Amazon.ca:Customer reviews: StandOut 2.0: Assess Your Strengths, Find Your Edge, Win at Work

Good book to learn how people can work with you.
It's an electronic book so it was in good qualit :)
In the book, there is a link for a free test to learn about yourself.

One person found this helpful

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Purchase27

No key code to take the assessment

Reviewed in Canada 🇨🇦 on July 29, 2019

Verified Purchase

I purchased a new copy under the assumption it would come with a key code (as advertised) to take the assessment. Of little value otherwise.

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Robert Morris

How to identify and then leverage the strengths needed to accelerate personal growth and professional development

Reviewed in Canada 🇨🇦 on December 23, 2015

Those who have read one or more of Marcus Buckingham’s books — First, Break All the Rules: What the World’s Greatest Managers Do Differently (1999), Now, Discover Your Strengths (2001), and Go Put Your Strengths to Work: 6 Powerful Steps to Achieve Outstanding Performance (2007) — already know that his mission in life is to help as many people as he can to accelerate their personal growth and professional development. In my opinion, StandOut 2.0 is his most valuable and will be the most influential book he has written…thus far. He provides an abundance of valuable information, insights, and counsel that can help team members, their leaders, and individuals to identify, nourish, and the leverage the strengths they need to achieve success, however it may be defined.

What’s in it for you?

More specifically, he explains

o How to find your edge (i.e. competitive advantage) and make it work best for you.
o How to take full advantage of the potential benefits of the StandOut Assessment
o How to use three lessons — “Your Genius Is Precise,” “Remember Who You Are [and Aren’t],” and “Always Sharpen Your Edge” — to build your strengths
o How strengths-building can accelerate innovation
o What specifically each of the strengths roles requires and how to fill each role to achieve high-impact

These are the nine roles:

ADVISOR: You are a reliable, highly-valued source of wisdom and knowledge.
CONNECTOR: Your are a catalyst and bridge-builder.
CREATOR: You make something new.
[INNOVATOR: You make something better],
EQUALIZER: You maintain appropriate balance and proportion.
INFLUENCER: You are persuasive because others trust you and respect you.
PIONEER: You embrace opportunities to explore/understand what is unfamiliar.
PROVIDER: You nourish others’ needs.
STIMULATOR: You inspire self-motivation in others.
TEACHER: You enjoy learning as much as you enjoy sharing what you have learned.

People tend to be oblivious to their unique (albeit under-developed) strengths, as are others with whom they most frequently interact. That said, it would be a fool’s errand to attempt to become an outstanding performer in each of the nine roles. Let the results of the new StandOut Assessment suggest on which two or three to focus. With all due respect to the strategy “Let your light so shine before man,” it is equally important to know where and how to shine that light, first within the as-yet undiscovered self and then in all areas of one’s life.

Personal note: I give Marcus Buckingham high marks in each of the nine categories. He is as caring as he is bright. As I suggested earlier, he is on a mission. How else to explain why he continues to write books such as this one?

He devotes all of Chapter 5 (Pages 39-84) to discussing each of these nine, using a template that consists of eight components:

o The Definition [of the given role]
o You at Your Most Powerful
o How to Describe Yourself [resumés, in interviews, performance reviews]
o How to Make an Immediate Impact
o How to Take Your Performance to the Next Level
o What to Watch Out For
o How to Win as a Leader, as a Manager, in Sales, and in Client Service
o How to Manage Me

Buckingham urges his readers to complete the new StandOut Assessment because it will reveal (a) what their greatest strengths are now and (B) which strengths (albeit under-developed strengths) are most likely to help them find their edge, sharpen it, and thereby become a peak performer in months and years to come. He suggests they think of the results of the new StandOut Assessment as a “Rosetta Stone” to make sense of the human complexity to which Walt Whitman refers in Song of Myself: “Do I contradict myself? Very well, then, I contradict myself. I am large. I contain multitudes.”

9 people found this helpful

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S. Siegel

It's okay, I didnt like it as much as StrengthFinders 2.0

Reviewed in the United States 🇺🇸 on June 8, 2020

Verified Purchase

The review is less about the book, more about the test the book is designed around. I'm reading this book and completing the online exam for a course offered through my employer. This isn't the first or most well known "business personality test" out there, the other I've done and recommended to my team is StrengthsFinder 2.0. The author was involved in designing both tests, StandOut and StrengthsFinder.

I found that the results of this one sort of surprised me, where StrengthsFinder really hit home very well. Of course the first page of the results of StandOut says this might not be how you see yourself but how others perceive you.... so there, you can't argue with the results now because they specifically tell you that it's not designed to match your own self image...

When you finish the 34 question exam, the website generates a PDF that tells you your top 2 roles out of 9 possible roles. I found that the descriptions of the roles were fine, I dont know if I totally agreed with my 2nd role, but if there are 9 role outcomes and you're going to profile my top 2, there are only 72 possible combos of "top 2 roles". If I'm the one writing this book or forming this test, it might be worth profiling those 72 combos, naming each combo something awesome and then giving the feedback based on the two roles combined. But the results don't really do that. For the majority of the resulting info they provide, its for Role #1 - do this, and Role #2 do that. The feedback doesn't conflict but there was a lost opportunity to create a more comprehensive set of feedback based on the 72 possible combos.

So I answered 34 questions, you profiled me very particularly, and then give me a bunch of generic answers that arguably 1 in 9 people will get.

There are 2 pages of results that do attempt to combine your top 2 roles into a single "you" ("Phrases to describe yourself" and "Your ideal career") but for the most part, you get your feedback for how to win, what to watch out for based on those individual roles, not one that considers the intersection of those two roles in one person. The book follows the same formula, 9 sections on the 9 roles, not 72 sections of the intersection of your top 2.

Other feedback common of these types of tests - of my 9 roles, roles 2 through 4 were all fairly close to each other in the resulting bar graph. So I feel like if I did this all over again in 3 months when I totally forget the questions, and if I answer some of the ones I really had to think about for a while a little differently, I might wind up with a totally different outcome for role 2.

Lastly, a lot of the feedback on what to do is written as if I'm in sales. Ok maybe that's the target audience for the book. But I'm not in sales and now I have to bend the results and feedback into a very un-sales career. So that isn't too much fun.

If you've already taken StrengthsFinder, this is probably worth the $15-20 to see how it turns out, and to learn something about yourself even if it's "how others perceive you" kinda feedback. So its not really your strengths, it what others THINK your strengths are based on your actions. If you haven't taken StrengthsFinder yet, and only have $20 to spend, do that one first. Then come back to this a year later after you've taken the time to digest SF and it's feedback. Again the author had a hand in both books so I don't think its unfair to provide this comparison.

15 people found this helpful

Kat ME

A must for both employees and managers

Reviewed in the United States 🇺🇸 on March 28, 2022

Verified Purchase

StandOut 2.0 started a phenomenal line of communication between me and my manager. It took the discussion to a whole new level. Once we shared which category each fell into, the way we approached monthly meetings changed and I’ve been able to fast track my career progression. I highly recommend this book!

2 people found this helpful

HelenB

Link to test is wrong

Reviewed in the United Kingdom 🇬🇧 on August 12, 2019

Verified Purchase

If you have the kindle app version the redirect link to the online test (the main reason for buying the book) is wrong. It redirects to a log-in page for existing account holders. Instead, open a separate browser window and manually type or copy/paste the url given on the page into the browser. This goes to the right place, you answer some access questions related to the book and then get into the test.

2 people found this helpful

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