Rating: 
Summary: Great Learning
Review: 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.
Rating: 
Summary: 2 day reading! It's Great!
Review: 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...
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Summary: Max your Strategy - must read at least 3 times!
Review: Fantastic read! Dauten is brilliant. Short, easy read that isn't cluttered with lots of charts, graphs, diagrams and theories. Believe it or not, I read the book in Phoenix Sky Harbor Airport while waiting for a flight. Read the book the first time in an hour, couldn't put it down till finished! Each subsequent reading took longer. This book has to be read multiple times. You will get more creatively charged up and get more out of it each time you read it. One of my dreams is to meet Max someday. After reading the book, I feel like I was actually there with Max and the businessman. Recommend for anyone who has a job, from the clean up person to the CEO. I can't believe this book didn't make the Bestseller's list! It's Outstanding.
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Summary: A must-have book in the entrepreneur's library!
Review: 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.
Rating:
Summary: A GREAT BOOK!
Review: 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.
Rating: 
Summary: This Book Has Changed My Life!!!
Review: Just kidding. The book is actually mediocre (charitably.) With all the creative power of a third-rate amateur scribbler the author concocted a fictionalized tale of meeting an elderly businesman who reveals to him all Great Secrets of Success. It would be better if the book were written from the first person, without resorting to this literary device... on the other hand it makes it a bit funny: if you read carefully and picture in your mind the scenes as described -- this elderly gentleman with his "horsey laughter", acting weird, endlessly jabbing his listener with his elbow, while he delivers a number of disarticulated banalities that any real person wouldn't be caught dead telling in public -- you may actually find it entertaining, although not in the way the author intended. Writing is bad in other ways too: I'd give it a "C" for topic coherence, for example. It's just not clear, not well reasoned; subsequent paragraphs do not cohere; there's no unifying thought; it's unclear what he's getting to in many places -- one has an impression of a bunch of notes printed together, but not connected with one another in a logical progression. OK, that's the literary side, so let's leave it alone for a moment.
On the practical side, it's simply very unoriginal. There is, of course, nothing wrong with the idea that chance plays a big role in our lives. But honesly, didn't you already know that? Is there anything earth-shattering here? This correct, but trivial, idea is blown totally out of proportion and made into The Ultimate answer to Life, the Universe and Everything -- and of course, as before, it ends up being something as enlightening as "42". All the rest (work, planning, etc.) is pompously discounted and discarded as unworthy, as something all those "other advice books" suggest (like every single of "those other" books, the author pretends he's not like "them", he's different, he gives you REAL advice, buy, buy, buy.)
This 100-page (on thick paper) brochure has all the signs of being sloppily thrown together in order to have something to sell; just another spurious "advice" book. I don't understand the exalted reviews below; there's simply nothing attractive in this piece. Well, tastes differ, I suppose; perhaps what one person finds trivial, can be informative to another. And it's not that it's bad or incorrect: it's a snore rather, very mediocre (which, to my mind, is worse than bad.) Maybe someone can benefit from it, but me, I don't think it was worth the reading time. Good thing it's so short, I was through with it in an hour. Still a waste.
Rating:
Summary: Fluke-ology
Review: 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)
Rating:
Summary: Insightful and Easy to Read Guide to Innovation
Review: 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.
Rating:
Summary: Good book, but thin.
Review: This is a good book, but I'd say it's a bit thin on detail and information. It is basically composed of many feel good success stories.
There's no knowledge here that I found to be of of the ordinary or particularly helpful, but's a good easy read.
Rating:
Summary: Buy it. Read it. Live it!
Review: 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.
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