Biography

In a world awash in profound change and at a time when everything is on the table, Polly LaBarre helps leaders make sense of and creatively respond to the forces buffeting their organizations.  A bestselling author, speaker, and thinker who’s advised top global organizations, Polly’s mission for the past 20 years has been to make every kind of organization fundamentally more resilient, innovative and inspiring. Her insights embolden and equip leaders at every level to make a meaningful impact. Polly is an inspiring and provocative voice on the big ideas and important questions that will shape the future of organizations, work, and collective progress.

Polly’s work is driven by three core questions: 1) How do we support human flourishing? 2) How do we cultivate the audacity of imagination required to tackle our most intractable problems? 3) And, how do organizations and individuals change how they change to become endlessly resilient?

To make genuine progress on those questions, Polly studies and works with progressive organizations, creates curriculum, and runs experiments for unleashing creativity, expanding collaboration, and accelerating change.

As cofounder of the Management Lab (with Gary Hamel and Michele Zanini), Polly spent the last decade working to develop a methodology, platform and practical tools for building organizational capability and accelerating change. Polly and her colleagues deployed that pioneering approach to collaborative innovation in a range of large-scale experiments in “hacking management” inside leading companies and across a global community of some 35,000 management innovators.

Polly is the coauthor of the bestselling book Mavericks at Work: Why the Most Original Minds in Business Win (which The Economistnamed a “Book of the Year” and called “a pivotal work in the tradition of In Search of Excellence and Good to Great”). She was a member of the original team of Fast Company magazine, where she played a central role in the remarkable success of a magazine that recast the conventional wisdom on working, leading, and winning.

A sought-after speaker, moderator, and interviewer, Polly has delivered hundreds of keynote addresses around the world and developed and hosted numerous events. Her writing has appeared in a variety of publications, including Fast Company, The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, Harvard Business Review, Fortune.com, the McKinsey Quarterly, and The Huffington Post. In addition to frequent television appearances on CNBC, PBS’s Nightly Business Report, Good Morning America, and the Today Show, Polly has also been a business and innovation correspondent for CNN where she produced regular segments on big ideas and best practices from the world of business and beyond.

Polly is a passionate (and experimental) gardener, an ardent cook, and a devoted yogi. She serves on the board of CitySeed, a nonprofit working to build a just and healthy food system and economic opportunity in New Haven, CT. A graduate of Yale University, Polly lives with her family in New Haven.

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She was spot on. Did exactly what we needed. I love that woman!
– Ontario Municipal Employee Retirement System (OMERS)
Polly hit it out of the park. She was warm and well received. Attendees loved how she kept the concepts simple and digestible. We loved having her.
– Senior Director, HireVue
She is truly gifted in making connections and keeping all engaged.
– – Business Specialist, Baldrige Performance Excellence Program
Polly was the perfect addition to our conference. Her keynote was the ideal complement to those that both preceded and followed her. She was very approachable, engaging and a true pleasure to work with – both for the accompanying speakers and the technical and production teams. The rave reviews continue to roll in.
– Regional Vice President Marketing, INFOR
Many thanks for the session you ran for us on Friday. As you could tell – it was energizing and fun and I really think it helped to move the ball forward for us. Not only did it surface some great ideas we can adopt immediately but we learned how to hack problems and opportunities which I hope will become part of our DNA!
– Sarah Dunn, Global Human Resource Officer, COACH

Booksby Polly LaBarre

Mavericks at Work

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