Rebel Talent: Why It Pays to Break the Rules at Work and in Life
Written by Francesca Gino
Narrated by Tamara Marston
4/5
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About this audiobook
The world’s best chef.
An airline captain who brought his flight to safety in a daring water landing.
A magician known for his sensational escape acts.
A computer scientist who founded a world-renowned animation studio.
What do all of these people have in common? They love their jobs, they break the rules, and the world is better off for it. They are rebels.
From an early age, we are taught to be rule followers, and the pressure to fit in only increases as we age. But conformity comes at a steep price for our careers and personal lives. When we mindlessly accept rules and norms rather than questioning and constructively rebelling against them, we ultimately end up stuck and unfulfilled. As leaders, we are less effective and respected. As employees, we are more likely to be overlooked for top assignments and promotions. As partners and friends, we are checked out and unhappy.
Francesca Gino has been studying rebels in life and in the workplace for more than 15 years. She has discovered that rebels—those who practice “positive deviance” at work-- are harder to manage, but they are good for the bottom line: their passion, drive, curiosity, and creativity raise the entire organization to a new level. And she has found that at home, rebels are more engaged partners, parents, and friends.
Packed with strategies for embracing rebellion at work and in life, and illuminating case studies ranging from the world of fine dining to fast food chains to corporations such as Google and Pixar, Rebel Talent encourages all of us to rebel against what’s comfortable, so that we can thrive.
Francesca Gino
Francesca Gino is an award-winning researcher and teacher, and a tenured professor at Harvard Business School. Her consulting and speaking clients include Bacardi, Akamai, Disney, Goldman Sachs, Honeywell, Novartis, P&G, and the U.S. Air Force, Army, and Navy. She has been honored as one of the world’s Top 40 Business Professors under 40 and one of the world’s 50 most influential management thinkers. Her work has been featured on CNN and NPR, as well as in the Economist, Financial Times, New York Times, Newsweek, Scientific American, and Psychology Today.
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Reviews for Rebel Talent
44 ratings5 reviews
- Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Easily digestible, bite size pieces, of hand picked history placed throughout the book highlight the points made in Rebel Talent.
Well written, thought out, and researched creating an easy to read, understand and quite enjoyable literary piece.
Recommended to read with a pen and a pad of paper at the ready. Littered with thought after thought, coating your mind with small and big ideas alike that require a place to blossom.
Key take aways:
- Expectations can influence results- the placebo effect and how to use expectations to influence your own behavior to create better outcomes.
- Conflict can lead to growth.
- Having a safe place to have real feelings has an effect on your authenticity and coping skills
Interesting topics:
- Why we must fight the urge to stereotype and why we do it to begin with.
- How improv can have an impact on your work.
- How experience can distort our responses and how to combat it while retaining our wisdom.
Highly recommended for anyone who would like to improve their life from the inside out.2 people found this helpful
- Rating: 2 out of 5 stars2/5I found the book contained way too much minutiae on recipes and restaurants. It dragged on and on - where it could have made the point in a more concise way.
- Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5My manager gave me a free copy of this book because the author's recent talk was very inspiring.I initially categorized the book as any other self-help genre available on the market, however as I read it, I quickly learnt I was wrong. The author used several experiences and examples of how fruitful it can be to question the norm in organizations. It was a quick and easy read. I shared my copy with others who might find it an interesting read as well!
- Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5I started this book because I had heard the author being interviewed on The Hidden Brain program on NPR. The topic seemed interesting and she told a great story.As it is, I am not unhappy about buying the book, nor am I unhappy reading it. Francesca Gino is a great story teller, she is able to extract the lessons she wanted from the stories and her descriptions of the stories are excellent. Her firsthand stories of her teaching business executives at Harvard, her and her husbands venture in to the world of improv comedy, and most interestingly, her apprenticeship at the Osteria Francescana with Chef Massimo Bottura captured my full attention. In fact, it is her continuous reference back to the chef and the restaurant that kept me interested. Her stories throughout the book, whether it is her tour of the Pixar facilities and the retelling of “Sully” Sullenberger story were well done and she is a very capable yarn spinner, and she is quite adept at focusing the stories into her main points about being a rebel in the button down world of today’s business.The book is split into eight chapters and she lays out the landscape of what being a rebel means in today’s world. The main points that she emphasizes: having an eye for the new and the novel, having a different perspective that is well considered and consciously rational, the importance of diversity, being authentic in your actions, and being actively engaged, are actually gospel in today’s church of the innovative management. I don’t think anyone would argue with her conclusions.That is precisely the problem: the points that she attributes to the qualities of a rebel has been covered ad nauseum in other business books. It seems that every important point she brings up are familiar to me. It means that either I have read too many of these kinds of books or she is treading old ground. It is probably a combination of both, but I was actually a bit disappointed that there is not more substance to the secret of being the rebel.Having said that, it must be pointed out that the title is still apt: the status quo in American business is still at a point where all the points that the writer made are not the norm, that senior management are clinging to their old ways by reflex and familiarity. The behavior that she is promoting can indeed be seen rebellious. It is just that all this has been said before. If this book does play a role as catalyst in changing the status quo of American business and management. Then I am all for it.In the end, I enjoyed the read, the author has a nice style, and when she talks about Osteria Francescana, I am fully riveted, because that is a world that I am unfamiliar, and I learned. I just wish that she had more original points to make.
- Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Based on the book’s title, one might expect to read about reckless revolutionaries who disregard any rules and despise all conventions. Francesca Gino’s perception of rebels is different. Some of the people she portrays as examples of rebels are humble, nurturing individuals. Gino’s focus is more on the inner constraints that rebels overcome to produce original outcomes; such constraints as assumptions, beliefs, biases, and habits. Before one can challenge outer norms, one must be able to confront internal constraints. Gino’s writing style is clear and engaging. Her portraits of rebels draw the reader in and illustrate the characteristics of individuals who dare to be different and initiate innovation. She then supports her points with references to her own research and that of other scholars. This is a book to be read by anyone wanting to live beyond the norm in any arena of life.