In Orbiting the Giant Hairball, Gordon MacKenzie writes about his experiences working for Hallmark in the land of OZ.  Hallmark, as you may know, was started by J.C. Hall who was from Norfolk, Nebraska.  He jumped on a train headed to Kansas City and built the “largest social expression company in the world.”  

MacKenzie was hired on as a Creator for the company, and during a staff meeting, the director for the Creative Division made the remark that the company was “…a giant hairball.”

What’s a corporate hairball you ask?  MacKenzie writes “Well, two hairs unite.  Then they’re joined by another.  And another.  And another.  Before long, where there was once nothing, this tangled, impenetrable mass had begun to form.”  

In the corporate world, or bureaucracy, strands of hairs represent business decisions made, procedures created, and policies enforced.  All which weave an intricate pattern of effective behavior – behavior that is predicated on the company’s failures and success.  They become “accepted models, patterns, or standards for the corporate mind set.”

MacKenzie uses stories and examples to provided readers with engaging yet helpful tips/ideas/strategies on how to Orbit outside of the hairball.  

He writes that the hairball, in its own gravitational pull, sucks us into buying into the ideas of precedence, establish guidelines, techniques methodologies, and systems, and that to orbit around the hairball was striking the balance of your own creativity and originality, while still being effective in the mission of the organization.  

“Orbiting is responsible creativity: vigorously exploring and operating beyond the Hairball of the corporate mind set, beyond accepted models, patterns, or standards – all the while remaining connected to the spirit of the corporate mission.”   

One of the more valuable lessons from the book was that you can be successful in an organization by following “the pallid path or corporate appropriateness” – which is the same in local government.  However, you can be of “optimum value” to the mission by investing enough individuality to counteract the pull of the hairball.  

Your originality, creativeness, INNOVATIVE ideas is what an organization needs injected into it.  

Here are a few great MacKenzie quotes…

“It is a common history of enterprises to begin in a state of naïve groping, stumble onto success, milk the success with a vengeance and, in the process, generate systems that arrogantly turn away from the source of their original success: groping.  If an organization is to choose vigor over an ultimate state of inert uniformity, it must honor and support both the rational exploitation of success and the non-rational art of groping.”

“Many of us choose security over freedom to such an extreme that we confine ourselves and profoundly limit our experiences of life.  I might surrender to a craving to be secure by electing to live out my life in a closet.  On the other hand, what if I had a passion for unbridled freedom and the high excitement of living fully?  …oh freedom! Elusive freedom!  Where might I find your thrill?  To squat like a bird unfettered by the brutal bonds of earth.

“If you go to your grave without painting your masterpiece, it will not get painted.  No one else can paint it.  Only You!”

Ambassadors Give Their Thoughts on Orbiting the Giant Hairball

Randall Reid, County Manager, Alachua County, FL

I like to use stories and metaphors to conevy messages and the subtle meaning to my staff.   While the Mackenzie book is complete with many stories, the one that resonnated with me and I anticipate using in the future related to the visual image of the water skier.  

In Chapter Twenty-two,  Dynamic Following, MacKenzie writes, “If we were to think of waterskiing as a metaphor for leading and following, the person at the wheel, in the boat, dry, would represent the leaders.  And the skier in the water, wet, would be the follower.”

MacKenzie goes on to say that,” Wherever the leaders goes, the follower goes.  If, for reasons unknown to the follower, the leader decides to steer the boat through and area where a cluster of reeds are growing up out of the water, about three feet tall, the reaction of the follower might be:

    “Why are we goin’ over there?

     This is gonna hurt.

    And it’s gonna hurt me, not you!”

MacKenzie goes on to describe the options the waterskier has.  1.) Let go of the towline and become an entrepreneur, or 2.) Become a better waterskier, ski beyond the wake of the boat.  Either option according to Mackenzie is a “point of legitimate following.”

The point in this is even as a follower, you can take the reigns and find a way to lead.  It is a powerful message that can be shared with staff to make sure they know even in changing times, you can take the lead for yourself.

Jonathan Lewis, Deputy City Manager, Palm Bay, FL

My favorite story from Orbiting the Giant Hairball is the subject for Chapter 8, No Access.  

While doing a presentation in San Diego, MacKenzie decided to enjoy the beauty of the California coast line and embarked on a trip to the Blacks Beach in La Jolla a favorite launching pad for hang gliders.

After about two minutes of watching the adventurers take flight, MacKenzie grew bored and felt a new challenge was in order.

He headed to the cliff’s edge where he was greeted by various signs warning of the danger of going over the cliff’s edge.  

MacKenzie writes, “Curious about just how dangerous the cliffs really were, I stepped over the chain link fence and walked over to the to brink to have a look.  Two hundred feet below me lay the beach.  Faint sounds of laughter beckoned me to join the small clusters of people playing in the sand at the ocean’s surging edge.”

“They got down there,” I thought.  
“I should be able to.”

MacKenzie goes on to tell his story.  “I scanned the face of the cliff.  Safe descent seemed reasonably achievable.  In a giddy sense of adventure, inspired perhaps by the daring hang gliders I had admired just minutes before, I began the climb down.”

As MacKenzie embarked on an adventure that could inevitably cost him his life, the challenge grew more difficult.  As the climb grew substantially more demanding, rather than stop and ask for help he continued to attempt to go it alone.

About 70 or 80 feet into his descent, MacKenzie faced with fewer choices for safely navigating his way down the mountain, he reached the edge of a drop-off.  As he bagan to contemplate his choices, he seriously considered going for it.  To his good fortune, an onlooker spotted him wedged into a trough and called for help.

After about 40 minutes of pondering the essence of his life, MacKenzie was rescued.

The takeaway for me in this is in the way MacKenzie closes the chapter.   “Ah! Courage, courage, courage.  Courage to cross boundaires.  Courage to admit idiocy.  Courage to acknowledge impasse.  Courage to be opened up to being rescued.  We need much courage if we are to respond successfully to consequences of exploring beyong authorities’ sometimes beneficial, sometimes-detrimental boundaires.  And, if we are to grow, explore we must.”

What are we doing to create organizational cultures that encourage exploration? How do show that it sometimes is an act of courage not cowardice to say, we tried it, and got it wrong or it did not work. Or the courgage staff needs to say, I need help, this is not working.”

I think how we express these ideas in our organization will ultimately encourage or crush innovation and creativity.