Labarre, Polly G.

PERSONAL: Education: Yale University, B.A. (summa cum laude).

ADDRESSES: Home— New York, NY. Agent— Lavin Agency, 77 Peter St., 4th Fl., Toronto, Ontario M5V 2G4, Canada. E-mail— polly@mavericksatwork.com.

CAREER: Writer, editor, and speaker. Industry Week, Cleveland, OH, served as bureau editor, book-review editor, reporter, and coproducer of interactive service and executive conferences;Fast Company, New York, NY, cofounder, founding editor, and senior editor for eight years. Also worked in book publishing, including literary scout for foreign book publishers and for Amblin Entertainment with Maria Campbell Associates. Has appeared on television, including Good Morning America, Today, and Nightly Business Report. Serves on the board of advisors of TakingITGlobal.

WRITINGS

(With William C. Taylor) Mavericks at Work: Why the Most Original Minds in Business Win, William Morrow (New York, NY), 2006.

Contributor to the book The Big Moo: Stop Trying to Be Perfect and Start Being Remarkable, Portfolio Hardcover, 2005; contributor to periodicals, including the New York Times.

SIDELIGHTS: Polly G. LaBarre is a business writer and editor and author, with William C. Taylor, of Mavericks at Work: Why the Most Original Minds in Business Win. In their book, LaBarre and Taylor present the strategies, tactics, and advice of business leaders who took unique ideas and approaches and created successful companies. Some of the companies profiled include Netflix, Google, and Pixar. Much of the book focuses on how companies and their leaders are establishing a new agenda for business in the twenty-first century through a combination of innovative strategy, service, and organization. In an interview on the How to Change the World Web Blog, LaBarre commented on the mavericks profiled in the book, noting: “I was struck by how unfailingly generous these mavericks were—and by how creative they were in their generosity. One of the big lessons of the book is that generosity begets prosperity.”

“Mavericks is wide-ranging: Taylor and LaBarre muse on everything from open-source innovation to the value of open-book management,” wrote a Business Week contributor. The reviewer added: “To their credit, Taylor and LaBarre have some caveats about their ‘mavericks’ and describe cases where a few have gone astray.” David Siegfried, writing in Booklist, commented that LaBarre and Taylor “have identified positive developments in a business environment that is struggling to emerge from slow growth.” A contributor to the Economist referred to Mavericks at Work as “a pivotal work in the tradition of In Search of Excellence.”

BIOGRAPHICAL AND CRITICAL SOURCES

PERIODICALS

Booklist, September 15, 2006, David Siegfried, review of Mavericks at Work: Why the Most Original Minds in Business Win, p. 12.

Business Week, October 2, 2006, review of Mavericks at Work, p. 104.

Economist, November 18, 2006, review of Mavericks at Work, p. 86.

Newsweek, October 2, 2006, John Sparks, review of Mavericks at Work.

ONLINE

Fast Company.com, http://www.fastcompany.com/ (January 22, 2007), brief profile of author.

How to Change the World Blog, http://blog.guykawasaki.com/ (October 9, 2006), “Ten Questions with Polly LaBarre.”

Journal of Business Strategy, http://www.journalofbusinessstrategy.com/ (January 22, 2007), Timothy Leffel, “Why Maverick Companies Succeed in a Competitive Environment: An Interview with Polly LaBarre.”

Lavin Agency Web site, http://www.thelavinagency.com/ (January 22, 2007), profile of author.

MavericksatWork.com, http://www.mavericksatwork.com (January 22, 2007), brief profile of author.*