move past this one pretty quickly

[celines_reads · Rating 3 out of 5]

Reading for work… now if my job could just be reading all day and getting paid for it 🤷‍♀️😅

⭐️⭐️⭐️

This book is simple and to the point. You only need to read the first part and then the pertinent sections to your assessment results.

I think the genius in this book is in the application of the concept.

« If you don’t remember your strengths, if you don’t know them and understand them and consciously decide how you can best apply them on your life, they will come out anyways. But you won’t be in control of how they do. »

[Lance · Rating 1 out of 5]

I found StandOut 2.0 to be little more than a business version of horoscopes.

This is, in essence, a personality test. As science has repeatedly found, personality tests are basically worthless except as something to encourage introspection. A person's results change over time, and the descriptors are often so vague, that there's enough there for anyone randomly assigned a personality to agree "that's so me!" to it. I'm fairly certain this book is the same, regardless of the millions of people that have taken their test and the statistics presented at the end. It's been a long while since I took stats in college, but the standards they set for themselves (apparently "industry standards") are piss poor, and shouldn't be acceptable as proving anything beyond a possible minor correlation.

I took the test, got my results, and read the book. My test results do not correspond to my lived experience nor the way others say they see me. In reading the nine strengths (which is obviously oversimplified for easy sales/understanding), not a single one resonated as well-aligned with me and my strengths. Either I have no strengths or I do not fit into their 9 boxes - which they said they created because certain traits tended to cluster.

Furthermore, none of the job types discussed in each section's "How to Win" part even match with my current gig well, so those were all useless. I am a powerless employee with nobody to manage, so there was nothing to gain in reading about roles or strengths that were not my own - even if I had found the premise to be valid and reliable.

I found this book to be a waste, almost entirely. The only quality parts came before the roles were introduced at all. There was a parable of sorts about how Best Buy almost made a big mistake: a unique manager found a winning strategy at their unique store, and the higher ups almost forced a similar method to be put into place across every store. That's the best nugget in the whole book, this idea of respecting individual's strengths and the uniqueness of each situation/company.

[Mo the Lawyer✨ · Rating 4 out of 5]

I read this book during a very self-introspective and reflective season when I was trying to figure out my next career steps. I had taken career strength assessments before so some of the material was not new to me and some of my results were not surprising either. Nevertheless, I think it is a helpful tool particularly for folks who have not assessed their strengths ever before or in quite some period of time. The book provides access to an assessment and a robust report on your most dominant strengths.

The book helps you to not just identify your own strengths, but also those of your team members. It explains the key qualities of particular strengths and provides concrete examples of how you can use your strengths to be a better manager or employee or entrepreneur. It also points out things to watch out for that could be perceived as cons of your particular strength in the workplace.

[Andrew · Rating 2 out of 5]

I didn’t agree with my assessment. And much of the book is full of trite statements punctuated by anecdotal filler.
There isn’t enough information in the assessment prompts for me to make a definitive choice, which invalidates my results IMO. The test doesn’t allow for nuance, and my (potential) job involves a lot of nuance in situations that require decisions.

The book is very focused on the corporate organization, which shouldn’t be so readily applied to higher education or governance. It also seems to interchange the terms ‘manager’ and ‘leader’, which is problematic. Leadership 101: There is a difference between managing and leading.

Finally, the various strength touchstones read like astrological traits. This star sign tends to do this or that and their Achilles heel is xyz.

This is not useful.

[Rachel Miller Wright · Rating 3 out of 5]

I haven’t decided yet if I would use this strength assessment with my team. I question the validity primarily because my own results surprised me - somewhat - while still containing a lot of truth. To invest a team’s time in strength profiling I want to be really sure that it’s a good use of their time that will tell them something transformative about themselves. It’s definitely information I would want to have about the team, even with a grain of salt about validity. I enjoyed taking the assessment, although the language about sales and clients was a little challenging to convert to my field. Anyway, there is sure to be something in here for you but the book is only worth it if you plan to use this assessment with a team.

[Elise · Rating 3 out of 5]

"...to get the most out of people, you must build on their strengths and manage around their weaknesses." p. vii

The three lessons to build your strengths:

1. Your genius is precise (p. 17) - "While you may be capable of doing many, many things, you have a comparative advantage, an edge, in very few." (p. 20)

2. Remember who you are (p. 22) - "In a world that is too busy to really care about you and your strengths, the responsibility falls to you to apply your strengths consciously every day."

3. Always sharpen your edge (p. 26) - push yourself within your strength zone and use "the raw material of your life to add specificity to your understanding of your strengths."

[Tuti · Rating 4 out of 5]

The beginning of the book is interesting. I picked the 2 I thought were most like me based on the descriptions, and the assessment (which no longer requires a key) agreed. This made me wonder if people actually needed to take the test to see which ones they are. I read the information on those two and didn't care enough to read the rest. A lot of these things started to mix up in my head anyway. I suppose it might be a good thing to know how to deal with people with different strength types, but they are unlikely to announce what they are. I figure if I can guess their styles, I can try to figure out how to deal with that style. If not, then oh, well.

[Sylvie Dale · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book helps you find - and focus on - your top two strengths after taking a personality test. All of the strengths mentioned are great, it's just a matter of knowing how to best use your own personal strength. It also addresses how spending a lot of time doing things that are not your strengths is tiring and can result in dissatisfaction. Once you are aware of the main strengths people can have, you can see your team members with new eyes and help them do better where with the tasks where they are likely to succeed.

[Varun Mittal · Rating 3 out of 5]

Read this book a little early in my career as it assumes you manage / lead team(s). Nevertheless, it gives a perspective on how managers / leaders think. The standout assessment and learning channel that come along with this book are good complimentary tools to identify your strengths and sharpen them. If you read this book prior to managing / leading a team, then like me you may want to re-read it post managing / leading a team. Repetitive ideas and language at few places could be avoided by the author.

[Nicole · Rating 3 out of 5]

Bought this at Global Leadership Summit after seeing Marcus Buckingham speak. It's the test and test results that is more valuable than the rest of the content of the book. It was helpful to see and embrace about myself my primary characteristic as Influencer -- and the surprising (yet not when I actually read on it) secondary characteristic as Teacher. Action and Learning --- and drawing others along with me in both. Yes, this is me.

[Karol Pasierb · Rating 4 out of 5]

The book itself isn't very good or anything special. In fact it is a textbook that is useless without the assessment. So, 3 stars for rather nice and well written initial chapters describing the whole thing. 4 starts include the assessment. Which makes all the difference if you approach it right and get the results that make meaning to you. I am much happier with the assessment and what I can do with it. The book helped me to understand it.

[Anna (bibliophiles_bookstagram) · Rating 4 out of 5]

Similar to Cliffton's Strength Finder, StandOut 2.0 helps you assess your strengths and find your most powerful "role" in leadership. I found that I am an advisor and a connector--two roles that seem to fit me well. I enjoyed reading about how our strengths are there for us to use--and these two roles included nice, long chapters illustrating how to utilize your strengths in different capacities.

[Alex Mayfield · Rating 3 out of 5]

An interesting approach to the personality test. Good examples on how one can use their strengths to be more successful. Just as anything other similar test, it is unlikely that a person will fall into categories perfectly as the book seems to describe. Also the test is skewed based on the the few answers available. It was decent but not great.

[Sasha · Rating 4 out of 5]

A book given to me by my work supervisor to help with some career coaching. I'm a sucker for these kinds of typologies and assessments, so I found this interesting. Some of my results made me question the validity of the assessment a little bit, though. Still - a good catalyst for introspection and self-awareness, which I think are very valuable.

[Stephen Inoue · Rating 2 out of 5]

The standout website for taking the assessment didn’t work on iOS safari and chrome. The book is basically a primer for this assessment test reviewing your strength at work.

Folks land in one of 9 categories: Advisor, Connector, Creator, Equalizer, Influencer, Pioneer, Provider, Stimulator and Teacher.

Outside of this there is 52 pages of text to read. Really had been hoping for more.

[Hayley Daniel · Rating 5 out of 5]

Highly recommend!! I love all personality and strength assessments and this one really stands out (hehe) because it only focuses on your top two strengths (out of 9) and how everything you do should be focused on those!! If you’re doing things that are not you will get burnt out and drained gradually!! Eye opener for sure. Assessment is free so check it out!

[Parham Doustdar · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book taught me that it's okay to have your weaknesses. As a self-help addict who is recovering, this was priceless advice. Also, I thought sometimes that the book was selling the survey as opposed to providing stand-alone value, hence the 4.

[空 · Rating 2 out of 5]

Horoscopes for business people

Also I lost interest when the assessment suggested a couple of roles that did not resonate with me

In what world would I want to be alone in a group full of strangers??

[Tony Barilla · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book was left on my desk at work by the individual that sat here before me so, I decided to give it a read. Though I understand what Marcus was trying to portray, this book could’ve been condensed into a short web article with a link to his research/study.

[Ethan Lockwood · Rating 3 out of 5]

Appreciated the overall analysis on different styles of leadership. The survey was really cool to take as well, learning how I interact in the workplace. Just not exactly what I expected overall. Also, unfortunate that you can only take the quiz with one individual per book.

[Ryan · Rating 4 out of 5]

Recommended multiple times and after doing the test, one of the results was spot-on but the other was iffy.

[Cari · Rating 5 out of 5]

A cool next step in understanding your strengths.