Customer Reviews

The Max Strategy: How A Buisnessman Got Stuck At An Airport...

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Every self help book says to make goals for yourself. Each job interview asks, "So, Where do you want to be in five years?" My answer has always been "I don't know!" Finally, a book that doesn't make you feel like an idiot for wanted to take each day as it comes. Each day brings new opportunities. I finally found a person (MAX) that say's the same thing! Great - now I don't feel like I'm insane. Each person is their own best motivator and this book really hits home for normal, everyday people! Extremely easy reading - read it in one day! Can't believe this never hit the Best-Seller List. Felt down in the dumps - My husband bought it for me and I can't tell you what a difference this book has made. Giving it as a gift for x-mas! Read it and you won't be sorry!

This book was my introduction to Dale Dauten and remains one of my favorite business books because of the novel way the author finds to make practical advice memorable.

The book is organized as a conversation between a successful entreprenuer and a stranded burned-out businessman at snowed-in O'Hare airport. Max Elmore,our hero, helps his new friend see the nature of innovation and the connection between innovation and business success.

For the person who wants the reputation as an innovator (and ain't that what makes life fun?) this is a little book that can be read and understood in a few short hours.

If you have the courage to devote the additional time to completing the exercises outlined in the book you can expect to uncover some interesting experiments that might lead you to some new methods and new thinking.

If you are interested in innovatation and experimentation as an employee or a business owner, the few hours reading this book will be richly rewarded.

I dug out this book recently, 3 yrs after buying and reading it. Looking back, can't believe how much this book has influenced my thinking and direction in life. I guarantee that all those seeking a breakthrough in their lives will find this book most relevant and applicable. Among all the leading-edge business and management books I've bought and read, this one contains some of the most lasting ideas and concepts... This book is for next-generation entrepreneurs, visionaries, leading-edge thinkers and innovators; not for readers looking for conventional ideas and strategies. Get a head start - Buy and read this book to prepare yourself to thrive in the new digital economy.

This is a short novel-format book crammed with a bunch of thought-provoking nuggets. A couple of illustrative quotes:

"You can't get to *better* without first getting to *different*."

"If you aren't smart and hardworking and all that, you're going to fail ten times out of ten. But if you do all the right things, guess what? You fail nine times out of ten."

This book will help you think through your career and your priorities, no matter whether you manage yourself or lead thousands of people.

Like all of the best books in this genre, "Max" contains no recipes for success or other "One Minute" solutions. There are no quick fixes in business. Dauten has provided us a few tools to improve.

Couldn't put it down. I would recommend this book to anyone that has DARES to dream... It puts success in "simple" terms and not anything like the corporate books I have read in the past- that advises mostly on the "rules" on how you "should" do things....I LOVED IT! I'll probably re-read in about 6 months...

The main character in Dale Dauten's magnificent story, The Max Strategy, is Max Elmore, an old man with infectious enthusiasm, insatiable curiosity, and wisdom gained from a lifetime of management consulting to leaders across a spectrum of organizations. Max meets the book's fictional author during an extended delay at O'Hare Airport, and during their ensuing conversation, one of the topics Max discusses is 'becoming a flukologist':

"Burton Malkiel (A Random Walk Down Wall Street) dreamed up an imaginary coin-tossing contest. A thousand contestants in a line; heads was a winner, tails a loser. So the thousand people toss their coins and about five hundred get tails and lose. The five hundred with heads toss again. After seven tosses there are just eight coin tossers left. By this time crowds start to gather to witness the surprising ability of these expert coin tossers. The winners are overwhelmed with adulation. They are celebrated as geniuses in the art of coin tossing - their biographies are written and people urgently seek their advice. After all, there were a thousand contestants and only eight could consistently flip heads."

"Naturally, if you aren't smart and hardworking and all that, you're going to fail ten times out of ten. But if you do all the right things, guess what? You fail nine times out of ten. Think how many great novels you've read that never became best-sellers. Think how many actors you see in local or regional theaters who are as good as those on Broadway. Their problem isn't talent or work ethic; it's that they aren't expert coin tossers."

"Remember this: The coin tosser who gets the most 'heads' is the one who gets the most tosses. Given enough chances, chance is your friend."

"Yes, a fluke is a fluke. But you could use a fluke in your career, no? So maybe we should learn their secrets and become 'flukologists.'"

"If you innovate instead of imitate, and work every day to be different from yesterday, you'll improve your odds: You no longer will fail nine times out of ten. You'll fail eight times out of ten."

"Real achievement is a kind of lottery. You enter by being competent and hardworking. Most people get one shot in the lottery, playing at one-in-ten odds. I'm trying to show you how you can enter again and again, at two-in-ten odds. Here's the logic. Most people try to be like the successful people in their field. The result is that everyone does what everyone else is doing. If a great new idea comes along, sure, they adopt it. So does everyone else. You see what is happening to each of them? Each is trying to be exceptional, but ends up going about it by being just like everyone else. The upshot? They have, at best, a one-in-ten chance of producing results in the top ten percent of their profession."

"If you want to be extraordinary, the first and hardest step is to stop being ordinary."

"People try to conform to success, but to be successful is to be a non-conformist. Let's put it this way: You don't become a Picasso by taking a Picasso print and running it through a Xerox machine."

"You can't get to better without first getting to different. Every blessed day. Believe me, it'll wear you out. No, I'm not suggesting the easy way out: this is the exhausting way out. But it's also the exciting way out, the alive way out."

This week, I'm teaching at the Wow Institute in Henniker, New Hampshire. 75 fundraisers from across North America have come seeking ideas to make them better. If we're successful, participants will learn to become innovative flukologists and expert coin-flippers who reject 'ordinary' and are committed to pursuing 'different' every day. It's the risky path, but it's also the only path to 'better,' the only path to 'extraordinary.'

(from www.crawdaddycove.com)

A very very good book. The great thing about this book is that once you start reading is, you will not let go... The book tries to reinvent our thinking from the normal rut. Definately a good read. You might not agree with the author at certain junctures, but then he comes up with very good examples.

In my present job, I have read and reviewed many of the leading business books. This is the book - along with Wayne Baker's Success Through Social Capital - that I recommend that our law students read first. It does an excellent job of conveying important concepts in a direct yet profound manner.

This is one book that I will spend my own money to buy - and one that I will give as a gift to friends and family. The Gifted Boss is also excellent and highly recommended.

wonderful book. I'm giving it to friends and family.

This is one of the best book I have ever read. I strongly recommend this to the people who need to upgrade or re-structure personal motivation.