Book Review – Mavericks at Work: Why the Most Original Minds in Business Win by William C. Taylor and Polly LaBarre

I just finished Mavericks at Work: Why the Most Original Minds in Business Win by Bill Taylor and Polly LaBarre. I received a copy of the book when I attended the Business Innovation Factory’s BIF-2 last October in Providence, RI. Mr. Taylor was one of the speakers and a video of his presentation can be viewed here.

Mr. Taylor was cofounder and founding editor of Fast Company, a magazine which I have subscribed to since its inception. His co-author, Polly LaBarre, also spent eight years as a senior editor of Fast Company and was a co-host of their Real Time conferences.

Mavericks at Work is an interesting, fun and easy read with lots of actionable ideas. In the Introduction the authors set the tone of the book with The Maverick Promise:

“We will consider Mavericks at Work a success if it opens your eyes, engages your imagination, and encourages you to think bigger and aim higher. Most of all, we will consider it a success if it equips you to act more boldly as a leader and win more decisively as a competitor. We will measure our success by how much we contribute to yours.”

While an ambitious promise, this book lives up to it. The stories are all great and thought provoking but the most useful part of the book is the Appendix which is entitled Maverick Material. Here’ you’ll find “Resources to Help You Out-Think, Out Innovate, Out-Sell, and Out-Work the Competition.” There are lists of books to read and websites to visit. It’s basically the background research that the authors used to write the book.

If you like Fast Company, you’ll love Maverick at Work.

Check out the Mavericks at Work blog.

You can purchase Mavericks at Work by clicking here.

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