I recently read Marcus Buckingham’s new book The Truth About You: Your Secret to Success. The product is actually marketed as a “tool kit” that includes a book, DVD, and memo pad, and it is designed to help individuals discover their strengths and more effectively deploy them in their workplace. Overall, the product is somewhat insightful and potentially highly practical, but is also very short and overly simplistic.
Buckingham starts off by flipping our traditional definition of strengths and weaknesses on its head. He says that a strength isn’t just something you are good at. Rather, a strength is something that leaves you feeling excited and fulfilled. Conversely, a weakness is anything that leaves you feeling drained and unmotivated. Thus, a weakness can actually be something that you are quite good at. Buckingham explains all of this in both the DVD and the book. Throughout both (which overlap a great deal) he sets out to expose some commonly believed myths and replaces them with truths. For example, he helps people remember the importance of the “what” when it comes to work. If we aren’t fulfilled by the “what” in our work, then the “why” and the “how” don’t matter. This is a valuable insight that is often overlooked.
Several parts of of the book encourage reader response, and there are several areas to write in answers to questions. This sort of personal reflection certainly increases the value of the book. Readers are also told to utilize the memo pad that comes with the book. This pad is used to record instances throughout one’s week where they feel either especially excited and motivated, or especially weak and unmotivated. These notes are then used to help readers drill down what their specific strengths and passions are. I am already pretty aware of my strengths and weaknesses, but I nonetheless found this excercise helpful. The book also contained a smattering of seemingly counter-intuitive workplace/leadrship principles that were quite thought provoking (for example, rather than seeking to live outside of our comfort zones, we should instead focus our energy on thriving and being maximally effective within our comfort zone). All of this to say, there was much in the book that was very straight forward and practical.
That being said, this product is not without its problems. The book portion is barely 100 pages long, and if the pages were standard paperback size, with standard margins, and single spaced typing it probably would have been about 30 pages. There simply is not very much content in this book. Also, the DVD serves virtually no purpose. The key points of the DVD are rehashed in the book. The DVD of Marcus talking increases the sticker price of the product, but seems to just be an attempt to make up for the lack of content. The memo pad is a good idea, but it certainly is not worth paying extra for. While the content is good, there simply isn’t much of it.
Overall, I found this book to be decently helpful. I am already working to apply some of the principles to my life and they have made a difference. I would have been nice to see a bit more content. This product has a sticker price of $30 (though it can be found for much cheaper on Amazon), but would really only be a worthwhile purchase for about $8-10.
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