Standout Assessment

Marcus Buckingham has earned the reputation as one of the gurus of the philosophy of maximizing your strengths.  A few months ago he added the Standout Assessment as an online tool to learn more about the roles you are gifted towards.  The book will be released this fall to explain the assessment in deeper detail.

Buckingham’s Standout Report adds value in three ways:

·        It provides a prescriptive viewpoint of your strengths/roles and how to use them for maximum effectiveness.  It helps you identify those situations that you really perform best.  Strengthfinder is more descriptive – it helps you put words into play that help you articulate what you do best and describes the strengths.  It also provides a high level affirming perspective of what you do.  It leaves it to you to explore the strengths.

·        It provides guidance for the individual on how to utilize the respective roles to be successful in their job – as a leader, as a manager, in client services, or in sales.

·        It can provide career guidance with more specific insight as to what situations you may find the opportunity to maximize your skills.

The Standout Report provides you with your rank order of the 9 roles Buckingham identifies and zeroes in on your top two. The assessment provides insights to your top two roles individually and then as a combination – how they work together.

The added bonus to the new Standout report is that TMBC can collect your team assessments together and present the results in a summary.  This can be done after everyone takes it individually as well, according to the website.

Which is better, Strengthfinder or Standout?  Both of them have great value and I have found them both extremely helpful in understanding what I do best and how I think, understanding more clearly what I add to a team, and providing realistic insights on how I can improve my performance in various roles.  Self-awareness is an important key to a leader’s success – this is one more tool for the leader to learn and grow.

More information on Standout can be found here.