Orbiting the Giant Hairball: A Corporate Fool's Guide to Surviving With Grace

Rating:
Summary: Working Creatively and Effectively Inside the Corporation
Review: This book deserves more than five stars.

Although I have read many excellent books about nurturing creativity and working creatively in companies, this is the first book I have read where the author has been someone who has done that repeatedly and in a variety of ways. That perspective is uniquely valuable both to those who want to have more creative jobs and those who would like to encourage creativity.

Although the analogies seem far-fetched at first (orbiting the giant hairball means taking a creative tangent and refocusing it to have relevance for the company's purpose), they serve to open your mind to thinking differently about creativity and organizations.

Although the author's key points are not summarized anywhere in the book, you will begin to get a sense of how the ideas connect together. That's useful, because otherwise why should he try to teach us so much? Except in the chapter that deals with them, any of the key observations would have been enough for a whole book on the subject. The overall theme is that our minds are subject to being too quickly anesthetized, rather than stimulated to ground-breaking insights. You'll love the story about hypnotizing hens where he introduces that concept.

One of my favorite stories in the book described when the author was asked to create an introductory course on creativity. The first session was wildly successful. The author then analyzed why it worked and created a more organized version of this course (called Grope). That sesssion didn't work as well. Then he went back to being unstructured (operating at the edge of chaos), and the course worked again. He learned from this the delicate connection between groping and rote. You need more of the former and less of the latter.

Another of my favorite stories related to the joy he experienced when he first started parachuting. But within six months, it was getting to be boring. He could only make it more exciting by taking the parachute off, but that would be suicide. On the other hand, if he never tried something new, he would be vegatating. So we want to stay somewhere between suicide and vegetation for the most effective results.

You will enjoy reading this book because it presents a fresh perspective that will stay with you. The successful point of entry is a story about children. When the author shows children about making sculpture from sheets of steel, he asks them if they are creative. All first graders raise their hands. By sixth grade, no one will say that they are creative. The pressure to be like everyone else makes the creative people want to hide. It just gets worse from there. Everyone who reads that story will remember experiences from childhood where their creativity was actively discouraged by teachers, parents, neighbors and classmates. Such a pity!

Each story is imaginatively illustrated to help you get a sense of a different reality. It also makes the material more accessible to people of all ages.

In addition to reading and changing your own behavior, this book should be shared with young people to reinforce the idea that it is desirable to be creative. This would be a good book to discuss with your coworkers, as well.

Rating:
Summary: Being Effectively Creative Inside the Company
Review: Orbiting the Giant Hairball deserves more than five stars for the potential benefits it brings to all who read and apply it.

Although I have read many excellent books about nurturing creativity and working creatively in companies, this is the first book I have read where the author has been someone who has done that repeatedly and in a variety of ways. That perspective is uniquely valuable both to those who want to have more creative jobs and those who would like to encourage creativity.

Although the analogies seem far-fetched at first (orbiting the giant hairball means taking a creative tangent and refocusing it to have relevance for the company's purpose), they serve to open your mind to thinking differently about creativity and organizations.

Although the author's key points are not summarized anywhere in the book, you will begin to get a sense of how the ideas connect together. That's useful, because otherwise why should he try to teach us so much? Except in the chapter that deals with them, any of the key observations would have been enough for a whole book on the subject. The overall theme is that our minds are subject to being too quickly anesthetized, rather than stimulated to ground-breaking insights. You'll love the story about hypnotizing hens where he introduces that concept.

One of my favorite stories in the book described when the author was asked to create an introductory course on creativity. The first session was wildly successful. The author then analyzed why it worked and created a more organized version of this course (called Grope). That sesssion didn't work as well. Then he went back to being unstructured (operating at the edge of chaos), and the course worked again. He learned from this the delicate connection between groping and rote. You need more of the former and less of the latter.

Another of my favorite stories related to the joy he experienced when he first started parachuting. But within six months, it was getting to be boring. He could only make it more exciting by taking the parachute off, but that would be suicide. On the other hand, if he never tried something new, he would be vegatating. So we want to stay somewhere between suicide and vegetation for the most effective results.

You will enjoy reading this book because it presents a fresh perspective that will stay with you. The successful point of entry is a story about children. When the author shows children about making sculpture from sheets of steel, he asks them if they are creative. All first graders raise their hands. By sixth grade, no one will say that they are creative. The pressure to be like everyone else makes the creative people want to hide. It just gets worse from there. Everyone who reads that story will remember experiences from childhood where their creativity was actively discouraged by teachers, parents, neighbors and classmates. Such a pity!

Each story is imaginatively illustrated to help you get a sense of a different reality. It also makes the material more accessible to people of all ages.

In addition to reading and changing your own behavior, this book should be shared with young people to reinforce the idea that it is desirable to be creative. This would be a good book to discuss with your coworkers, as well.

May you always find the creative solutions!

Rating:
Summary: Not sure why people like it
Review: I am a librarian. We have this book in our collection only because it was given to us for free. Its irreverant and non-standard style makes it nearly impossible to read. I don't know how anyone could give it five stars.

Rating:
Summary: An outstanding gem - for corporate fools (and everyone else)
Review: Gordon MacKenzie's "Orbiting The Giant Hairball" is a wonderful book for anyone looking to bring more creativity into his or her life or job. First of all, aesthetically this is one of the most beautiful books I own. Gordon tapped his own creative genius and turned out something that in addition to being filled with quality content is a work of art. Secondly, Gordon lived the role of "corporate fool," at Hallmark where he was able to use his wonderful creative spirit to stimulate creativity. He walked the talk and in this book shares that experience.

As someone who speaks extensively on creativity and is the author of "Aha!-10 Ways To Free Your Creative Spirit and Find Your Great Ideas," I have read many books on the subject of creativity. Gordon's is unique and special. It is a joy to read, and guaranteed to provide any reader with a fresh perspective on their creative challenges. It is sad that Gordon passed away not to long ago. He was a gift to everyone he crossed paths with, and we are fortunate that he left this legacy so that he will continue to cross paths with many more in the future.

Click buy...you will not be disappointed.

Rating:
Summary: A unique spirit
Review: This week I was pulled back to Gordon's book and his message, seven years after first meeting him and reading his book. Gordon spoke at our annual conference in 1997 and I can only say that we all fell in love with him.

If you're looking for a 10-steps to a better whatever, this is probably not a book you'll like. If you want to slow down a bit and get a glimpse into someone else's soul in a way that touches your own, this book is cool water on a warm day. Gordon approaches creativity as a way of being not a roadmap. His gentle stories illustrate his own lessons in a way we can all relate to and connect to our own lives.

Occasionally when I get too caught up in models and formulas and processes, I pull Gordon's book out and re-connect with the deeper flow of what this work of creativity is all about.

Gordon left us too soon but I am deeply grateful that he left this piece of himself with us.

Rating:
Summary: Great encouragement, brilliant drawings
Review: This book is my will o' the wisp. I'll notice it at the side of my desk just when I need to be reminded that one can be off-beat and yet live a productive corporate life.

Gordon MacKenzie worked at Hallmark Cards for thirty years in roles that seem to have been increasingly incomprehensible to his mainstream colleagues. He found a way to contribute to the company's success while still being a little "weird". He recounts his experiences in neatly turned inspirational anecdotes.

However, the charm of the book lies in its illustrations. The book - itself artfully designed to evoke a sketchbook - is filled with MacKenzie's energetic and seemingly childlike drawings. The illustrations make even just flipping through the book a pleasure, and draw you in to read his advice.

"Orbiting the Giant Hairball" was given to me by a group of colleagues. I'm still touched at their confidence that I might be able to orbit the hairball of corporate conformity rather than being sucked down its gravity well. If you, too, dream about being creative in your day job, you will enjoy this book.

If you are a verbal rather than a visual dreamer, you may prefer David Whyte's "The Heart Aroused: Poetry & the Preservation of the Soul." Whyte speaks to our need to be creative in our daily work, but he illustrates his insights with poetry rather than drawings. He also takes a somewhat darker view of creativity, recognizing that unruly and dangerous impulses are a necessary part of the joyfully creative soul that Gordon MacKenzie so vividly evokes.

6/01

Rating:
Summary: Profundity and Humor from a Creative Paradox.
Review: Not only have I read Gordon MacKenzie's "Orbiting the Giant Hairball: A Corporate Fool's Guide to Surviving with Grace", but I have also had the pleasure of interviewing the author for a newsletter piece and attending one of his workshops (better described as "performances").

The book is generally seen as "humor", even though book stores may display it in their business section. It could just as well be classified under "philosophy", however. Its message is a mix of the funny and the profound, examplified by the last chapter: "Paint Me A Masterpiece", which starts with God dispensing you at birth with a canvas rolled under your arm and the request to "paint a masterpiece for me", and ends with the writer's reflections on his now-abandoned doubts about his own talent, his current use of the wider brush, the Cadmium Yellow, Alizarin Crimson and Ultramarine Blue, and this reminder to you: "If you go to your grave without painting your masterpiece, it will not get painted. No one else can paint it. Only you."

The book is a written form of the workshops Gordon MacKenzie has been teaching since 1991. Workshops on maintaining creativity within bureaucratic environments. If Corporate America is to be the place that beckons us each day, that we long to go to every morning and leave fulfilled every afternoon, it had better get a grip on its hairballs, discard them and let its work places be filled with the creativity Gordon MacKenzie encourages us to reclaim.

Rating:
Summary: Amusing, but not helpful
Review: I was really disappointed after reading this book - I should have paid more attention to the negative comments.

Any book that bills itself as a "guide to surviving with grace" should have actual advice for how to do it. "Hairball" adoringly recaps the author's career path with little practical advice on how to replicate any of his success. (Unless I want to work in dim lighting and pretend to be a mysterious.)

Like "Who Moved My Cheese?" this book dumbs down any good lessons it could make. And like WMMC, it had my teeth on edge by the end. The illustrated stories started out as whimsical and amusing, but became irritating after the 50th messy, run-on sentence-filled, stream-of-consciousness page.

If you want to learn why Gordon was the man at Hallmark, this is the book for you. If you want to learn how to survive with grace in your own corporate hairball, sorry - you're out of luck.

Rating:
Summary: A waste of time
Review: This is my first time to write a review on Amazon, after buying books for years based on reader's reviews. This book is more like an haphazard biography of the author, especially what he has achieved and how successfull he has been. But this is not a guide in any sense, because it doesn't say anything about how he achieved those success, and whether the approaches have any universal value.

I have great difficulty to understand buy what standards were those 5 stars given.

Rating:
Summary: successful orbit
Review: Gordon worked creatively at Hallmark for many years. He evolved within the corporate world into a position that held the title of "Creative Paradox". He opens his story with a poem by Rumi and then spreads his thoughts, experiences, doodles, etc. wonderfully across the pages that follow. Gordon was certainly creative. And life is a paradox. Put the two together and you get this delightful thought-provoking work of art. Read it and enjoy. You might wake up the urge to doodle outside the lines one day. It is your life. It is up to you what you do with it. Gordon may be just the person to help you.