Super Players: How the Best Transform their Career and Company with High-Impact Habits

5 Star Review

Click HERE to Purchase Your Copy Today!

Editorial Book Review:

By LD Clarke

Most employees think they’re doing great. Most companies disagree. That bracing gap is where Super Players begins, and it’s a premise that will land with uncomfortable familiarity for anyone who has ever wondered why certain colleagues seem to rise effortlessly while others plateau despite genuine effort. Verne Harnish and Kevin Daum argue that the difference rarely comes down to talent or credentials. It comes down to habits.

The book is built around twelve of them. Each chapter introduces a habit, grounds it in workplace stories that contrast ordinary performance with truly exceptional work, and closes with three concrete action steps readers can begin immediately. The approach is deliberate and it works. Rather than overwhelming readers with theory or burying insight under business-school jargon, Harnish and Daum keep things fast and specific. At 144 pages, the book respects your time in the same way the authors argue super players respect theirs.

What makes the framework feel fresh rather than recycled is its attention to alignment. The authors are less interested in helping readers become generically excellent than in helping them become indispensable within their particular company’s priorities. That distinction matters. A habit that earns admiration in one culture may go unnoticed in another, and Harnish and Daum are clear-eyed about the fact that understanding what your organization actually values is itself a skill, and a learnable one.

There is also a timely chapter on leading AI tools rather than merely using them, a distinction that speaks directly to the anxieties of the current moment. The super player, they suggest, is not someone who gets outpaced by technology but someone who stays one step ahead of it by staying curious and intentional.

Harnish brings the credibility of having built Scaling Up and having worked with entrepreneurs across the globe. Daum brings the storytelling instincts of someone who has written and spoken about business for decades. Together they make a readable, practical, and genuinely motivating case that becoming the person your company cannot do without is well within reach.

About the Author

Verne Harnish

Verne Harnish is founder of the world-renowned Entrepreneurs’ Organization (EO), with over 18,000 members worldwide, and chaired for fifteen years EO’s premiere CEO program held at MIT, a program in which he still teaches today. 

Founder and CEO of Scaling Up, a global executive education and coaching company with over 260 partners on six continents, Verne has spent the past four decades helping companies scaleup. 

He’s the author of the bestseller Mastering the Rockefeller Habits; authored The Greatest Business Decisions of All Times," for which Jim Collins wrote the foreword; and wrote Scaling Up (Rockefeller Habits 2.0) which has been translated into 26 languages and has won eight major international book awards including the prestigious International Book Award for Best General Business book. His latest books Scaling Up Compensation and 12 Habits of Valuable Employees rocketed to the #1 HR books on Amazon upon release.

Verne serves on several boards including vice chair of The Riordan Clinic; co-founder and chair of Geoversity; and board member of the social venture Million Dollar Women. A private investor in many scaleups, Verne enjoys piano, tennis, and magic as a card-carrying member of the International Brotherhood of Magicians.

About the Author

Kevin Daum

Kevin Daum is an author, marketer, speaker, and Inc. 500 entrepreneur whose innovative sales and marketing strategies have generated more than $1 billion in sales with a 95 percent pull through rate. Combining 25 years of experience in theatre, finance, and marketing, Kevin helps businesses and individuals communicate effectively, strengthen customer experiences, and achieve their goals.

A columnist for Inc.com and Smart Business Magazine, Kevin has authored several books, including Video Marketing For Dummies, ROAR! Get Heard in the Sales and Marketing Jungle, and Green$ense For the Home, which won the 2011 Outstanding Book of the Year award from the American Society of Journalists and Authors.

Kevin has founded multiple businesses, including Stratford Financial Services, an Inc. 500 company, and TAE International, which helps organizations deliver memorable customer experiences. He has also developed award-winning executive training programs across four continents and contributed to arts-based entrepreneurship education. A graduate of MIT's Entrepreneurial Executive Leadership program, Kevin lives in New York with his wife and continues to coach executives, consult with organizations, and explore the intersection of creativity, business, and leadership.