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Mavericks at Work: Why the Most Original Minds in Business Win
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Sales rank 310,418
Customers rating (based on 33 reviews)
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Meet the innovators and upstarts who are inventing the future of business. Their unconventional ideas and groundbreaking strategies can become your business plan for the twenty-first century a better way to lead, compete, and succeed. Business as usual is a bust. In industry after indus-try, the old guard is cutting back and losing ground. Meanwhile, organizations that were once dismissed as upstarts, as wildcards or mavericks are making waves and growing fast. There is a reason: In an age of hypercompetition and nonstop innovation, the only way to stand out from the crowd is to stand for something truly original. That's the lesson behind the companies, executives, and entrepreneurs you'll meet in Mavericks at Work.They are winning big in business by rethinking the logic of how business gets done. They have devised exciting new answers to the timeless challenges facing organizations of every size and leaders in every field: how you make strategy, how you unleash new ideas, how you connect with customers, how your best people achieve great results. Who are these mavericks? They are break-the-mold business units inside giants such as IBM and Procter & Gamble, as well as high-profile innovators such as HBO and Pixar. They are Internet banks and gold mines, fashion retailers and advertising agencies, funky sandwich shops and hard-charging computer programmers. Together, they are creating an inspiring agenda that every business can put to work. Their success demonstrates that: - Being different makes all the difference
- Sharing values beats selling value
- The company with the smartest customers wins
- Nobody is as smart as everybody
- Character counts for as much as credentials
- Great leaders are insatiable learners
Whether you're a young professional setting out on your career, a senior executive looking to make your organization grow, or an entrepreneur building a company from scratch, Mavericks at Work will help you think bigger, aim higher, and win more decisively.
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| Publisher | William Morrow | | Release date | 09/2006 | | Availability | Usually ships in 24 hours | | Edition | Hardcover |
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Maverick Rules for Success: How do you stand out from the crowd—as an executive, an entrepreneur, or even a business soloist—when the crowd keeps getting bigger, better, and louder? (@ Success Magazine)
They Do It Their Way: Offers compelling evidence that maverick practices can lead to business growth (@ BusinessWeek)
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 A Cornucopia of Ideas
This is not a cook book. There is no one way to bake a pie, or build a successful business.
As you read this book, one of the chapters may contain the idea that fits your situation perfectly. Maybe all of the chapters will make you think more about your business.
Certainly a worthy read for any entrepreneur.
 How an organization can prosper in a "hypercompetitive marketplace"
As William C. Taylor and Polly LaBarre explain in this book, Samuel Augustus Maverick (1803-70) was a wealthy land speculator in southwest Texas who cared little about cattle. "When someone repaid a debt with 400 head of cattle rather than cash, Maverick's caretakers allowed them to wander unbranded. Over time, locals who saw unbranded cattle would say, `Those are Maverick's' - and a term was born that today refers to politicians, entrepreneurs, and innovators who refuse to run with the herd." Until reading this book, I did not know the origin of the term and tended to define it too narrowly as a descriptive of those who are by nature unconventional, eccentric, odd, etc. One of the basic arguments in this book is that, "when it comes to thriving in a hypercompetitive marketplace, `playing it safe' is no longer playing it smart [and in business] mavericks do the work that matters most - the work of originality, creativity, and experimentation. They demonstrate that you can build companies around high ideals and fierce competitive ambitions, that the most powerful way to create economic value is to embrace a set of values that go beyond just amassing power, and that business, at its best, is too exciting, too important, and too much fun to be left to the dead hand of business as usual."
That is certainly true of the decision-makers in the 32 organizations on which Taylor and LaBarre function in this book. The strategies, practices, and leadership styles may in some respects seem "unconventional, eccentric, odd, etc." However, they help to explain how organizations as diverse as Anthropologie, Commerce Bank, DPR Corporation, GSD&M, IBM's Extreme Blue, ING Direct, the Pixar Animation Studio, and Southwest Airlines have achieved extraordinary success in the "hypercompetitive marketplace" to which the authors refer. However, and this is a key point, Taylor and LaBarre correctly note that there's a significant difference "between learning from someone else's ideas and applying them effectively somewhere else." Presumably Cirque du Soleil's founder, Guy Liberté, and his associates rigorously examined dozens of other organizations while formulating and later refining their own strategies, practices, and leadership styles. In fact, that process never ends in "maverick" organizations such as Cirque du Soleil as their leaders continue to learn much of great value, especially what would not work and/or would not be appropriate for their organization. This really is a key point for those who read this book: by all means pay close attention to the various "Maverick Messages" that Taylor and LaBarre provide and explore the various "Maverick Material" they identify, then adapt -- rather than attempt to duplicate -- whatever will help make their own organizations more competitive.
I was especially interested in the material provided in Chapter Ten, The Company You Keep: Business as If People Mattered. Specifically I was curious to know how various "maverick" organizations recruited, interviewed, hired, and then developed the people they need to achieve what Jim Collins would describe as their "BHAGs," their Big Hairy Audacious Goals. What kind of people do they look for? Here's one response, from Jane Harper, founder of IBM's Extreme Blue: "This is about finding people who could run the company someday. What we offer is cool projects, small teams, and dynamic places to work. We look for virtuoso skills, unique life experience, and genuine passion. Our people groove on this work. They love it. And you can't fake that." IBM describes Extreme Blue as an incubator for talent, technology, and business innovation. Its manifesto is "start something big." Taylor and LaBarre observe, "In the long term, the aim of Extreme Blue is to demonstrate new ways for IBM itself to work - to accelerate the turnaround strategy unleashed by the now legendary Lou Gerstner and advanced by his successor, Sam Palmisano."
Later in this chapter, Taylor and LaBarre pose two questions that address the challenge of what they describe as "enhancing the character of competition": (1) Why would great people want to be part of this company? and (2) Where and how to find great people in the first place? Consider these brief comments about Cirque du Soleil:
"Our mission is to invoke the imagination, provoke the senses, and evoke emotions." Lyn Heward
"Talent is everywhere. That is why we look everywhere. If we want to reinvent ourselves - which is what everybody at Cirque is trying to do - then we have to constantly bring in new things. We never close off any avenue where we might discover new talent. Out responsibility is to have our eyes open." Line Giasson
"There are no stars here. The show is the star. That's why our evaluation goes deeper than a talent evaluation. We need to learn about the person behind the artist. How many somersaults you can do is not as important as open-mindedness to our process, the tough-mindedness to get through the job, and what we call a `fire to perform.' That's what we're looking for." Lyn Heward
In the Introduction, Taylor and LaBarre promise to provide a book "that aims to be true to the maverick spirit of the agenda that it champions and the leaders it chronicles." They fully deliver on that promise as they examine with rigor and eloquence 32 organizations that exude "an undeniable sense of purpose. But it's a sense of purpose that provokes: each company's strategy tends to be as edgy as it is enduring, as disruptive as it is distinctive, as timely ass it is timeless." Congratulations to Taylor and LaBarre on what I consider to be a brilliant achievement. Bravo!
 Their theory is wrong
There are plenty of people who like to be mavericks, do their own thing, and go against the flow. In other words, they like to be weird and do very unusual things. I have found in my own field that approach usually fails badly. Being in the mainstream and being conventional are what work best most of the time. I disagree with their claim that Google is run by mavericks!!! Google is a very conventional and mainstream business! All they did was create a search engine that simply works better than all the others! What is so unconventional about that? Nothing! When google first was created, there were already many other search engines. Google did not create any new idea there. They simply made a better version of something that already existed. And there is nothing maverick about that! By the way, making better versions of things that already exist is a good way to make money. It really works. What kind of movies make the most money by far? It's the mainstream summer blockbuster movies that make the most money, not the "maverick" art house films. Most things that succeed are conventional, high quality, and give the mainstream what it wants. Things that succeed generally are not unusual, bizarre, weird, or unconventional. Most good ideas have already been thought of. We live in a world of over 6 billion people. So you rarely find a unique new idea that is actually a good idea. Usually, if something is original, it's bizarre and undesirable too, because virtually all the *good* ideas have already been thought of and done.
Right On, Refreshing & Readable!!
This is an extremely readable book full of wisdom. Underlying Polly's book is the eternal but often overlooked truth that the right people make all the difference. The primary role of leaders is to find and nurture bright people. Organizational success depends entirely on great innovative ideas executed brilliantly and loyal customers. Customers and employees and suppliers and all stake holders even critics need to feel valued and touched. Based on my extensive experience in leadership development, most organizations instead waste a lot of time on internal politics and bureaucratic, self serving matters.
As the economy faces new hurdles, Polly's nuggets are more valid than ever.
Deepak / Dick Sethi
CEO Organic Leadership
Great Book - Take Notes!
This book is one of those books where you want to keep a notepad or highlighter marker close at hand. While not every company will rise to the levels of those highlighted in this book, there is much to be gained by readers who are willing to take a fresh look at how to do business in today's marketplace.
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