James Brook - Optimize Your Strengths: Use your leadership strengths to get the best out of you and your team James Brook, Paul Brewerton

In today's pressurized workplaces, it's easy to forget to do the important stuff when it comes to leadership knowing your strengths and how to use them, dealing with the things that may derail you, and becoming a great talent spotter so that you can lead through others. This book reminds us all about the most important leadership lessons and gives us a road map for putting them into action.

Michael Brooke, Head of Innovation, BNP Paribas Global Markets

Discovering what your strengths are and building a work experience, and ultimately a career around them is one of the greatest opportunities afforded to readers of this book. Authors James Brook and Paul Brewerton have amassed a trove of ideas, insights and tools to guide the reader towards those areas of passion in their life, that will not only bring them greater personal satisfaction in their jobs, but also enable them to have greater impact at work, and ultimately in other areas of their life.

Stuart Crabb, Director of Learning, Facebook

As a former Olympic medalist and current Olympic coach, I can't agree more with a strengths-based strategy. There is just so much more potential in people's strengths rather than fussing at the edges with their weaknesses. In addition, people are much happier working to their strengths and I know that happy athletes make better athletes. Paul and James' novel way of demonstrating the power of strengths and its four habits to build powerful leadership teams is captivating and like all good novels, very difficult to put down. I strongly recommend this book to all leaders and leaders to be.

Bill Barry, Managing Partner, Personal Best International Ltd

Optimize Your Strengths is written as a fable, but it is based on reality. It describes the journey of a leader who moves from one worldview to another. Many people have had such epiphanies, but few have had the tools to move from enlightenment to execution to excellence. This book provides a practical toolkit for making that happen and achieving on-going success.

Mike Pegg, Author and Founder, The Strengths Foundation

Brook and Brewerton offer four habits to stretch yourself beyond being an ordinary Joe at work. Optimize Your Strengths along with Joe on the path of possibility with shared vision, sparked engagement, skilled execution and sustained progress. Warning: This book may be habit forming and work may never be so limiting again.

David Zinger, Founder and Host of the 5000 member, Employee Engagement Network

If you are serious about embarking on a journey to stretch yourself and move forward professionally and personally, this book will be invaluable. James and Paul outline a positive and powerful approach to building on your strengths and addressing limitations. Through this enjoyable yet challenging story were able to see the reality of just how transformational a change in thinking and behaviour can be. This is an important book which I would highly recommend to leaders and those aspiring to leadership.

Dr Rebecca Newton, Visiting Fellow, Department of Management, London School of Economics and Political Science

A key question for those who want to help others is how to get new ideas across in a fun, interesting way which allows them to be painlessly absorbed. Brook and Brewerton achieve this by drawing on the inherent attraction of our brain to a good story. This book is immensely readable, packed with great information in an easy to digest style. I think managers, leaders and trainers alike will love this book, and I highly recommend it for those interested in developing their leadership edge.

Sarah Lewis, Psychologist, Author and Appreciative Inquiry Consultant

This edition first published 2016
2016 James Brook and Dr Paul Brewerton
This is a revised edition of Stretch, published 2012

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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Names: Brook, James (HR consultant) author. | Brewerton, Paul, author.
Title: Optimize your strengths : use your leadership strengths to get the best out of you and your team / James
Brook and Dr Paul Brewerton.
Description: Hoboken : Wiley, 2016.
Identifiers: LCCN 2015047538 | ISBN 9780857086938 (pbk.)
Subjects: LCSH: LeadershipPsychological aspects.
Classification: LCC HD57.7 .B756 2016 | DDC 658.4/092dc23 LC record available at
http://lccn.loc.gov/2015047538

A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.

ISBN 978-0-857-08693-8 (paperback) ISBN 978-0-857-08695-2 (ebk) ISBN 978-0-857-08696-9 (ebk)

Cover design: Wiley/Digital Parent Company

This book has been over 18 months in the making and would not be finished without the contribution, inspiration and support of a large number of people.

Our deepest gratitude goes out to Nicki Hayes, who helped us transform this work from its rough early form to the polished story you are about to read. She demonstrated diligence and good humour throughout, exercising tremendous flexibility and talent in responding to our demanding expectations.

We also want to express special thanks to several other people who contributed to the book in a variety of ways: to Steph Tranter for her detailed and superb comments on virtually all aspects of the manuscript; to Gail MacIndoe for her early input into shaping some of the concepts and ideas in the book; to Sarah Glazier for her efficient support coordinating the production and marketing of the book; and to Dearbhla Kelly, Karena Gomez, Josh Dykstra, Aidan Tod, Mike Miller and Mike Pegg for their excellent comments and feedback during the final stages of writing.