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

From the Publisher

How do you ignite creativity, problem solving, and risk taking to score big in business? According to bestselling author Kevin Carroll, it’s child’s play!

Former 76ers athletic trainer Kevin Carroll, has turned his childhood passion for playing ball into a bestselling franchise. In this fun and thoughtful follow-up to his bestselling Rules of the Red Rubber Ball (2007), Carroll switches the playing field to the workplace,

where innovation, motivation, engagement, and teamwork are the headline issues. Drawing on “play profiles” from thought leaders, change agents, and business leaders, he

explains how to bring a sense of play into the workplace to stimulate creativity, encourage risk-taking, achieve goals--and have a great time doing it.

Fully illustrated, with 31 profiles of successful

“players” including ESPN president George Bodenheimer, bestselling authors Seth Godin and Malcolm Gladwell, Food

Network host Duff Goldman, South Bronx activist Majora Carter, renowned author Paulo Coehlo, and many others

Kevin Carroll is founder of the Katalyst

Consultancy and former Head

Athletic Trainer for the Philadelphia

76ers. He speaks fifty times a year

and consults with industry leaders

at Nike, Disney/ESPN, Gap/Old

Navy, Hasbro, Proctor & Gamble,

and Capital One.

Publishers Weekly

This entertaining, pocket-sized book builds on Carroll's self-help series with profiles of 33 successful workers who illustrate the value of "productive play" (as opposed to "playful play," not serious enough for work). Most of the subjects are in fields where the value of play is obvious: 12 are artists or performers, 11 are in design and marketing, and six are founders of public interest organizations. Advice from a professional wrestler, alchemist, graffiti artist, futurist or "director of user experience" may not apply to readers with more conventional jobs, but most people will be able to identify with at least a handful of subjects. Though the larger lesson seems to be self-apparent (the way to have fun at work is to choose a playful career), the book is nevertheless inspiring and clever, with a lively layout and energetic writing.
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Margaret Heilbrun - Library Journal

Carroll's diminuitive Rules of the Red Rubber Ball was more a gift book than one for library shelves. Then came his Dr. Seuss-sized What's Your Red Rubber Ball?!Professional speaker and "agent for social change," Carroll (former head athletic trainer, Nike) now brings his red rubber ball to business, with 33 "play profiles" of notable individuals, organized by theme ("Innovations," "Results," "Teamwork," "Leadership," and "Curiosity") to show how achievers from the arts, business, and social activism have each channeled their own variety of "purposeful play" into work success. With annotated suggestions throughout, not just for further reading but for means of "looking" and "doing" that will help guide one's "play" toward success. For public libraries.

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