Dale Dauten

Dale Dauten – Life, Career, and Famous Quotes

A detailed biography of Dale Dauten, American businessman, author, columnist, and innovation strategist — exploring his life, ideas, influence, and memorable sayings.

Introduction

Dale Alan Dauten (born September 30, 1950) is an American business management thinker, syndicated columnist, author, consultant, and speaker who specializes in leadership, innovation, and organizational change. Over decades, he has built a reputation for incisive commentary on management, creative thinking, and the human side of business. His work—especially through his books and columns—invites readers to experiment, rethink traditional practices, and build environments where innovation can flourish.

In this article, we’ll trace Dauten’s life and career, examine his key contributions and philosophies, surface some of his notable quotes, and reflect on lessons his journey holds for leaders and professionals today.

Early Life and Education

Dale Dauten was born on September 30, 1950. Though detailed public records of his childhood are limited, his biographical statements and academic trajectory provide insight into his intellectual foundations.

He earned both his Bachelor’s degree and Master’s degree in Economics from Arizona State University in the early 1970s (BA in 1971, MA in 1972). organizational behavior at Stanford University’s Graduate School of Business. Straus Institute at Pepperdine University.

These academic credentials positioned Dauten to straddle both the analytical and human dimensions of business — economics, organizational dynamics, innovation, and conflict resolution.

Career and Achievements

Dauten’s professional life spans multiple roles: corporate, entrepreneurial, consulting, authorship, and media.

Early Career & Entrepreneurship

Before he became a public figure, Dauten worked in corporate and research roles. He served as a market research manager at firms such as Americo and Dial Corporation for several years. Research Resources, a marketing research consulting firm, which gained national recognition and counted major clients.

Consulting, Innovation & The Innovators’ Lab

Dauten is the President of Lumina Corporation and founder of The Innovators’ Lab®, a consulting and training initiative focused on stimulating idea-generation, innovation culture, and change within organizations. BrainTouring™) to help companies move from ideation to implementation.

Authorship & Writing

Dauten has authored several books focused on career development, leadership, innovation, and management. His titles include:

• The Max Strategy: How a Businessman Got Stuck at an Airport and Learned to Make His Career Take Off

• The Gifted Boss: How to Find, Create and Keep Great Employees

• (Great) Employees Only: How Gifted Bosses Hire and De-Hire Their Way to Success

• Better Than Perfect: How Gifted Bosses and Great Employees Can Lift the Performance of Those Around Them

• Experiments Never Fail (revised/expanded from The Max Strategy)

• The Laughing Warriors: How to Enjoy Killing the Status Quo

• Mandatory Greatness: The 12 Laws of Driving Exceptional Performance (co-written with J.T. O’Donnell)

Beyond books, Dauten is a syndicated columnist. He writes “The Corporate Curmudgeon” (a business/management column) and co-writes “JT & Dale Talk Jobs” (career and workplace column) with J.T. O’Donnell. King Features and appear in multiple newspapers across the U.S.

Mediation and Conflict Resolution

In addition to his writing and consulting, Dauten has participated in dispute resolution and mediation work. He volunteered in Arizona’s Attorney General mediation programs, working with justice courts and regulatory agencies. Agreement House in 2009, which provides mediation and conflict resolution for divorce and business disputes.

Historical & Contextual Significance

Dlaut en’s work emerges in a business era increasingly focused on agility, innovation, and human-centric leadership. As many traditional hierarchical models have shown their limitations, his themes—experimentation, creativity, managing change, and nurturing talent—are highly relevant in modern organizations.

While Dauten isn’t a household name globally, within leadership, innovation, consulting, and career development circles his influence is meaningful: his frameworks have been applied by companies seeking to break out of stagnation, re-energize teams, or upgrade their innovation mindset.

Legacy and Influence

Though still alive and active, Dauten’s legacy is underway through his writing, methodologies, and the people he has influenced.

• Thought leadership in innovation & management: His ideas about experimentation, idea generation, and the human side of business have influenced managers, consultants, and organizational change agents.

• Cross-disciplinary reach: Because his work spans writing, consultancy, speaking, and mediation, he touches multiple domains—career development, leadership, negotiation, team dynamics.

• International presence: His books have been translated and followed in places such as Japan, where The Max Strategy gained considerable interest.

• Legacy in organizations: Many companies he’s consulted with likely continue using tools or frameworks he introduced (e.g. BrainTouring, innovation metrics).

• Influence on newer voices: His columns and books serve as reference points for writers, coaches, and thought leaders in the domain of business transformation and talent management.

Personality, Approach & Strengths

Dale Dauten’s professional personality emerges as creative, contrarian (in a positive sense), practical, and humanistic.

• Experimentation mindset: One recurring theme in his work is that failure is not fatal and experimentation is essential. He argues that “Experiments Never Fail” in the sense that they teach insight.

• Human-centered leadership: Even in the realm of management and efficiency, Dauten emphasizes people: the gifted boss, culture, listening, creative potential.

• Bridging idea and implementation: He strives not only to generate ideas but to see them realized and sustained in organizations. Tools like BrainTouring reflect that bridging ambition.

• Communication & storytelling: His ability to write columns, tell stories, frame analogies and provoke reflection is central to his appeal.

• Pragmatism with aspiration: He doesn’t just laud lofty innovation; he often gives grounded, actionable suggestions (e.g. what to ask, how to experiment, how to hire/de-hire).

Famous Quotes by Dale Dauten

Below are several notable quotes that reflect Dauten’s worldview, approach to business, creativity, leadership, and life:

“A meeting moves at the pace of the slowest mind in the room. (In other words, all but one participant will be bored, all but one mind underused.)”

“Just because we increase the speed of information doesn’t mean we can increase the speed of decisions. Pondering, reflecting and ruminating are undervalued skills in our culture.”

“Success is an act of exploration. That means the first thing you have to find is the unknown. Learning is searching; anything else is just waiting.”

“Bureaucracy gives birth to itself and then expects maternity benefits.”

“If you want to be creative in your company, your career, your life, all it takes is one easy step … the extra one. When you encounter a familiar plan, you just ask one question: ‘What ELSE could we do?’”

“Nine-tenths of wisdom is appreciation. Go find someone’s hand and squeeze it, while there’s still time.”

“The company calls it ‘downsizing’ or ‘rightsizing’ … My own informal ‘Name the Layoff’ contest produced some other euphemisms … Resume Revision Days, Corporation Lite …”

“The biggest risk is not taking any risk. In a world that’s changing quickly, the only strategy that is guaranteed to fail is not taking risks.”

These quotes illustrate key threads in Dauten’s philosophy: valuing reflection over haste, pushing boundaries, reframing organizational language, and cherishing human connection.

Lessons from Dale Dauten

Dale Dauten’s life and work offer several lessons for professionals, leaders, and organizations:

1. Embrace experimentation as a mindset.
Rather than seeing failure as fatal, Dauten encourages treating each experiment—successful or not—as feedback and learning.

2. Value reflection and slowness.
In an age of information overload and speed, slowing down thinking, pondering deeply, and resisting rash decisions are strategic advantages.

3. Ask the “extra question.”
When things look settled or conventional, ask “What ELSE could we do?” That simple inquiry can break inertia and catalyze innovation.

4. Leadership is about enabling gifts.
His notion of the “gifted boss” means finding, enabling, supporting, and sometimes gracefully removing people based on their capabilities and alignment — leadership is not just managing tasks, but stewarding talent.

5. Bridge ideas to execution.
Creativity isn’t enough; one must build systems, metrics, culture, and infrastructure so that ideas survive beyond the brainstorming session.

6. Speak and write to connect.
Dauten’s reach is amplified by his clarity, wit, storytelling, and ability to distill insight into accessible language. Influence often travels on words.

7. Human touch is essential.
Even in strategic or innovation contexts, Dauten underscores the importance of relationships, empathy, appreciation, and noticing others.

Conclusion

Dale Dauten exemplifies that the life of a modern business thinker is not confined to a single role — he combines consultancy, writing, speaking, mediation, and innovation work. His contributions lie in blending analytic rigor, creativity, and humane leadership in environments where change is the constant.

His books, columns, and methodologies continue to challenge leaders and teams to experiment, rethink the status quo, and find better ways of doing work — not just for profit, but for meaning, growth, and positive impact.