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Review by Neil Thompson
Honey, P. (2008) Strengthen Your Strengths: A Guide to Enhancing your Self-management Skills,Maidenhead, Peter Honey Publications. ISBN 9 781902 899336, £7.95 Peter Honey has become something of a legend in the world of education and training because of the ground-breaking work in relation to learning styles that he was involved in. So, any book by him brings with it high expectations, and this one does not disappoint. I was drawn to the book by its title for two reasons. I have long been a believer in the importance of emphasising strengths. As someone who has been involved in one form of problem solving or another for over thirty years, I am well aware of how easy it is to get drawn into the weaknesses and threats and risk losing sight of the strengths and opportunities involved. The idea of building on strengths and building up areas for development is a point I often find myself making on training courses I run. I have also long been committed to the idea of the need to emphasise self-management skills (see Thompson, 2009). How can managers manage others if they struggle to manage themselves? And, beyond that, how can anyone hope to make a positive contribution to other people’s well-being when they are struggling to manage their own issues? This book is therefore an addition to the literature that I welcome. This is a practical book that contains a number of checklists that can be used to evaluate how well you are doing in relation to each of the skill areas. These areas are: acting with integrity; being a creative thinker; committing to quality; self-development; embracing change; managing unwanted stress; time management and self-motivation. Honey’s style of writing is characteristically clear and helpful and this is patently a strength of the book. The structure is also clear and helpful and allows readers to either read from start to finish or to dip into particular sections as and when they want to. Although it is not specifically designed as a training aid, an experienced trainer could use this text as a foundation for developing a training programme around self-management skills. One aspect I particularly liked was the emphasis on integrity. To my mind, values are at the heart of what we do, and so it is important to be clear what those values are and how they shape what we do (and do not do). It is therefore good to see a book that also shares this belief and therefore emphasizes that: ‘Acting with integrity means behaving in a way that is consistent with your core values’ (p. 15). This is especially important in an age when so many organisations blandly talk about their values and their ‘mission statement’ and yet so often show little real understanding of what values are all about. If I can be forgiven a cliché, talking the talk without walking the walk simply creates resentment and mistrust. Genuine value integrity, by contrast, can be a significant source of motivation and commitment. Overall, this is a useful book that should prove popular. It should indeed help people to build on their strengths. Reviewed by Neil Thompson Reference Thompson, N. (2009) People Skills, 3rd edn, Basingstoke, Palgrave Macmillan.
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