Customer Reviews

The Red Rubber Ball at Work: Elevate Your Game Through the Hidden Power of Play

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Interesting thesis. Ask people who have made a difference in the world, to talk about a defining moment of play that has affected who they are today. Using five topic areas the author organizes the small vignettes. The topics are ; innovation, results,teamwork, leadership & curiosity. Kevin Carroll is the also the author of Rules of the Red Rubber Ball and What's Your Red Rubber Ball?! He travels the globe speaking to businesses and to young people about the importance of sport and play in life. He is an advocate in the Sport for Social Change movement. Find out more at http://www.rrbatwork.com/about/. This is a very enjoyable, quickly read book, that just may adjust your attitude. It will certainly give you more stories to tell.

The title is a metaphor for the need to maintain some avenue for the mentally stimulating and refreshing act of play in the business world. Creative problem solving skills utilize all aspects of your brain function, from the coldly analytical to the irrationally imaginative. One of the most common errors made in the business world is to believe that applying an analytical "crunching of the numbers" will derive all solutions. In general, this is the best way to identify problems but is weak in directing you to the potential solutions.
This book is largely a set of short descriptions of the lives of people that are extremely creative in their work. Each begins with a recapitulation of how they played in childhood and this is followed by comments on how they have managed to retain some of the thought processes of the imaginative child after they reached adulthood. The featured people argue forcefully that this is one of the primary reasons for their success.
Everyone that has solved a major problem can attest to the fact that creative disengagement is one of the best tools to use. Putting the problem down for a while and shifting your mind to another area often removes the obstacles and allows for a fresh approach. Play is one of the best ways to do this and when it is a team effort it can be used to strengthen the common bonds needed for solving the most difficult of problems. While this book will not demonstrate what form of play to use, it is a strong argument in favor of including some form of play in your work environment.

I was expecting to be a more of the original (which I also loved) but the author slightly shifted the approach in this wholly original addition to the Red Rubber Ball series. I thought it was going to be focused on applying the principles learned in the first book at your office ("at WORK") -- but the ideas inside are all about putting the original concepts into action ("AT WORK.") Chapters are divided by focus (Innovation, Results, Teamwork, Leadership and Curiosity.)

This is not a case of the author telling you want you should do to put his concepts into action -- this is a collection of some well-known (and soon-to-be-well-known) individuals who have been implementing Red Rubber Ball insights since they were kids, and the brief (but compelling) stories show you how they continue the path of the red Rubber Ball into their adulthood and the way they left their mark on the world.

Stories from Seth Godin, Paulo Coelho, Malcolm Gladwell, Duff Goldman, and even Dwayne "The Rock" Johnson add to the poignancy of stories from folks I'd never heard of (but left an indelible impression upon me.) Be sure to read the stories from Carlos "Mare139" Rodriguez, Hendrik Mamorare, and Awista Ayub -- they are especially inspiring.

My favorite parts of the book come at the end of each section in the form of a page or two labeled "Purposeful Play", where the author gives you recommendations on websites to visit, videos to watch, books and articles to read, and provides links additional source material that I found of interest. It added to the value and impact the book had on me as a reader, and further drove home the important (and personal) message it contains.

I can't wait to read it (make that, STUDY IT) again.

Traditionally, people like to give Dr. Seuss's "Oh, The Places You'll Go" as a graduation gift. I think this is better - more mature and realistic for young people to think about when trying to choose a career path at a young age.