Creativity is crucial to business success. But too often, even the most innovative organization quickly becomes a “giant hairball”–a tangled, impenetrable mass of rules, traditions, and systems, all based on what worked in the past–that exercises an inexorable pull into mediocrity. Gordon McKenzie worked at Hallmark Cards for thirty years, many of which he spent inspiring his colleagues to slip the bonds of Corporate Normalcy and rise to orbit–to a mode of dreaming, daring and doing above and beyond the rubber-stamp confines of the administrative mind-set. In his deeply funny book, exuberantly illustrated in full color, he shares the story of his own professional evolution, together with lessons on awakening and fostering creative genius.
Originally self-published and already a business “cult classic”, this personally empowering and entertaining look at the intersection between human creativity and the bottom line is now widely available to bookstores. It will be a must-read for any manager looking for new ways to invigorate employees, and any professional who wants to achieve his or her best, most self-expressive, most creative and fulfilling work.
Customer Reviews
How to become a Corporate Fool !:
What a delightful book! You have to read this - if you interested in fostering creativity within a corporation.
The author is Gordon McKenzie, who worked for Hallmark Cards (the main greeting card company here in the US) for 30 years. His last title at the company was ¡¥Creative Paradox¡¦.
The main point in his book is that corporations come into existence through the creativity of their founders, but subsequently start to become stratified and ossified because of the need to do things ¡¥that we know work¡¦, thereby discouraging creativity.
The bias against creativity does not just exist in large corporations. I particularly liked his story about asking school children in different grades how many thought they were artists. Invariably, the older the kids, they less hands would go up. They have been taught that they were not creative, or that being creative is not ¡¥normal¡¦.
The giant hairball is his analogy for the corporate body with all the rules and regulations, and his prescription is to know how to keep within the orbit of the corporation without being absorbed and suffocated into the main mass. Another useful analogy is how when water-skiing, you do not need to follow directly in the wake of the boat, but can at times move in an arc around the back of the boat, or even sometimes get ahead of the boat.
This is a small book full of gems! I highly recommend it.
Here is a quote I really like:
¡§If we do not let go, we make prisoners of ourselves¡¨
The book¡¦s subtitle is: ¡§A Corporate Fool¡¦s Guide to Surviving with Grace.¡¨ So, go ahead and read it. You too can become a Corporate Fool º.
Ignore How It Looks:
This book sat on my shelf for five years before I ran out of things to read and picked it up. Had I know then what I know now, I would have dropped everything and read it then and there. Mr. Mackenzie encourages individual thinking and creative looks at how things can be in a corporate culture, where dollars and cents are more important than pressing forward and being truly innovative. There is not a business where this sort of creativity cannot be applied.
Must Have for Designers:
As a professor in the field of graphic design, I’ve found this book useful and inspirational. It gives a great perspective on maintaining your creative integrity in a business environment. I recommend it to all my graduating students as they prepare for creative careers in the “real world”. It’s an easy read with delightful illustrations and loaded with relevant advice. I actually own more than one copy because I loan it out on a regular basis.
Entering Gordon’s Orbit:
While reading the reviews of this book, I felt a sense of fraternity. The vast majority of reviewers who could relate to and enjoy the book all said the things that I felt as I absorbed Gordon MacKenzie’s thoughts.
These ideas were first presented to me during one of Gordon’s workshops in the early ’90s. Our local Advertising Club invited him to our city to inspire those of us working on the creative side of the broadcast & print media. I recall the workshop being very entertaining, but the highlight was during the 10 minute break. That’s when I met Gordon… standing next to me at a urinal. I told I was enjoying his presentation. He laughed, hoping that I meant his presentation in the conference room rather than his presentation in the restroom. He even made light of it when the workshop resumed. The memory of that afternoon always puts a smile on my face.
My ultimate Hairball wouldn’t present itself until nearly a decade later. By then I was a manager. One day a business associate referred to the project at hand as a Hairball… it caught my attention immediatly and I soon learned that my associate had been at the same workshop a decade before. That night I searched for Gordon MacKenzie on the Internet… I found his book… and I learned, sadly, of his death.
Several more years have passed and the contents of this book now mean so much more to me than they did the first time I read it. Today I’m directing a rapidly expanding business within the confines of an old-school corporation. The orbit is far from stable, but my team of up-and-coming orbiters are doing their damnedest to keep us from getting sucked back into the Hairball. Thank you for the guide book, Gordon. Someday I hope to cross paths with you again.
A Poor Read:
I read this book on based on the comments of a friend, But found it to be loose and disjointed. The book, which is not long, is still too long for the message that it provides. I am sure the author is a creative and entertaining speaker that is caplable of stating the blinding obvious (any one that has worked in a large company can describe the situation at Halmark in their own firm) but he fails to acheive anything other than telling us how he carved out his own cave at Halmark (probably because he was very talented and adopted more of the culture than he admits). If he was truely as creative as he thinks he was he would have formed his own company and escaped the drag of Halmark. A better read for the serious person that wants to create something special would be “Good to Great” (which is a serious study of great organisations).
