The Red Rubber Ball At Work by Kevin Carroll.
Kevin:
"The red rubber ball represents play to me. It's an activity, topic or purpose that makes you excited about the day.
Your red rubber ball is what grabs you by the soul. It's what captures your imagination. It's what you do when no one tells you what to do, when you're alone in your room, on the playground or in your head. It's what you daydream, and that dream can become your life's work...if you let it."
Kevin must have had a blast writing this book! I picture him in a sandbox with small plastic people, popsicle sticks, magic markers, poster board and Legos.
OK (Old Kevin) knows that playtime dominated most of our childhood. He figures that that play could be the origin of the skills, talents and competencies that we employ at work today. As with any good postulation, one must come up with concrete evidence to help support his case. So YK (Young Kevin) goes to the playground. He kicks his soccer ball off of the school wall and thinks, maybe I could get some people to help tell my story. We could build the story around work disciplines that readers are familiar with. Then we could equate how childhood play helped to form these disciplines later in life.
So YK takes some popsicle sticks and builds five structures in his sandbox. He names these disciplines using magic markers: Innovation, Results, Teamwork, Leadership and Curiosity. He gathers all of his plastic people figures into the town's community center and tells them of his plans. He meets individually with each and everyone. He asks them what play meant to them as children, what they do for a living today and how play influences them at work. Then he matches their stories and experiences to the appropriate discipline. OK knows that us readers love information and resources. So at the end of each chapter he provides stuff for us to Look at, stuff for us to Read and stuff for us to Do.
YK knows that best results are often obtained when we play with others. So he calls for YA (Young Ann) to come out to play. YK and YA play. Together they build a most memorable and gorgeous sand castle.
The Red Rubber Ball at Work will delight your senses and stimulate your intellect. OK's plastic people figures are a seriously interesting group of characters. Seth Godin, Tom Kelly, Dwayne "The Rock" Johnson and Malcolm Gladwell are just a few of the folks in OK's sandbox.
Napoleon Hill, a member of Od's (Old dave), imaginary council, once said, "The imagination is literally the workshop wherein are fashioned all plans created by man." Od thinks that imagination will always keep OK a YK and if he continues to hang around YA he will be Okay.
You gotta get this book today, OK?
