Toy Box Leadership: Leadership Lessons from the Toys You Loved As a Child

by Ron Hunter Jr., Michael E. Waddell

Reach back into your childhood and recapture the leadership principles you learned from your favorite toys. What can LEGOS teach you about building your business through connection? How can Slinky Dog demonstrate the value of patience when you're growing your organization? What has every little boy learned from his Little Green Army Men that he can use in business strategy? Whether you are an executive, a manager, or a parent, in Toy Box Leadership you will find the toy box a great place for lessons to successfully influence and lead others.

Genres: Leadership, Business, Nonfiction, Professional Development, Collections

194 pages, Hardcover

First published July 15, 2008

Reviews

[Ramu Vairavan · Rating 4 out of 5]

The toy-takeaway pairings were clever and interesting. Now I am bound to be reminded of what principles each toy embodies whenever I see it. It would make a fun exercise to see what more analogies we can dream up for other classic toys not included here.

I thought the first few toys were wholesomely analysed. Lessons exemplifying different facets of these toys were drawn out, and these connections were fitting and memorable.

For the final few toys however, it appeared the authors expanded on philosophies not directly relevant to the features of the toys. Perhaps, the later chapters could have been distilled further to retain what was most apt.

[Kelly King]

Simple but profound.

[Beck Frost · Rating 2 out of 5]

I read this book as a recommendation from someone I know. And I must start out by saying that this book reads like someone's dream after watching Toy Story and they wanted to ride on that bandwagon with trying to give some cutesy, but terrible TED TALK on this subject. Seriously, this book reads like a horrible TED TALK written by a high school senior on the subject of "Leadership."

First off, it is dated. I mean it is stagnated to 2008. When the author talks about Blockbuster like it will rally and come back....uh, no.

Let me sum up all the chapters for you: COMMUNICATION.

Chapter one - placing people to communicate with others.
Chapter two - communicate to your team and lead by example.
Chapter three - communicate and mentor.
And on and on and on.
Chapter on Lite-Brite - "Communication is not about you, but your audience."

And I can tell you how this book does not teach anyone how to communicate, it seems to just rattle off one quote after another to prove some point that I just don't know what it is! There are chapters that have one to two quotes PER PAGE. And something else I noticed, they are all MEN. I could not find a communication/leadership quote in the book that was spoken by a single female.

Then there were the parts that were just plain bad for me:
Page 48, the author is talking about Pat Williams and then suddenly says, "One thing Ron knows..." Um, who is Ron? Wait, did the author honestly just talk about himself SUDDENLY in third person?
Page 52, "Needless to say" - but you are going to say it anyway aren't you?
Page 103 - a whole poem as a quote - can you say major page filler? So high school...would never get away with that in college writing!
Page 41 - "On opposite extremes, you can take a trip to most any correctional facility and find story after story of blaming others. Blame usually means that people have allowed negative influences or influencers to mold their bad decisions." - Can I please see some scientific data on this or at the bare minimum how many people in correctional facilities the author personally poled for this.

Instead the Notes section is just a list of all the other books mentioned in this book.

The only constructive thing the author seems to give in the whole book is that if you can get five minutes with someone that is a good leader, have questions ready to ask them. But, the author doesn't tell you what would be in the ballpark of good questions, nor does he tell you what were good questions asked of him.

Page 160 - "After growing up, many people would still want to see their name in lights, but successful leaders would rather see their message." Could we have taken a moment to find out how to craft a message as a leader?

And on my parting - Page 48 "Reading books mentors a person in very specific ways. You can gain experiences from people you may never have the chance to meet." Or, you can skip the experiences and just quote the HECK OUT OF THEM!

[Heather · Rating 3 out of 5]

As most other reviewers said, every paragraph is just a quote from another book he read. The author defines for us words like "latrine" (bathroom). He cited know your audience, yet defines the simplest words and concepts as if to a 4 year old. This book has a nice idea, but as others have said, the writing would not have passed any college class I took. It was like reading an outline, with an outline it it, with an outline it, with an outline in it......To Infinity and Beyond.

[Melissa · Rating 3 out of 5]

A fun way to look a leadership using childhood toys as metaphors. Some of the metaphors were a bit of a stretch. A few of the toy choices are a bit outdated and may not be recognized immediately by the younger generation. A quick read with some good ideas.

[Todd Mckeever · Rating 5 out of 5]

I truly enjoyed this book even as short as it was. Great book that made a connection to me as it used toys I was familiar with and inspired me to use it as a springboard to create my own lessons of toys and leadership lessons.

[Efumarola]

I love the analogies they draw. It really helps me mentally visualize and relate these skills back to people

[TRACI McClure · Rating 5 out of 5]

A great book!

Shared this book with an alliance of mine.

Use your toys, Share your toys and put your toys away :)

[Andrea]

Random and fun!

[Erin · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book is great for use with student leaders. It teaches 10 important lessons that people can learn from different childhood toys.

[James Williams · Rating 5 out of 5]

Very fun read that made learning leadership fun and exciting!

[Julia Faustman · Rating 4 out of 5]

The authors’ use of toys as metaphors for leadership principles is both creative and effective. Very clever!

[Riley Mills · Rating 2 out of 5]

I liked the way ideas were described through different toys. Some of the information feels repetitive and gets to where you dont want to continue because it has all been said earlier on.

[Rebecca Brooks · Rating 4 out of 5]

Of the leadership books I have read, this one was just fun!

[Kelly Armes · Rating 5 out of 5]

Love how toys were used for such clear and relatable examples of situations for work!