Fools

1'
<r
'c.
Ti?ilfi/^
(Orbiting The Giant Hairball)

A Corporate Fools Guide to Surviving with Grace
Grordon MacKenzie
5-21-18
Digitized by the Internet Archive

in
2010
http://www.archive.org/details/orbitinggianthaiOOmack
"
Wean Yourself
Little
This
by
little,
wean
yourself.
the gist of what
is
have to
say.
From an embryo, whose nourishment comes

move to an infant drinking milk,
to a child on solid food,
in the blood,
to a searcher after wisdom,

to a hunter of more invisible
Think how
You might
There are
it is
have a conversation with an embryo.
"The world outside is vast and

wheatfields and mountain passes,
say,
and orchards
At night
to
game.
in
intricate.
bloom.
there are millions of galaxies,
and
in sunlight
the beauty of friends dancing at a wedding."
You ask the embryo why he, or
she, stays
cooped up
in the dark with eyes closed.
Listen to the answer
There
I
only
is
no "other world.
know what Vve
You must be
experienced.
halluciiuiting.
- Rumi
SN57
If
^
J>
@
Orbiting The Giant Hairball
:<?'-
A Corporate Fool's Guide to Surviving with Grace
Gordon MacZenzie
1^
%
^
VIKING
Published by the Penguin
Penguin Putnam
New
York,
Inc.,
New
Group
375 Hudson Street,
York 10014. U.S.A.
Penguin Books Ltd, 27 Wrights Lane,
London
W8
5T2, England
Penguin Books Australia Ltd, Ringwood,

Victoria, Australia
Penguin Books Canada Ltd, 10 Alcorn Avenue,

Toronto, Ontario, Canada
M4V 3B2
Penguin Books (N.Z.) Ltd, 182-190 Wairau Road,
Auckland
10,
New
Zealand
Penguin Books Ltd, Registered Offices:
Harmondsworth, Middlesex, England

Published in 1998 by Viking Penguin,
a
member
of Penguin
Putnam
Inc.
9 10 8
Copyright
Gordon MacKeruie,
1996
All rights reserved
Grateful acknowledgment
is
made
for permission to use the following copyrighted material:
Page 3 Reprinted with the permission of Threshold Books,
RD 4
Box 600, Putney,
Rumi, translated by Coleman Barks with John Moyne. Copyright
VT 05346 from
The Essendal
1995 by Coleman Barks.
Page 47 Reprinted with the permission of Bantam Doubleday Dell Publishing from The Power of MytK by Joseph
Campbell with Bill Moyers. Copyright 1988 by Apostrophe S Productiot, Inc., and Alfred der Mark Editions.
Page 89 Reprinted with the permission of Simon

Gribben. Copyright
Page 101 Paws, Inc.
1985
Dist.
& Schuster from The Matter Myth, by Paul Davis and John
1992 by Orion Productions and John Gribbin.

by Universal Press Syndicate. Reprinted with permission.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Mackervzie, Gordon.
Orbiting the giant hairball
a corporate fool's guide to surviving

p.
Gordon MacKenzie.
Shawnee Mission, KS OpusPocus Pub., cl996.

ISBN 0-670-87983-5 (alk. paper)
MacKenzie, Gordon Notebooks, sketchbooks, etc. I. Title.
N6537.M3136A2 1998
Originally published:
1.
with grace
cm.
:
650.1îc21
97-52991
This book
is
printed
on
acid-free paper.
Printed in the United States of America
Set in
Goudy
Designed by Michelle Sonderegger
Without limiting the
may
rights
under copyright reserved
alx)ve,
no
part of this publication
be reprtxJuced, stored in or mtrtxiuced into a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any
form or by any means (electronic, mechanical, photiKopying, recording ot otherwise), without

the prior written permission of both the copyright t)wner and the above publisher of this book.
Laurie Rippon
who
heralded
this
tome -foolery
into Viking
before
zoommmmming off.
Thanks.
Chapter
One
Where Have All The Geniuses Gone?

Page 13
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
The Giant Hairball
Pink
Page 25
Buddha
Page 35
^
Chapter Four
Preparing For Lift-off
Page 43
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
A Chicken's Fate
Thou Shalt Not Have
Page 49
It
Easy
Page 55
Chapter Seven
What You
Don't See Is What You Get

Page 61
Chapter Eight
No Access
Chapter Nine
First There's Grope,
Page 67
Then There's Rote
Page 81
^=^ Chapter Ten
Containers Contain
Page 93
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Cage Dwellers
Introducing... Your Brain
Page 99
Page 107
Contents
o^
Chapter Thirteen
About Teasing
Page 115
Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fifteen
High-Tech Peaches
Page 125
Milk Cans Are Not Allowed

Page 131
Chapter Sixteen
The Power Of Paradox

Page 141
Chapter Eighteen
Chapter Seventeen
The Pyramid
Death Masks
& The Plum Tree
Page 161
Page 155
Chapter Nineteen
Orville Wright
Page 189
Chapter Twenty
Beyond Measure
Page 195
q>7y
Chapter Twenty -One

Conference Of Angels
Page 199
Chapter Twenty-Two
Dynamic Following
Page 207
Chapter Twenty-Three
Pool-Hall Dog
Page 213
Chapter Twenty-Four
Paint
Me A Masterpiece
Page 217
J>
Book Design
Michelle Sonderegger
Graffiti
Meg Cundiff
Paintings and Illustrations
Meg Cundiff (pages
14, 26, 82, 107,
160)
Susi Lulaki (pages 34, 54, 68. 198, 218)
Ann Wdloughby
Wendie
(pages 42. 98, 132)
Collins (pages 94, 114,212)
Gordon MacKenzie
Photography
Mike Regnier
Text
Gordon MacKenzie
(pages 62. 142, 154, 192)
Meg Cundiff (pcês
::
(pages 48, 208)
82, 83)
Chapter
One
\
'**-^-
m
r .^fai^'^
f^^f^tt^-
>'
Groaning under
passengers
overload of blacksmith equipment and steel
its
a menagerie of elephants, crocodiles, Stegosauri,
and sundry fantasy creatures

as
gentled
I
The
my
rusted- out pickup swayed ominousl;
into the school parking lot to a safe stop.
it
turned the ignition key to

truck
turtles
became
off.
The engine obeyed and went
still.
Made
One more
'"Whew.
'^^
-Ji'j
The
it.
time...
silent
Crow has'larSsaO J $
Eagle... Owl...
without calamity."
Some
Curious children began milling around the truck.
--<--_
noisily
reached up to touch the coarsely tethered animals while others, holding

back, watched
silently.
highlight of their day
The Hope
Perhaps a few realized that what was to be the
had
for Escape,
The
just arrived:
Diversion.
day at school.
I
loved
routine.
was
this! It
Not
The
Disruption.
however temporary, from the routine of another
what
is
was made
for:
disruption of
pointless disruption. Disruption with purpose. In this case
the purpose was to share with grade-school children the experience of
cold sheets of steel into animals that were touched
transforming
flat,
with enough
spirit
You got
and soul
as to
be almost
alive.
Sound
magic?
like
it.
Magic/
I
was here to show the children that the magic of creativity can
happen even
in the institutional
environment where formal learning
is
supposed to take place.

This was the same sort of disruption
institutional
had been creating
environment of Hallmark Cards,
originally hired
on
as a sketch artist.
Over
evolved into a self-styled corporate holy
Inc.,
where
the years,
man
in the
had
had gradually
but more of
that
later.
17.
Orbiting The Giant Hairbali
Sculpting in steel had already been a passion of mine for four or

five years
when
a colleague at
Hallmark asked whether
would be
interested in giving a demonstration of my craft to the students of the
grade school where his wife served as the cultural arts coordinator
(a.k.a. Picture Lady).
accepted the invitation and found
delightful experience that
made
visiting schools a part of
adventure for the next several years.
it
such a
my sculpting
A dozen times a year, I'd take a
day off from work to make magic with the children.

Arriving early in the morning,
room
or gymnasium.
one grade
level at a time,
As I was
putting
I'd set
on the
in the school's art
on my welding
floor in
and equipment arranged
visit
with
spending about 50 minutes with each.

goggles and scarred leather apron,
the teachers would herd the children

cross-legged
up shop
Most commonly, the schedule had me
at
in,
barking orders at them to
sit
rows facing the semicircle of sculptures
one end of the room.
"
''Quiet, children, quiet
"Chatter Chatter Chatter Chatter Chatter...

"Quiet. Joel. Cindy! Quiet.
"
Now!"
"whisper whisper whisper whisper whisper whisper"

"Robert.
Slililiiiliii!"
"Pom!"
18.
With the coming of silence, the children's faces took on a certain

had been attained, the teachers would
retire to the back of the room to lose themselves in grading papers,
solemnity. Satisfied that order
leaving me, for
all
practical purposes, alone with the children.
always
began with the same introduction:

"Hi! M)'
name
is
Gordon MacKenzie and, among other
am an artist.
things, I
There have
with
to be
have hanging
I'll
"Beautiful pictures.
at
So many
home when
beautiful pictures
them when
designs
got here
this
you
halls. I
morning.
They made me feel wonderful! Very

bright colors
and
saw them because
I first
cool shapes.
they
made me
are other artists here, besides me. I'm curious.
are there in the room?
The
and
your classrooms and up and down the
in
couldn't help but notice
energized.
bet there are other artists here, too.
all the
Would you please
I felt
more
realize there
How many artists
raise
your hands?"
pattern of responses never varied.
First grade:
En mass
waving
the children leapt from their chairs, arms
wildly,
eager hands trying to reach the ceiling.
Every child was an
artist.
Second grade:
About half the
no higher. The
kids raised their hands, shoulder high,

raised
hands were
still.
Third grade:
At
best, 10 kids
out of 30 would raise a hand.
Tentatively. Self-consciously.
19.
"
<^
And
on up through the grades. The higher the grade, the fewer

children raised their hands. By time I reached sixth grade, no more
guardedly
than one or two did so and then only ever- so- slightly
so
their eyes glancing
group
identified by the
1
from side to
would describe
side uneasily, betraying a fear of being
as a "closet artist."
to the sixth graders the different responses
received from the other grade levels.
"What's going on here! Are
and going
I'd ask:
all the artists
happening
sinister
is
that
of being an
artist,
transferring out
it
joke, the students
would
laugh.)
I'm afraid there's something
than that at work here.
think what's
tricked out of one of the
one of us receives at
birth.
That
is
the gift
a creative genius.
They could reclaim

but
it.
you are being
greatest gifts every
easy,
my little
don't think that's
much more
may not be
had
to art school?"
(Usually, in recognition of
"Uh'uh.
Then
their creative genius, I'd tell the students.

will
It
always remain doable. We'll get further into
that later on.
The
point
now
is:
Every school
I visited
in the suppression
was
participating
of creative genius.
Why?
Why would anyone

intentional.
It is
efforts to train children
20.
want
to suppress genius? Well,
not a plot. Genius
is
it is
an innocent casualty
away from natural-born
not
in society's
foolishness.
"
GEN;
Where Have all
There
is
a Fool
in
each of us, you kno'w._
^^ ^
A rash, brash, harebrained, audacious,

Ill-suited,
'^
"^
imprudent,
spontaneous, impolitic, daredevil Fool, which^

In most of us.
Was
If you
want
to see
long ago hog- tied and locked in the basement^
a full-fledged Fool
in action,
Watch an undisciplined child.

(The more undisciplined, the better!)
Oblivious to concepts of appropriate behavior.
Driven by rampant curiosity and innocent
lust.
Ra<w genius.
Resolutely stumbling into hurt
and wondrous
discovery.
Inspired, annoying,
Rapturous, petulant.
The
creative savage of our being.
Savages, Fools,
Do not a society
make.
So we tame
the
We
We
We
little
Yahoos.
teach them the meaning of the
word
"jio.
teach them the benefits of boundaries.

teach them the value of our learned lessons.
When our teachings fall short.

Our society begins to unravel,
And the quality of our culture declines.
So tame, we must.
But we have been slow
to learn
how
to
tame
the Fool
Without also interring
The FooVs
innate creativity
With
and inborn
the bath water, the
genius.
baby
is
cast out.
21.
The Diamond
Cartel,
as
is
aboveground
at
an
as
is
it
possibly can.
which
exists to
keep
as
many diamonds
necessary to maintain the market value of diamonds
underground
It
artificially
wishes
it
high
level,
operates with as low a profile
could be invisible, but,
alas, its
existence
known.
But! There
is
at least
we expose
Shall
To endure,
one
invisible cartel: the
Genius Cartel.
it?
a society needs a vision of what
it
means
to be normal:
a
nar'in&l, a. [L. nomidJis, norma,
to
carpenlcr's rule] 1: of or confonning
the accepted niodd. pattern or standard.
2:
not abnormaL
But creativity and genius have not so
normal
much
to
do with being
as with being original:
^rig'inal,
a. [L. originaiis.
origo, origin
or beginning] 1: having to do
with an
origin, source or beginning.
2: never
having existed before. 3: created
or
invented independent of alraidy
existing
ideas or works.
Our
creative genius
compulsion to evolve.
genius
is
unpredictable.
22.
It
about flying to
the danger of crashing.
is
the fountainhead of originality.
It fires
our
inspires us to challenge norms. Creative
new
It is
heights
on untested wings.
It is
about
amorphous, magical, unmeasurable and
Where
Threatened by
put a
of this, society appoints
all
cap on imaginative
As
old as civilization, the Genius Cartel
agency that permeates our

the fruits of his
own
its
clandestine cartel to
brilliance.
lives. It
an
is
originality- suppression
tyrannized Galileo into recanting
scientific genius. It
handed Socrates
cup of
hemlock, put a match to Joan of Arc, and fomented the crucifixion

of Christ.
Among its
collaborators, the cartel
numbers lawmakers, lawkeepers,
bureaucrats, clergy, teachers, parents, siblings, husbands, wives,

lovers, co-workers, bosses, friends,
Anyone who, having surrendered
acquaintances and total strangers.

to the status quo, has
become
averse to change.
From
cradle to grave, the pressure
is
on:
J^^BlJEHCSCI^
Those who somehow side-step that pressure and let their genius
show are customarily ridiculed, reviled or otherwise discountenanced.
Small wonder that by sixth grade, hardly anyone
will
admit to
creative genius.
But we need our genius to
bail ourselves
out of the messes we
continually get ourselves into. So, individually,

cartel, set aside
our herd longing
we must
override the
through sameness and
for security
seek the help of our natural genius. Yours and mine.
Having trouble with the idea of your own

there was a time
had
for
genius.^
My guess
is
that
perhaps when you were very young when you
at least a fleeting
some authority
notion of your
figure to
own genius and were just
come along and
validate
it
waiting
for you.
23.
But none ever came.
Of course
not.
It is
not the business of authority figures to validate
genius, because genius threatens authority.
But there
is still
hope. You are an adult now.
choose to become your

position to
when
own
authority figure.
redeem the creative genius
24.
adult,
you can
such, you will be in a
in
you that was put to sleep
is
the beginning of Orbit.
the Fool was being tamed.
Reviving the creative genius in you
As
As an
Chapter Two
The Giant Hairball
O'
"
"
H AIRBALL
''This
is
a giant
hairball.
So spoke George Parker in a meeting of his department heads and

senior managers. George was an advertising man who had left N.W.
Ayer in Chicago and come to Kansas City to play a roaring Peter the
Great to the Creative division of Hallmark Cards
moving on. The crude

very
own
little hairball
disgusting term!"
was a part of Mr. Parker's

image. Put
easily.
it
thought.
carefully
his
(A
certain roughneck flamboyance
groomed
style.)
rejected the
out of my head. But the metaphor was not to be dismissed
A couple of weeks later,
in neutral,
was driving down the
street,
my mind
when, quite suddenly, a thought popped up:
"Wait a minute! There's a time when there
where do
I
decade before
Creative division.
"What a
so
for a
comment was in reference to
hairballs
is
no
hairball.
So
v^
pondered a moment then reasoned:

"Well,
two
another
hairs unite.
And another
Then
-\HV tM
-^
come from?"
they're joined by another.
And
Before long, where there was once
nothing, this tangled, impenetrable
mass has begun
to
form.
George's words were finally getting through to me:
"The Creative Division

than
that...
is
a giant
hairball, "
thought. "More
Hallmark's a giant hairball!"
29.
HALLMARK THE HAIRBALL

As
the story goes:
On January 9,
1910, IS-year-old Joyce Clyde Hall
boarded a train in Norfolk, Nebraska, with a one-way ticket to Kansas

City, Missouri.
way
Upon
arriving at the old
YMCA,
to the local
Union
checked in and
order postcard business.
It is
set
said that
Station, Hall
his entire, initial
room
a modest beginning for an enterprise that
birth to
Hallmark Cards, the
his
about to establish a mail-
he stored
inventory under the bed in his 12-foot-by-12-foot
"Y"
made
at the
would give
largest social expression
company
in the world.
There was no greeting card industry to speak of way back

then so there were few precedents for young Hall's fledgling
1^
With scant trade precedents, he had to base many of

on common sense, intuition and creative instinct.
enterprise.
his decisions
Original thinking would have been mandatory.

said to himself
something
He may very well have
like:
"M> gut tells me it would be most effective if I did this

"
<way. And it would make sense to do that that way.
This and that, Hall's
first
two business decisions, were
this
also the
first
become Hallmark. For decades,

J.C. Hall and the thousands of Hallmarkers who have followed him
been making business decision after
quite appropriately
have
two
hairs of the hairball that
was
to
business decision, creating procedures and generating policies.
And
in so doing, they have been adding countless hairs to the Hairball.

Intricate patterns of effective behavior have grown around the lessons
of success and failure, creating a Gordian knot of Corporate Normalcy

(i.e.,
conformity with the "accepted model, pattern or standard" of the
corporate
mind
set).
This Corporate Normalcy

essence of Hallmark.
30.
And
is
Hallmark's success formula. This
the Hairball of Hallmark.
is
the
The Giant Hairball
new
Every
policy
is
another hair for the Hairball. Hairs are never
taken away, only added. Even frequent reorganizations have failed to
remove
hairs (people, sometimes; hairs, never).
each reorganization seems to add a whole new
Quite the contrary,
layer of hairs.
The
Hairball grows enormous.
With
the increase in the Hairball's mass
increase in the Hairball's gravity.

Gravity.
As
There
is
such a thing
as
Corporate
in the world of physics, so too in the corporate world:
gravitational pull a body exerts increases as the
And,
comes a corresponding
like physical gravity,
everything into the mass
it is
mass of that body
The
increases.
the nature of Corporate Gravity to suck
in this case, into the
mass of Corporate
Normalcy.
The
is
trouble with this
dedicated to past
is
that Corporate
realities
and past
Normalcy derives from and
successes.
There
no room
is
in
the Hairball of Corporate Normalcy for original thinking or primary

creativity.
Resynthesizing past successes
is
the habit of the Hairball.
^'^'-
worked
Like the
likes to
at
Hallmark
many other
boast that
it
for
30
artists
years.
and
To the
writers
to create for the
on the
payroll
Hallmark
has the largest creative staff in the world, which
has sometimes numbered as high as 600
was
day.
my
role,
my
assignment,
company.
Cri*ate', v.f.; created, pt. pp.; creating,
ppr. [L. creatus, crcare, to create,

make] 1: to bring into existence;
cause tg be; originate. 2: to give new
character, function or interpretation
to. 3: to cause; produce.
31.
So create I did. But during those 30 years, there was not a day
when I was not subject to the inexorable pull of Corporate Gravity
tug, tug, tugging me toward (and, during one unhappy year, right
into) the tangle of the Hairball,
where the ghosts of past successes
outvote original thinking.
To tap the
air
ability to create,
of the stratosphere
blue
you must
sky
spiritually soar into the thin
where
it is
possible "to bring into
existence" from nothing an original concept. Hairballs detest thin

like
air
A concrete world where precedents

a reality more to a Hairball's liking. A world honey-
nature abhors a vacuum.
take precedence
is
combed with the established guidelines, techniques, methodologies,

systems and equations that are the heart of a Hairball's gravity.
-o-eh
Many
They
a Hallmarker
are the ones
of the institution,
succumb
to the pull of this relendess gravity.
who, suspended in the grey sameness of the bowels

wonder:
"What year
(So
much
is
it?"
for the
energy of i/iar careers.)
Others, in their attempts to avoid the threatened limbo of the

Hairball, escape to other endeavors
often, ironically, to other
Hairballs.
Then
there are those few (some
actively engage the opportunities
still
there,
hear)
who manage
to
Hallmark presents without being
sucked into the Hairball of Hallmark. This
32.
is
accomplished by Orbiting.
The Giant Hairball
l^
Orbiting
is
responsible creativity: vigorously exploring
beyond the Hairball of the corporate mind

models, patterns, or standards"
all
set,
and operating
beyond "accepted
the while remaining connected to
the spirit of the corporate mission.
To
find Orbit
around
a corporate Hairball
is
to find a place
of balance where you benefit from the physical, intellectual and

philosophical resources of the organization without becoming
entombed
If
in the bureaucracy of the institution.
you are interested (and
it is
not for everyone), you can achieve
Orbit by finding the personal courage to be genuine and to take the

best course of action to get the job
pallid
done rather than following the
path of corporate appropriateness.
To be of optimum value
enough
not so
to the corporate endeavor,
you must invest
individuality to counteract the pull of Corporate Gravity, but
much
that you escape that pull altogether. Just
enough
to stay
out of the Hairball.
Through
this
measured assertion of your own uniqueness,
possible to establish a
dynamic relationship with the Hairball
Orbit around the institutional mass.

of the gravity in that
into the
But
it
becomes a
If you
do
this,
force that keeps
it is
you make an
you from
to
asset
flying
out
overwhelming nothingness of deep space.
if
Hairball,
you allow that same gravity

you
to suck
will find yourself in a different
made stagnant by a compulsion

The nothingness of the Hairball.
nothingness of a normalcy
past successes.
you into the bureaucratic
kind of nothingness.
The
to cling to
.G
33.
t^^^^
^^^:
^
i.t\.A+"^r>7(
Chapter Three
Pink
Buddha
Buddha
INK
When
first
joined Hallmark,
been hired by the
sketch
working to serve a whole
artists
liked that.
around
But
Much better
in the
knew nor cared about
neither
Hairballs. I'd
Editorial
department to be one of two

of writers and editors.
staff
Design department, which was right next door to
did not like the deference to conformity that
departments
came
than being one of the scores of artists milling
in contact with. After having
found in
worked
us.
all
for a
the
couple
of daily newspapers where a measure of eccentricity was celebrated,

the spirit of this world of corporate decorum,
new
to
me, seemed
incongruously anemic compared to the colorful, exciting products

we were working on. I was beginning to regret that I had even hired
on at "the Big Grey Place," as the corporation was referred to by some
of the
less
Then
artists,
reverent old-timers.
Wonderful
started hearing stories.
stories.
About kinky
oddball writers and bizarre behavior in a department that was
sequestered from the mainstream: Contemporary Design, Hallmark's

crazy aunt in the west wing.
The
scuttlebutt was that this department
was started back in the 1950s while
company
for
an extended period.
J.C. Hall
When Mr
was away from the
Hall returned, although
he disliked (some say hated) Contemporary Design's products, he saw

that they were selling extremely well.
So they were,
heretofore untapped desires of the buying public
adding to the health of Hallmark's bottom

businessman, "The Old
from the beginning,
its
line.
obviously, meeting
not
mention
Being a sensible
Man" allowed Contemporary
status
to
was that of a stepchild
to continue.
an
But
unruly, but
prodigiously productive stepchild.

I
wanted
of other
to
artists
work
there.
However,
it
and writers wanted
to
my way
in.
and-a-half years to finagle
was
work
a small group,
there, too.
It
and
took
a lot
me
two-
37-
^
Contemporary was everything
had heard and hoped. More, even.
There was a kind of a kindergarten chaos from which

McCloskey, the department
saleable product.
was
in
W Robert
director, orchestrated a sparkling flow of
awe of Mr. McCloskey,
he was addressed
as
with unintentional reverence by his unwitting followers. (Addressed as

Mr. McCloskey, but referred to as "Big Pink"
because of
his
imposing
physique and rubicund complexion.) In the guise of an administrator,
he lavished
spumed
invisible leadership
on
crew of zanies who would have
overt authority in a minute.
A superb diplomat who kept the
McCloskey presided over a

sense of mission and an enduring,
predators of the Big Grey Place at bay,
Mad
Hatter's tea party with a wily
customer- oriented vision.

I
was
would not have described
my
it
introduction to Hairballs and
the Hairball barreling along with
own
with these words back then, but
all
Orbiting.
this
Here was Hallmark
the success-fired
momentum of its
And, Orbiting around it

was Contemporary
responsible to, but not controlled by, the Hairball
Design. There was a beautiful balance in this Orbiting. McCloskey was
cultural imperatives (compulsions)
determined to run
he had to
satisfy
his
own
show. But he
knew
that to stay in business,
the ambitions and honor the ideals of J.C. Hall and
Hallmark proper. Fortunately, McCloskey 's
ideals
harmonized with
Hallmark's, but his passion for creating greeting cards that were
countercultural in tone lay outside Mr. Hall's comfort zone. To ease
Hall's discomfort,
McCloskey labored mightily
was continually and exceptionally
profitable.
to produce a line that
And
he spent countless
hours lobbying Hall and his courtiers on the value and values of
Contemporary's then-renegade product
Of course,
artists
and
line.
to create a renegade product line
writers.
would require renegade
McCloskey recruited them with
gleefiil genius.
/
/
/
58.
'^--^
Pink
Buddha
/
I
By definition, they
McCloskey's response was to draw on his uncanny
Renegades are
resist
being
led.
tricky people to deal with.
talent for leading-without-leading.
on tangents; that was
off
the
just fine
He
with him. Flying off on a tangent
step in the process of going into Orbit.
first
his plans.
He realized,
although
Hairball, too
much
nevertheless. Hairball
That
fit
is
right in with
think he would not have used these
terms, that Contemporary's success
rigidity
understood that renegades go
would eventually make
it
smaller Hairball than Hallmark, but a Hairball

policy,
is
procedure, conformity, compliance,
to status quo, while Orbiting
and submission
is
originality,
non- conformity, experimentation, and innovation. To

department young and yeasty, McCloskey wanted his crew, at
rules-breaking,
keep his
least those of us
who were
eager and willing to
make
the
trip,
to be in
Orbits of our own. In Orbit, where invention happens. So he would

us
fly
off on
let
our tangents. But, so that we would not go spinning into
deep space, where we would be useless to him and to Hallmark, he

would, with his
own unique brand
of gravitational pull, transform our
tangents into Orbits, allowing us to travel paths related to the system...

'
but not of the system.

f
How would he
do
'-
this
any other way, through
without an anecdote about

business buddha, he
exert this gravitational pull?
storytelling.
nudge
this or that. Like
us into Orbits.
c::B5^
More than
some
jolly,
inscrutable,
his
own
Design and then worked in
gently,
but
Always entertaining, always elegantly
master plan in mind. McCloskey,
and merchant (he had graduated from the

so graciously
would reach out with the subtle power of
germane, always with
ever
'
A master raconteur, he was never
an entertaining parable or puzzling corporate koan and

resolutely,
-\
his family's
Rhode
artist
Island School of
department
store), offered us
his remarkable range of hard-earned insights
into the practical art of creating fresh, tasteful products that
would
appeal to a broad audience.
59.
After
I'd
put in a couple of productive years in the department,
McCloskey promoted me
became
little
Hairball
best instances, artists
Picture in your
and
Hairballs.
The
and
just like
my fellow
writers orbited
And guess what?

supervisors.
around
mind the complex movement
artists traveling in
Contemporary
to design supervisor.
And,
in the
us.
in
all
of these writers
tangents-become -Orbits around
little
supervisor
supervisors, in turn. Orbited Mr. McCloskey's larger
Hairball.
Hallmark Hairball.
And
it
was
similarly in Orbit
A never- changing..
around the giant
'^
f
40.
Pink Buddha
'^:^
?^"
\..
JCk^ôS
;.
v--^^^
^/tijCjiLi>i^-t^'''-'^
, t
..-.*
Aiiî- iv*. .--i- !.'*?
.r.
'
/^
7/>/^xSr^-^!3'
n.-Ai'.
(!'':>:
Chapter Four
^
You can Orbit too soon, and it can turn out badly. So it is important
And you can do just that in the Hairball. Its
a cocoon in which
tangledness can serve as protection, a briar patch
to
grow into readiness.
to prepare for the challenges of Orbit.
A word of caution, though: Cocoons can be paralyzing.
Being
infinite,
human mind
slice
to grasp.
The
best any
of Infinite Reality that
and emotionally
real.
the whole of reality
But no matter
too
much
one of us can do
we can hold
and make
for the conscious

is
to take the biggest
intellectually, spiritually
that slice our personal sense of what
how broad
can be no more than a tiny
is
it is,
any
human
is
perception of reality
sliver of Infinite Reality.
Civilization also has a limited perception of Infinite Reality.
with a haughty self-assurance,
it
And
imposes that perception on us until
we think it is our own. The same is true of the companies we work

for. They have their perceptions of reality and they impose them on
us. As a result, we are wrapped in a cocoon of realities perceived by
others who came before us. It is a cocoon that gives us a sense of
emotional security through connection to a shared
also a
belief.
But
it is
shroud that binds and cripples us as surely as the ancient social
abuse of binding Chinese women's feet crippled them.
Incongruous as
it
may be, I have
the social order's view of what

that can
come from devotion
remain desperate to
standards arid
originally.
fly
flee
to the
is
always both accepted and rejected
appropriate.
to herd
wisdom.
hunger
for the
Yet, at the
comfort
same
time,
the soul-wilting thatch of society's rules and
more uncertain but broader
possibilities
of living
"
Lucky
for
me, Hallmark proved to be a cocoon where
indulge both of these conflicting drives.
could
was able to spend most of my
career drawing and writing funny, anti- establishment greeting cards,
venting
my
way that filled me

the company and
rage against society's restrictions in a
with mischievous exhilaration, made a profit for

thus, brought
me
material security.
It
seemed
a livable compromise.
Eventually, however, annual salary increases pulled
niche and pushed

fate for
me
toward middle management.
an aspiring Orbiter, but one
It
me
out of that
was an unwelcome
was, over the course of time, able
to elude by becoming, instead, a self-appointed mentor. That, in turn,

led
me
into
others and
an uncertain but passionate quest
my own.
on becoming
thrilling sense of mission,
champion of autonomy. With a
contrived a private agenda to subvert the
stupefying power of the corporate culture
of creative genius.
to
work on
and provoke the emancipation
My mission became my career. And while
specific
product or marketing-related projects,
turned toward something deeper. Bob Kipp,

described
it
to a
human spirits, both
gave up sniping at the power of the social order
and, instead, focused
to free
magazine
"Gordons job...
is
to
my
last
continued
my passion
boss at Hallmark,
writer:
keep track of new ideas and sort of sense
the spiritual needs of the organization
and address them.
To address those spiritual needs, I borrowed from the techniques

and vocabulary of psychotherapy. I threw in some jargon ("Cocoons"
and "Hairballs" and "Tangents" and "Orbits") and
I
also
concocted catalytic
rituals
realities
and psychic exercises
of my own.
anything
that might catch the attention of the sleepwalking geniuses and lure
them
46.
to wakefulness, help
them
find the courage to be
who
they
truly
were instead of who they thought the company expected them
to be
and entice them into meeting
befits
humanity.
life
with an exuberance that
Some came
forces
and
its
to describe
executives."
me
as "the bridge between Hallmark's creative
Others saw
was some truth in both assessments,
me
I
as
by serving the vocation that issued from

the
Company Cocoon.
con man, charlatan. There
would
my
guess.
But beyond
instincts,
that,
emerged from
Slipped the bonds of the Hairball of Corporate
Normalcy. Ascended into Orbit.
"...
if
you do follow your
bliss,
of track that has been there
and
the
life
you ought
to
you put yourself on a kind
all the while,
be living
is
the
waiting for you,
one you are
"
living.
Joseph Campbell, The Power of Myth
Orbiting
is
following your
bliss.
47.
Chapter Five
A Chicken's Fate
A Chicken's Fate
My father spent the summer of 1904 on the farm of an aunt and

who lived
uncle
a stone's throw northeast of Lucknow in Bruce County,
Ontario, Canada.
It
so
happened that the aunt and uncle had a son the same age
my father.
Story has
when
that
it
the two boys were together, they
were a couple of hellers with a genius
One sunny
as
for mischief
Sunday, the boys feigned stomachaches and so were
excused from going to church. Uncle hitched the horse to the family's
carriage
town
and helped
for their
his wife
communal
on board, and
worship.
the two of
Of course,
as
soon
them rode
off to
as their carriage
was out of sight around the bend, the boys' stomachaches miraculously
disappeared, and the two lO-year-olds set about to find something to do.
Wanting
my
to impress
"Do you know how
to
father, a city boy, the
cousin asked:
mesmerize a chicken?"
"Mesmerize? Vh-uh. What's that?"

"Follow me."
The
cousin led the way to a ramshackle chicken coop out behind
the farmhouse. There he selected a fine white hen.
under
his
and drew
arm
to the front of the house,
a short line
chalk
removed
line,
his hands.
hypnotized.
"Let's
carried her
produced a piece of chalk
on the porch. He stood the creature over the
chalk line and held her beak to

slowly
He
it.
After a
The chicken
My
do another one!
moment
or so, the boy
stood motionless, beak to the
father hooted with glee.

Let's
do another one! " he pleaded.
I iM^L wi* . r-!-fc .^^

^
51.
"
The two boys ran back
And
another.
And
to the
hen house
another. Before long, the
the front porch was
filled
for
another chicken.
hen house was empty, and
with 70 or so dead-silent,
stark-still
chickens
straddling chalk lines, beaks seemingly glued to the porch.
The
seemed hypnotized
boys, too,
example of their own cleverness.
mesmerized by
this glorious
breeze gently rippled the feathery coats
of the unmoving chickens. In the distance, soft thudding hooves and the
rattle
of turning carriage wheels signaled the return of Aunt and Uncle.
Wouldn't they be surprised
at this latest joke?
(Aunt and Uncle did take
a per\'erse pride in the boys' escapades.)
But wait! There were two
carriages, not one.
Behind the
family's
Aunt and
come to
Worse, Aunt had
carriage followed a small runabout driven by the preacher!
Uncle had
invited their Scottish Presbyterian reverend to
lunch (or dinner, as they said back there, back then).
already explained to the preacher that boys had not been at church
because they were
Upon
ill.
seeing the fowl foolery, Uncle flew into an embarrassed rage,
and bounded onto the porch, place-kicking

chicken back to consciousness. Feathers and clucking
leapt off the carriage
chicken after
and curses
filled
the air
around and, without
The same
The
preacher, scandalized, turned his carriage
word, fled back to town, never to return.
thing that happened to those chickens can happen to
When you join an organization, you are, without fail, taken by

back
of the neck and pushed down and down until your beak is
the
you.
on
a line
not
a chalk line, but a
company
line.
And
the
company
line says things like:
"This
is
policies.
is
52.
our
history.
This b our philosophy. Tliese are our
Tliese are our procedures. These are our
simply the
way we are.
politics.
This
A Chicken's Fate
If
you are not
you
careful,
And what a pity
if
will
be hypnotized by
this line.
that happens.
When you come into an organization,
you bring with you an arcane
potency, which stems, in part, from your uniqueness. That, in turn,

is
rooted in a complex mosaic of personal history that
is
original,
unfathomable, inimitable. There has never been anyone quite
and there never
will be.
Consequently, you can contribute something to
an endeavor that nobody
an
inexplicable,
else can.
There
is
a power in your uniqueness
unmeasurable power...
^
But
if
like you,
^^
y^
>^
a magic.
you are hypnotized by an organization's culture, you become
separated from your personal magic and cannot tap
it
to help achieve
the goals of the organization. In losing connection with your one-of-a-kind
magic, you are reduced to nothing more than part of the headcount.
Deep
inside the Hairball.
So,
whenever you
feel
your head being pushed
organization's cultural chalk line,
down onto an
is to move
remember the challenge
out of the way, to choose not to be mesmerized by the culture of the
company. Instead, find the goals of the organization that touch your
heart and release your passion to follow those goals.
It is
a delicate balance, resisting the hypnotic spell of an organization's
culture and, at the
same
time, remaining
committed from the heart to
the personally relevant goals of the organization. But

that balance
and maintain
Orbit, the only place
it,
you
will
if
you can achieve
be out of the Hairball and into
where you can tap your one-of-a-kind magic, your
genius, your limitless creativity.
53<
Chapter Six
Thou Shalt Not Have
It
Easy
"
Though Shalt Not Have
In June 1989,
was engaged to speak
at a
conference held for a
one of the computer giants
in
Northern
California. School teachers participating in the project
had been
special project group at
Easy
It
brought together from around the country to reconnect with their
mentors
was to
I
at the corporation's headquarters.
last a
would
week,
offer
Although the gathering
was to be there only the
my presentation and workshop.
first
day. In the afternoon
In the morning,
was
merely an observing guest.
Things began on a traditional note.

in organizing the
whole
affair
A woman who had been key
stood before the assembled group to offer
welcome. In her opening remarks, she thanked those who had so
generously helped put the conference together, adding:
"You gave so much; you
To my
really
made my job
surprise, the response to this
easy.
acknowledgement was an
immediate outburst of heckling.
The woman's
face flushed,
and although she kept
words betrayed a sudden defensiveness.
maybe,
it
was not okay at
this
company
to
have an easy
suspicion was confirmed later in the morning

soul let
all
it
slip
smiling, her
found myself wondering

job.
when another
that a recently assigned project had been
the way. Again the teasing erupted, convincing
me
smooth
if,
My
hapless
sailing
that having an
easy job was taboo in this corporation's culture.
At our lunch break,

room. There,
excused myself and rushed up to
my
hotel
sketched an eight ball to add to a series of drawings
that were to be a part of my afternoon presentation. Later, during the
presentation,
when someone asked about
the eight
group that the drawing was intended to remind
1.
me
ball,
told the
of the suspicion
57'
^y^^^L/l
-K
had
that
me
stirred in
mind the time my
that morning, a suspicion that
me
father gave
game
a lesson in the
man, he had been
my
father told
a fanatic about the
me
that
He
game.
to
of pool.
make a
when he was a young
During the course of his singularly unsuccessful

pool player out of me,
had brought
efforts to
told
me
of learning,
during that time, of a championship match that was to be held in the

city
where he then
lived,
Edmonton, Alberta.
over the excitement he had
felt as
he entered the exhibition
scrambled through the milling crowd
when
surge of anticipation
the
hall,
light.
My father reminisced
to find his seat.
He
hall
and
spoke of his
the house lights dimmed. In the center of
an ornately carved pool table stood
in a rectangle of brilliant
A short, stout figure in black tuxedo emerged from the darkness
and stood a moment, contemplating the
precise triangle of colored pool
With unhurried deliberation, the man

removed his coat, folded it and set it aside. From the darkness, he
drew a pool cue and, eyes fixed on the table, chalked the cue's tip,
balls waiting at the table's end.
repositioned the white cue ball and silently bent over his cue. Taking
aim...
CRACK!... he sent the colored balls scattering like

felt arena. The match had begun.
little
bumper
cars across the green
"Two halV
"Seven
ball." Click... thunk.
"Four halV
One
Click... thunk.
Click... thunk.
after another, the
and the match turned out

his
^f-J.
man
dispatched the balls to their pockets,
to be
mounting disappointment
as
no match
at
all.
My father recalled
he watched the champion make one
"easy" shot after another. Expecting to be thrilled by daring
spectacular competition,
of quiet mastery.
my
father was, instead, treated to
and
an evening
Though Shalt Not Have
suggested to
my new
friends at the
When
for the possibility that,
they see a colleague whose job seems easy, they
in fact be witnessing a
champion
in stress-filled jobs, a siren
may
at play.
a corporation prizes those
who
are heroically
song whispers to everyone
overworked
else in the
organization:
Make
your job
difficult,
stretch yourself thin,

stress yourself out
and
eventually you, too,
may
If
he honored with executive approval
you
desire the blessing of the
Mighty Corporate Fathers:
work longer hours (than

take
on more
Do
this,
and your
is
sensible)
responsibility (than
make your job harder
(than
is
is
sensible)
sensible).
sacrifices will be celebrated
and your worth confirmed.

This cultural seduction plays into the old illusion that
we:)rk
hard enough, and
if
we
just
we
will finally
and
if
we
just
work long enough...
finally
Easy
computer company that they
might consider making room in their minds

sometimes, when
It
be found valuable...
be found loveable...
finally find security.
what the seduction delivers

if we buy into it
is
a workplace where the quality of life is continually eroded by contrived
Instead,
travail.
Wouldn't a more promising choice he

to
turn your hack
on
the
Overwork-as-an-end-in-itself Game
And,
instead,
enlist the
hidden genius within you
and develop
the skills
to play like
T/iASfl
60.
Â
a champion
Chapter Seven
//
What You Don't
See
Is
What You Get
What You Don't
See
What You Get
Is
In the upper reaches of the hierarchy at Hallmark Cards, there
was a Prince of Profit whose

control was only
forte
was control.
a part of his responsibilities,
And
it
although
suspect
often seemed to be the
primary focus of his passion. His more-than-firm hand on the reins
enhanced an already enviable bottom
line.
such a generous profit-sharing program,
and
effectiveness
I
fully
It
was
my
He
Hallmark has
was a beneficiary of his
appreciated his efforts
did have one problem with him:
phenomenon
And because
did not
on my behalf However,
seem to appreciate the
of creativity.
problem, not
hope of working through
and so
his,
generated a fantasy in the
my problem. I would
like, if
may, to share
that fantasy with you:
Picture in your mind's eye a pastureland of gently

rolling hills painted in the rich greens of early spring.
Within the meandering confines of a
zigzag, split-rail
fence stands a scattered herd of black-and-white holstein

dairy cows.
The sun
is
shining,
and some of the cows
have sought the cool protection of the

massive shade
trees.
Others are clustered
large, sun-sparkling
grass.
One
field's
occasional
idly
around a
pond. Most are quietly eating

cud and chews it.
regurgitates her
Outside the zigzag of the fence stands a rotund gentleman

in a $700, power-blue, pinstripe suit.
over the fence
He
is
leaning
as best he can. One hand is holding

unbuttoned jacket against his generous belly so
that the suit's fine cloth will not be soiled by the*
fence's grimy rails. His other hand is shaking a stem
his
finger at the cows.
"You
He
shouts:
slackers get to work, or
I'll
have you butchered!
<d
What
this
man does
not understand
that,
is
even
as
he threatens
them, the cows are performing the miracle of turning grass into milk.
Nor does he understand
that his shouting will not cause the cows to
produce more milk.

If
...
we drew
a line to represent a creative occurrence...
the only portion that would reflect measurable productivity
would be a short segment
at the
>
end of the
rj8
line:
< 'a WBmLifr* T^*'*

'>
measurable evidence of creativity

This line segment
hooked up
is
the equivalent of the cow's time in the
measurable. But the
earlier, larger
part
bam,
when productivity is tangible,

of the event, when the milk was
to the milking machine. This
is
actually being created, remains invisible.
invisible creative activity
The
invisible portion
equivalent to the time the
is
cow spends out
in the pasture, seemingly idle, but, in fact, performing the
alchemy of
transforming grass into milk.
A management obsessed with productivity usually has little

patience for the quiet time essential to profound creativity.
of dreams
Crazy?
is
It is
to put the
happening
dream
cows on the milking machine 24 hours a

in
workplaces
all
day.
over the country: workers
being sucked inside-out by corporate milking machines.
64
Its
What You Don't
Welcome
See
Is
What You Get
to the
If'We-work'hard'enough'long'enough'bum'OurselveS'
out' enough' we 'lU succeed' through' control Hairball.
And
while, as
"Genius
...
too
is 1
many
Thomas Edison
said...
percent inspiration
enterprises
seem
and 90 percent perspiration"
self- destructively
debilitating reality of 100 percent perspiration
locked into a
and zero percent
inspiration.
A healthier alternative
is
the Orbit of trust that allows time
without immediate, concrete evidence of productivity
for the
miracle of creativity to occur.
^
\
\
\
65.
Chapter Eight
No Access
'Î^l^
'^
The rim
of the
favorite launching
I
had
No Access
that tower over Blacks
cliffs
pad
for
San Diego hang
just finished a presentation to a
Gas Association
the afternoon,
at the
Beach
in
La JoUa
is
conference of the American
Sheraton Grande Torre Pines. Now,
free for
strolled over to those cliffs in a swimsuit, T-shirt
scruffy sneakers to
gliders.
and
watch the adventurers-who-would-be -birds make
their leaps of faith out over the Pacific
Ocean.
It
was a
sight that
inspired awe.
(For about two minutes.)
my eyes soon tired of

and my interest waned. It
Fascinating as these graceful gliders were,

squinting into the brilliant California
was time to move on to
Heading toward the

beach,
apart,
my
cliffs edge, in
was stopped by a
connected by a
drilled in the top of
search of a
way down
line of posts driven into the
steel
each
sky,
next whim, a swim in the surf

to the
ground
six feet
chain loosely threaded through a hole
post. Various large signs established the
seriousness of the barrier's purpose:
t
PANceMj
^
^T/^Y
e/\cK/
'^^--1^5l3
71.
--^^
Curious about just
how dangerous
the
really were,
cliffs
stepped
over the chain at the lowest point of its sweep, midway between posts,
and walked over
me
to the brink to
lay the beach. Faint
have a look. Two hundred
sounds of laughter beckoned
me
feet
below
to join the
small clusters of people playing in the sand at the oceans surging edge.
"They got doum

I
there,"
thought.
scanned the face of the
"I
should be able to."
Safe descent seemed reasonably
cliff
achievable. In a giddy sense of adventure, inspired perhaps by the daring
of the hang gliders
had admired
just
minutes before,
began the
climb down.
Interesting substance that
cliff is
sunbaked mixture of sand and
made of
seemed
It
clay, substantial in
My weight on a firm -appearing foothold
in fact.
to
me
a sort of
appearance, but not
caused the foothold
simply to crumble and give way.
That added to the excitement.

1
experienced a subtle sense of relief as
sight of the clifftop.

stares of the less
by the
signs'
Now
felt
climbed below the line-of-
shielded from possible disapproving
adventurous who,
warnings.
were so
fantasized,
The descent had begun
well and, as
from one crumbling foothold down to the next,

in a
easily
daunted
scrambled
found myself basking
growing self-congratulation over choosing not to be limited by
the prohibitions of some
unknown
Thirty feet into the climb,
would require that

controlled slide
in
doubt
that,
no way
should
to climb
came
execute what
down
my mind
doubt
to a
decide to
back up.
to a place
where further descent
might euphemistically
broad ledge
that the ledge

I
authority.
5 feet
below.
There was no
would hold me. There was
make
this
Clearly, this
call a
also
no
maneuver, there would be
was a point o( no return.

I
slid.
No Access
It
was exhilarating.
And
the ledge did catch
me
another
triumph.
little
The
climbing became easy now, but with fewer and fewer alternative
courses as
my choices
moved
further
of route led
steeply toward the
me
beach
down
the face of the precipice. Eventually,
to a long,
V-shaped trough that angled
at this point,
would
70 or 80
guess,
feet
sea, I wedged myself into the trough and

downward
until I reached the edge of a
slowly ratcheted my body
just this side of
drop -off Even leaning forward as far as I dared
beneath me. Facing out to
losing
beach
I could
my balance and plummeting to the
far enough to see how big a drop awaited me.
not strain
/Q^forward
What
to do?
sat a
minute and then decided to take
my
chances
with the unknown. Ever so slowly,

edge. Paused.
Thought
better of it.
began to ease myself over the
And wiggled back into
the relative
safety of the trough.

I
was
sitting
still
now.
My mind began to shut down.
heard the
me of my aloneness.
cliff in my tragi-comic
off-shore breeze, not noticed before, whispering to
Arms and
legs spread-eagled, clinging to the
self- crucifixion,
gazed longingly at the casual
bathers below me, noticing for the

turns out that Blacks
Time
passed.
One
Beach
is
first
communion
of the
time that they were naked.
(It
a nudist beach.) Laughter drifted up.
A certain peace settled over me.
suppose
was waiting.
men puttering about in the dry sand above the high- tide
mark happened to look up and spy me on my unlikely perch. We locked
of three
gazes in a freeze-frame of uncertainty.
beach noticed
gathered
my discoverer's
necks
eyeshades.
As people
curiosity
will,
and looked
on the
small crowd
others
up.
craning, eyes squinting, hands held to brows as
resisted a bizarre urge to bless
unauthorized sign of the cross.
It
my naked
would have been
flock with
an
a contusing signal.
75.
"
My discoverer called
up the
cliff as far as
"Did you
he
fall off
to
me.
safely
could not hear.
climbed carefully
I
heard:
a hang glider?"
(This would have been the only legitimate reason for

<'X
He
could and called again. This time
my
being where
was.)
)'
'No.'
"Are you injured?"
"No."
"What
are you doing there?"
"I'm stuck."
(I
almost choked on the words.)
(!SLî&r-^~~^
He
"Dont move. Do not move.

climbed back
onlookers soon
fool's perch,
I'll
go and get
help.
down and trotted away. To my relief, the crowd of

me and dispersed. In the solitude of my
lost interest in
my prospects. winced
pondered
at the possibility that
on Rescue 911.1 prayed that the day

would be filled with noteworthy national and international events so
there would not be room on the evening news for the story of my
might become an unwilling
star
misadventure.
^^'My
discoverer returned:
"They'll be here in about
20 minutes," he shouted
thanked him, and he rejoined
minutes.
checked
my
"That's too long,"
buddies on the beach. Twenty
watch.
I
thought.
The muscles
were already trembling from
74.
his
reassuringly.
fatigue.
in
my left
thigh
12
No Access
7
"I'm not going to be able to hang on that long.
the edge before they even get here. "
over
slide
I'll
(Now I was
nearing a
second edge, that of panic.)
The
Gas Association had given me,
folks at the
their conference, a
as a
memento
of
desk clock. Tastefully set in a small, wedge-shaped
block of rosewood, trimmed with a brass rim, the clock's face carries
Roman
numerals. Beneath the face, a small plaque, brass
inscribed:
AGA.
the bed where
thought of the clock now.
had
casually tossed
the drapes were drawn, and the
air
remembered
back in
it,
is
lying
on
my hotel room where
conditioning was on, and
it
was
envied that clock. Closing my eyes, I pictured the clock, pictured

Roman numerals. Roman numerals seem so permanent. pictured
sweep second hand moving with a soundless grace past the Roman
safe.
the
the
numerals... around
opened
and around and around and around...
my eyes with a
start,
squinting at the brightness of the day.
A helicopter was coming along the coast from the south.

watch. Forty minutes!
my
also,
it
Now
visualization.
was about to catch
fear of authority)
The
in the
looked at
my
calming refuge o(
the image o( the clock was pushed aside by a
rush of relief and anxiety

that
had spent 40 minutes

relief that
hell
from the
was about to be rescued, anxiety

authorities.
helicopter's arrival
seemed
(I
have an enduring
mixed
blessing.
75.
"
((
me.
What
arrival?
The
helicopter flew right past. Missed
me completely.
"Damn!
Down on
the beach,
helicopter grow smaller
my
loyal discoverer stood
and smaller up the
he searched the shoreline
for a stick
and
sand that had been made smooth by the
No
coast.
watching the
Turning deliberately,
lettered with
tide's
coming
it
in
large in the
and going
out:
l^]JUi?if=:5
and drew an arrow pointing toward me.
The
helicopter, a speck in the distance now, started, finally, to
grow
Would it miss me a second time? No. The sign in the sand

work. The helicopter stopped above it, directly opposite me.
blue capital letters on the white fuselage proclaimed:
larger again.
did
its
Large,
SHERIFF
Because the tinted
was on board,
was drawn
For the moment,
my grade
1
glass of the cockpit hid
it
from view whatever crew
to invest the helicopter with a personality.
became the ultimate authority
figure,
reminiscent of
school principal: judging, menacing, inscrutable. Emotionally,
regressed to age
six.
The machine moved toward me. To pluck me from my predicament?

luck. The rotors' wild turbulence whipped up a blinding
maelstrom of dust and sand. The machine backed oft, ho\'ered for a
moment, watching me, then flew away. The stillness that followed was
a balm that faded to a numbing sense of isolation and helplessness. All
No such
could do was wait.
It
was not so long a wait
this time.
Within
five
minutes of the helicopter's leaving, a king-cab pickup truck ladened
76.
"
"
"
"
No Access
with rescue equipment came churning

to a halt
and
full
my fool's
beneath
of energy.
decided.
One
They
down
the beach and swerved
Four lifeguards piled out,
roost.
all
serious
surveyed, conferred, assessed and, apparently,
climbed halfway up to me:
"We'll have to
come down from above.
"Okay.
(Was
giving
my consent?)
Ten minutes later, sporadic showers of sand and crumbled clay

cascaded over and around me. In the position 1 was in, I found it
impossible to look up. But a quiet grunting and the clicking sounds of
climbing-gear-in-use told me I was about to meet my rescuer... and
.'"'
reprimander.
my name's Bruce. " The friendliness of the voice

above me came as a surprise. "What's your name?"
"Hi,
"Gor(ion,"
"Well,
replied.
Gordon,
'
.
want you
to sit very
going to come right over top of you, so

not move.
"I
understand.
'
still.
it's
Don't move. I'm

important that you
"*'
-'
There were sounds of Bruce jockeying into position, then another,

presto!
grunt and a swoosh as he kicked away from the cliff Then
his
hulk appeared in front of me, blocking out the sun. His sturdy
hiking boots were firmly planted one on each side of my
and clasps and hooks that inspired

bathing
suit.
Two
lines
one
some secure support on the
taut, the
cliff
feet.
Ropes
trust girdled his sweat- soaked
other slack
stretched
to
top above.
77.
"
"I've got him,
and he appears
he
to
OK," Bruce reported
into a small radio transmitter strapped to his right shoulder.
"Are you?"
He
looked
even
his reassuring,
"Yes.
me
in the eye.
found comfort in
friendly, smile.
Thank you."
Explaining each
had rendered my
move
as
my waist and
harness around
me stand (fatigue
He fitted a safety
and turned me around
he went, Bruce helped
legs temporarily uncooperative).
under
my crotch
to face the cliff
"Have you ever
rappelled before,
Gordon?"
"No."
"Well, I'm going to give
This was not exactly
was trying to help

I
me
you a quick course
true. Bless his heart,
needed
to
It
was 40
had
feet to the
earlier
my
Then,
team above, we
next landing;
I'd
The
truth was
told
move
started to
Good
cliff,
me
after a short
thing
have broken something
the face of the
Bruce
little lie,
Anyhow, Bruce
safety.
considered sliding over
As Bruce shepherded me down

praise
line.
do during our descent to
radio conference with the support
over the edge
with his
save face. This was not rappelling.
was about to be lowered on a safety
what
in rappelling."
didn't.
for sure.
he began to
progress:
"You're doin great. You're keeping your legs straight, your feet
well apart
and your body
out, well
doing everything exactly as
What
like a
a surprise!
Suddenly
nurturing older brother
away from
the
cliff.
You're
told you.
this lifeguard,
30 years
My spirits began
to
my junior,
lift. I
felt
was moving
"
"
No Access
-^^
from humiliation back to the joy of adventure.
began to fantasize
was a veteran mountain climber returning, victorious, from

some awe-inspiring ascent. Bruce must have sensed my overreaction
to his positive reinforcement, because he quickly added:
that
"You're doing
of this
much
better than
most of the people
rescue off
cliff.
My fantasy vanished.
Reaching the horizontal surface of the beach was sublime deliverance.
lifeguards helped
Three waiting
thank them and to apologize

"Tell
him" Bruce
said,
the wheel of the pickup.

lieutenant of the
off with the rescue gear.
began to
caused them.
for all the trouble I'd
pointing to a uniformed
man sitting behind
walked over to the truck and met with the
San Diego
man. As he took down
me
Lifeguards, at that
my name and
address,
moment
repeated
and, hoping to avoid a citation, began praising the
skills
not a happy
my
apologies
of his rescue
team.
"Forget that,"
injury.
And,
he
He
is
right
pointed off to his
toward the
had blunted
surf,
mentally. All
right.
to swim.
thanked him one more time, started
my
mind.
The
cliffs.
afternoon's episode
was exhausted, both physically and
my room and
hide.
There, off to the right of the lifeguards'
truck, not 100 yards south of where

stairs
to
wanted to do was go back to
turned back toward the
rough
know
is
over there.
then changed
my desire
we got you doum without

come down the safe way,
"The important thing
hopefully, next time you'll
which, by the way,
off
said.
had marooned
zigzagged up the cliffs face.
myself, a trail of
As
lay
my head
soaking in a hot bath back in
at the folly of
hotel room,
even having considered
trough's lower edge into
come
my
shook
sliding over that
an unknown drop down the
cliffs face. I'd
close to risking serious physical injury just to avoid having people
didn't
even know learn
to cover
I'd
done something dumb.
up one stupid act with an even greater
was ready
to try
stupidity. That's a
ruinous strategy that's brought more than a few people tumbling

to
wretched demise.
It is
so
much more
a mess than to burrow deeper into

I
thought of how
difficult to say that
many
was stuck.
intellectually,
times in our lives

It
down
made
it.
even though,
of us experience impasse
sensible to admit having
I
I
realize that all
had found
requires a certain courage to
it
so
make
such an admission.
I
for
mused on how nurturing the experience of my rescue had been
me. Quite a
surprise, really.
incorrigible foolishness leads
me
can only hope that the next time
my
into an immobilizing dead end,
will
find the courage to call out for help.
Ah! Courage, courage, courage. Courage

Courage to admit
open up
idiocy.
Courage
to being rescued.
to
to cross boundaries.
acknowledge impasse. Courage to
We need much courage if we
successfully to the consequences of exploring
beyond
are to respond
authorities'
sometimes-beneficial, sometimes-detrimental boundaries.

are to grow, explore
80.
we
must.
And,
if
we
Chapter Nine
Then There's Rote
HF
Cvol^.tToa/
Wwnc
Ht<^pT AND
'^^
^jQ
JH<C
^<<il
5out
''"^<'
1^
J*'^''
>^
>
.,-^.
a
.o'f
i0i
>
'
'
'
'
ev* So
o^^tn
< ^li
o-r-x
_ii
""
First There's Grope, Then There's Rote
One
back when
day,
was
still
Hallmark, Peg Charpentier called
at
from Personnel:
''Hi,
Gordon. This
"Hi, Peg.
"I can't
faster
Peg."
is
How's itgoin?"
complain,
really.
and faster But
it's
You know: The
treadmill keeps going
okay. I'm surviving
How are
things
with you?"
tine.
"You're not going too hard, are you?
need
to
"I will.
worry about you. You
slow down.
What's up?"
"Well, are
you familiar with
the course
Training: 'Management, Concepts
and
we
give in Corporate
Practices'?"
"LJh'uh"
"Well,
it's
a series of five workshops Hallmarkers are
automatically signed up to take
when
they're
promoted
to
the level of supervisor."
"Never heard of it.

"Well, they probably didn't have
it
back when you
first
nuidc
"
supervisor That's probably so long ago.
(Defensive guffaw) "Yeah, you're probably
"Anyway,
it's
series
management, and
right."
of workshops about various aspects of
was thinking
it
would be a good idea
t<
have you give some kind of an innoi'ative session at the eru
""
"
of the
series.
A summary of the content of the course.
really innovative.
call
Something they'd
'TJie Creative
it
"You want
me
really
remember
Manager' or something
to create
Something
We
could
like that.
a workshop that you would add
to
these others?"
"I think
it
would be a wonderful
sort of thing you've
been doing
call
"Something
like that. Yes."
"What
"One of them
Another
One
"Why
like the
lately.
are the other workshops about?"
administration.
is
Something
'The Creative Manager'?"
"And you'd
it
addition.
is
is
on performance reviews and salary
One
is
on conducting
on business plans and
effective meetings.
the corporate vision. Um...
on..."
don't
me whatever material you can on

me play with
you just send
the workshops and
let
all
it.
The next day, a thick envelope came in the interoffice mail. It was
all very condensed, all very rational,
from Peg. The workshop outlines
all very linear. The sort of stuff I've always tried to keep at arm's length.
plodded through the material, retaining nothing. Dreary
Necessary,
I'd
suppose, but dull, dull, dull
like
stuff.
so many of the workshops
attended at Hallmark. (I'm sure they are available in abundance in
most corporations.) They invariably
f&67
-h
>/
offer the
Jk
same promise:
"
"
"
"
"Folhw
problems
It is
If
and
the steps in this program,

will be within
solutions to
your workday
your grasp.
a false promise.
memory served me
anyhow, was to
finish a
three-voila! -solution!
well, a
more common experience,
workshop
dogma
filled
for
me
with a step'One-step-twO'Step'
and return to the world beyond workshops
to find a waiting lineup of problems that quickly
had me wondering
once again:
"Now what
This gave
I
the hell
me an
is
going on?"
idea.
Got her on
Got her voice mail on the
first
two
gone through the material you
sent.
On the workshops.
called Peg.
tries.
the third.
"Peg, I've
Dreary
stuff.
"Now, Gordon."
"I
cant do what you
re asking.
"The workshop?"
"Do a workshop
workshops
in
that
your
would be a
series.
The
creative recap of all the other
'Creative
Manager
thing
you
suggested.
"But..."
"Wait.
I'll
do the workshop, but
of 'The Creative Manager
And
want
ten easy steps to the solution of all

Basically that's
to call
it
'Grope' instead
the object wouldn't be to give
management
what your other workshops claim
problen\s.
to do, isn't it?"
87.
"
0-
"Oh, now, Gordon..."

"Wait, Peg, hear
me out.
not black and white.
It's
Please.
a world
think a
filled
managers world
is
with uncertainties and
dilemmas. The sort of thing that would leave any neophyte
moaning, 'What the
we
could offer
hell
is
this!'
So
think
would be
it
your new managers what you might
'what'the-hell-is'this' experience in the safety of a
environment
it
those cure -all courses that promise
disillusionment
and
more than
would be
to
and
they
all
can possibly
people up for
set
insipient cynicism.
"So what I'm proposing
is
a workshop called 'Grope.' The
expose the participants to a three-hour
bombardment of nonrational experiences

them wondering, 'What the hell was that
all,
workshop
would be a good balance against
deliver, create unrealistic expectations
"After
if
before they're hurled, unbaptized, into the real
thing. If nothing else,
object
useful
call
that
all
groping and wondering what the
would leave
about?'
hell
is
going on are
both important parts of managing aren't they?"
There was a long
silence
on the phone. Then,
finally:
"Once.
"What?"
"You can do your workshop once."
So we had our workshop: "Grope". The theme of groping precluded

structured agenda. And feeling responsible for the success of an
agenda that was intentionally without structure generated considerable
88.
confusion within the group. But, as
it
Then There's Rote
became apparent
that valuable
experiences were emerging from our intentional chaos, the anxiety was
displaced by exhilaration. For three hours, the workshop participants
lost their
balance, recovered
it,
lost
it
again,
the vagaries of transrationality, tasting the
And
sure
some equivalent
What
it
was
it
again, rolling with
The session came to its end. People were

enough, many of them were mumbling to themselves
with abandon. Time flew

leaving.
found
heady intoxication of groping
by.
"What
of:
all
the hell
was
that all about?"
about was nonlinearity.
In their book, The Matter Myth, Paul Davies and John Gribbin write:
"In physics, a linear system
simply speaking, one in which the
is,
whole is equal to the sum of its parts (no more, no less), and in
which the sum of a collection of causes produces a corresponding
sum of effects. ...The very concept of scientific "analysis" depends
that understanding the parts of a

on this property of linearity
complex system implies understanding the whole. ...The success
of linear methods over the past three centuries has, however, tended
to obscure the fact that real systems almost always turn out to be
nonlinear at some
is
no longer
now
level.
When
nonlinearity
becomes important,
whole
possible to proceed by analysis, because the
greater than the
sum
of
its
parts.
it
is
Nonlinear systems can display
and complex repertoire of behavior, and do unexpected

they can, for example, go chaotic. Without nonlinearity,
things
there would be no chaos, because there would be no diversity of
possible patterns of behavior on which the intrinsic uncertainty of
a rich
nature could act."
In our Grope workshop
we had
our habitual corporate culture's
left
analytical, explicit, rational, concrete, goal-oriented, linear reality
where
whole
"the
had experienced
equal to the
is
of its
of its parts (no -more, no
an alternate
a brief expedition into
spontaneous, playful,
greater than the
sum
sum
non-linear
holistic,
of its parts.
"
That surplus
parts" was creative energy.
denizens of corporate
where
And
linearity
it left
less)
reality
"
and
diffuse,
now
over and above "the sum
"the whole
is
the workshop participants
wondering:
"What
was
the hell
that all about?"
Ah! Success!
Peg called a couple of days
later.
"Gordon, your Grope workshop got
Would you
like to give
it
really
good evaluations.
again?"
bure.
felt
disappointed at
evaluations.
(I
my
sense of relief over receiving good
have always wanted
my
acts of rebellion
and the
to be met with approval

Grope workshop had been such an act
disappointed when such
been
have
always
time,
I
same
and, at the
approval
is
bestowed.)
We scheduled a time and date for the next Grope.

calendar and promptly forgot about
that day,
first
Grope
pulled out the

session
and prepared
The second Grope

energy of the
first
file
it
until the
of written material
for the
That
90.
had gathered
it
on my
firom the
next morning's workshop.

it
sure lacked the
didn't really catch
though, because there was plenty else
marked
day before. At the end of
wasn't exactly a dud, but
session.
on my
my
attention,
plate at the time.
A month or two later, Peg called me again. Time to do another

on my calendar. Again, late in the
afternoon before the scheduled day, 1 went to my file cabinet and
pulled out my Grope material. And, finally, it occurred to me:
Grope workshop. Okay.
marked
"Wait a minute! This

In our
first
Grope
isn't
session,
it
groping. This
is...
formula."
because we had been willing to flow
without structure, to remain unattached to outcome, we opened

ourselves to the creative energy that is extruded from chaos and found
a "diversity of possible patterns of behavior."
Then, because
was so
enamored by the exhilaration of that creative energy, I seized upon the

elements of our experience and made a formula out of them. I took
that formula (my Grope material) to the second workshop where,
became structured
consequently, the experience
rather than fluid, linear
rather than non-linear, formulary rather than seminal.

facilitating a
Grope
session;
was conducting a
Rote has nothing to do with
The next morning,

what
rote session.
told the
new group
of workshop participants
their enthusiastic support,
into the wastebasket. Rote vanished.
lost.
At the second
workshop from Grope
session,
to Rote,
when
had opened
threw
Grope returned, along
with the original scariness and energy. By letting go,
had been
was no longer
creativity.
had discovered. And, with
my notes
we regained what
unwittingly shifted the

a
door that allowed the
re-entry of what might be thought of as organizational entropy.
looked up the definition of entropy in the dictionary.
It
read:
cn'trd'py, n, [Gr. entropia, cntrope,

a turning toward] the degradation of
matter and energy to an ultimate state
of inert uniformity.
91.
Orbiting The Giant Haihball
Wow! That
It is
could be a definition for bureaucracy!
common
history of enterprises to begin in a state of naive
groping, stumble onto success, milk the success with a vengeance and,
in the prrxiess, generate system.s that arrogantly turn
away from the
source of their original success: groping.

If
an organization
uruff/nmfy,"
it
is
to chfx^se vigor over "an ultimate state of inert
must honor and
supprjrt bcjth the rational exploitation of
success and the nonrational art of groping.
Rote
9i:.
is
Hairball.
Grope
is
Orbiting.
Chapter Ten
Containers Contain
^^H
^^V
hf^
r
1
1
H^
m
^3
Containers Contain
A jug, a box, a bucket, a bottle. They have in common that they are
all
containers.
For a moment, take your mind back to a time
human-made
containers.
There was such
Any
stream.
mouth
whose home
no
of the cave
is
is
a cave.
a spring'fed
time members of the cave clan are
they have to do
.thirsty, all
there were
a time:
icture a prehistoric family
Just outside the
when
is
take the few short
from the cave to the stream, drop down on their hands

and knees, lower their faces to the water and drink.
Convenient. But dangerous. Watering places have always
been dangerous places when there are marauding carnivores
*steps
searching for a meal.
A human being,
head down, drinking
water makes vulnerable prey.
One
morning, as the sun
rises,
the matriarch of this long-ago
family awakens from a deep sleep. She

stands, stretches,
is thirsty.
Slowly she
moans not unpleasurably and turns toward

mouth of
the stream to drink. Just as she emerges from the

the cave, the morning silence
is
broken by a throaty growl.
Fear pulls her back into the safety of the cave,
guarded by a small
fire.
She
waits.
its
entrance
And waits.
Eventually, her growing thirst overcomes her fear.
more she emerges from the
cave, carefully scanning the
tangled beauty of the danger-filled terrain.
the stream, she crouches at
its
Moving
sister, lost
drink not long ago.
silently to
edge. Bending to drink, she
sees her wavering reflection watching her
her younger
Once
and remembers
to a meat' eater as she bent similarly to
The matriarch
straightens and, obeying
8^'
îS^
some
quiet impulse, slides her hands into the gentle current
of the stream. Palms up, fingers slightly curved, each pressed

firmly against the next, she brings her hands together
lo!
water to her mouth. All the while watching for danger.
lifts
Her
thirst
quenched, she returns to the haven of the cave to
and wonder
sit
and
at
what
it is
she has just done. She studies
her hands, cups them, uncups them. Again and again. Then:
"What a
Gazing
breakthrough!
at
fire,
then
in the cave.
we feel
my
like these,
hake them hard in
clay-cupped'hands with water and keep
Then none
it
of us will need to risk death every time
takes another leap:
"Then
I will
pins in
it
it
fill
and fashion hands
thirst."
Her mind
So
have just invented the container!"
her cupped hands, she makes plans:
"I will take clay
the
and
make another clay'Cupped'hands and keep bobby

stuff like that."
was that the human-made container was
the inventor was right
when
she said
it
first
created.
And
was a breakthrough. The
ubiquitous container has proved to be one of our most enduring and
widely-used inventions. Too widely used, in

ever^^thing in containers.
Even
people.
Even
fact.
Today we put
ourselves.
Imagine: You've just been hired by the corporation of your dreams.
your
first
a unique
96.
day on the
job.
You come bounding
in, all
excited about
and valuable contribution. You are ready to
fly
when...
It's
making
Containers Contain
You run into an
BAM!...
invisible wall.
03
CUD
03
<
CQ
03
CUD
t2
uteSe
You
are confined.
i^V9
Contained
-uibSe
in a
uim no^
box called job description.
Intended to make you accountable and containable, more often than

not
its
net effect
is
to restrict you.
Some may protest:

"Wait a minutel
We need job descriptions.
Without them everyone would
be tripping over everyone else."
Not
so
not boxed
if
we
in,
learn to dance together.
On a dance floor,
people are
and they manage very nicely to avoid tripping over one

quantum leaps the future seems to
another. If we are to achieve the
be demanding of us, we must
and
find the grace to
risk to leave
our containers-tumed-cages
dance without stepping on
toes.
Others' or our own.
97.
/
i
i
Chapter Eleven
Cage Dwellers
Cage Dwellers
DATE:
September
1990
8,
PLACE: The Sunday Comics

Garfield, leaping, Rambo-like, through the
FREEPOAA FI&HT6R.'
announces himself:
He charges
through the shop, flinging open the cages of the confined
VOO'RE FR&E/
pets, proclaiming:
But, instead of rejoicing in this sudden
and dogs and birds
remain in
all
unknown possibilities
Seeing
this,
open door of a pet shop,
that
their
open
gift
VOO'RE FRE6.'
of liberation, the cats
cages, intimidated
by the
come with freedom.
Garfield surmises:
MM/\A/V\,FOLKe AAOST
NOT BE
HEAVILV INTO FREEPOM TMEeE PAV6

Ever
flexible,
he whirls back through the pet shop, slamming cage
VOO'RE SECORE.' VOU'RE SECURE.'
doors and cheering:
The
pets, reconfined,
Same
look relieved.
thing happens in the world of people.
Many
of us choose
security over freedom to such an extreme that we confine ourselves

and profoundly limit our experience of life. 1 might surrender to a
craving to be secure by electing to live out
my
life
in a closet.
Maximum safety, minimum existence.
On the other hand,
what
if I
had
and the high excitement of living
a passion tor unbridled
fully?
My rambling reverie
freedom
might run
like this:
"Oh, freedom! Elusive freedom! Where might
find your
thrill!
To
soar like a bird unfettered by the brutal bonds of earth. Like a bird... like a
bird...
That's
it!... I'll
take
up skydiving!"
check the Yellow Pages. Make the
required to
jump out of an
call.
Sign up for the training
airplane.
101.
Sunday afternoon. My ground training is behind

me, and I'm on my way in a Cessna 182 up to 3,500 feet to make my
first jump. With me are two other students, the jump master and the
a beautiful
It is
pilot.
we
All too soon
on jump
are
run.
"Door!"
...
the
jump master
yells
above the roar of the engine,
he opens the door The jump begins.
am amazed
which the others tumble out into the cloudless
sky.
just before
at the ease
with
Now it is my turn.
Hands and feet braced against the doorway, the wind sucking the
out of my lungs,
below.
look
down
at the
neat patterns of tiny farms
begin to have second thoughts.
excitement in
my
life?
Do
really
want
this
air
far
much
My ree valuation is interrupted by the jump
master, who, behind me, encourages
me
out the door
out
into
floorless terror.
My mind screams at me:

"You wanted more freedom, more excitement
Well, you've sure got
The
rush
not sure for
is
incredible.
how
it'.
long, but a
for
102.
life.
have a breathtaking sense of being

tremendous sense of being
alive...
alive.
my parachute opens and drift gracefully down to a

What a buzz! That part of me that is always on the lookout
I
something new to become addicted to
Sunday
your
Big time!"
Miraculously,
safe landing.
in
for the
next
six
months, I'm back
is
immediately hooked. Every
for
another excitement
hit.
4?P
Cage Dwellers
weekend of the seventh month. And here

jump of the day, plummeting freestyle in an
1800'foot, IZO-mile-an-hour freefall towards earth. The wind rages
at my jump suit. As the Kansas landscape zooms up towards me, I find
It is
now
am, making
the
my
first
third
myself thinking:
"I
wonder what's for dinner
Wait a minute!
"
What happened to the

of my first jump go?
excitement?
Where
did the
life -expanding thrill
Nothing
lasts.
Nothing.
I
refuse to accept the loss. I've got to recreate the
intoxication of my earlier jumps. But
little
voice inside
me
mind-blowing
how?
whispers:
"Unbuckle your parachute."
I'm so impatient to get the old excitement back that

this idea
without
down with both

way out of the
It
works!
really thinking
it
seize
through. Fighting the wind,
hands, unbuckle the straps across
harness,
upon
I
reach
my chest, worm my
and hurl the parachute away from me.
The excitement quotient
skyrockets! Every molecule in
my body is screaming:
"Freeeeeeee
e e e e
And
then.
SPLAT!
I
don't live to share the experience with anyone.
Sky diving without a parachute
So:
is
suicide.
Total freedom- is suicide.
And:
Holing up in a closet
Total security
is
Somewhere between the

and
suicide
place
is
is
is
vegetating.
vegetating.
ridiculous extremes of vegetating
different for
you and
for
me.
A different place for different
suggestion
Generally, though,
somewhere
end of the security /freedom continuum and move
is, if
toward the safe
lives.
you want to
live mor-e fully, start
mindfully, ever so mindfully, toward the free end.
104.
'
the right place for each of us. I've got a feeling that right
times of our lives and different parts of our
my
^^
Cage Dwellers
Personals
502
RAREFUGHT
DEPART FROM: Oevwus Dependency
DESTINATION: Hiqn Tfiumpft
Not th* plundrinq triumph o(
9am is to
a sistor to
of
th day
victor
iho
machismo
Mrnr* ih
crush a brother or
bocom*
tomorrxn* dislirvquishod pfy. No

that triumph. Thr is no d4ivranca lh*r. Mot tlt tnumph. but
Ih* tTiump ot nndir9 your divwta
humanity. To b* dnmmti human
proloundlK pasaionaialy hMnan
you must dara to forsaka the faartd qrapplinq ior security that
enslaves yo** sptm. Say. -Goodbye,
dpndocyl* Uniotd your wirtgs.

Brave skyward to the sartctity o(
graca. whole in the knoertedge thai
though the mud of your begtrtyou
nings wM soon reclaim you
ar* livatg your moment, heart and
105.
jj^,jMu>cxa^...Yoi;r
u;
.'
were
PffA'/v-
yo
fl<m
your
Left
u/'e
<f
r e
T^'.n.^
^^LTtfL^
ôn VNouseôw +of of
'\H^T's
your
Navels.
ivher? TAe/-e
i^^rjur,,,^,
of
rAe
ALL of it ^
/V\oTKer5 N^^\^
To
/Viy
^ .^-
hi
l5
8 ^TTonx.
f^Vl'
^'
f^NSw^t-s of
whick
pc^,,
lA/^LL, yQi/
Kho\Aj
h^'nQ
incLTheJ
ÂNT
moRe
TO
SH,f^,
\A/hi^
To
,v.
y^
Thar woul^
/'^
êu,/v^K.^ wei/e heêR

Lyn
after
tTi/o/a
em
</
^^
qcceptfll*>Le
TRie^ Th^r
a^. 'ê^ e^r.
en'O
i^
or
TRt/THr
o^t/<)c
of OUR
^nU,
of
ovn
*^ not
M,
tf
Awards^sr
SwOk'
^*a.
for
êiV
l^fîM'^tlî^
^/ty
^'^
^r
our
,,,, ,.,
et,u,^,,^
^/
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"for AX? a T/V/)
ÂS
fô-r-
r///f
Seen
PROTECT
YOV
dlS<:reJ'''"e^
-fRofA
ty
THE
nr)y
c^CficSs
DENSER
^p^^cfy
<>ih4
HBH
i**fh
pi
*>/H
M/
of
h^lh^
SISTER
CtPi/ef
u,
^ outh.
Introducing Your Brain
So!
well,
Even
it's
inside our heads there
a necessary function,
has been taught to carry
it
is
a guardian of the Hairball.
suppose. But what a pity the
out so tyrannically, muffling his
left
Oh
twin
sister's
originality in order to feel secure in the established order of things.

If
we
make ourselves more fully available to the unfathomable

of our whole mind, we must unmuzzle the genius of the right
are to
potential
twin.
How might we do that?

So many books and workshops
for creativity fail to deliver
twin's censoring
that promise to increase our capacity
because they prescribe removing the
hand through
rational means.
take a rational approach to halting the
twin
is
left twin's
to play directly into his strength,
which
And you cannot beat him at his own game.

way
to
remove
his inhibiting
hand
is
left
That won't work. To
is
silencing of the right

rational thinking.
Ultimately, the only effective
through tramrational thinking.
Chi'the'Other'Side'of'rational/ahove-and'heyond'rational thinking.
So how do we ungag Original Thought
transrationally?
By soaring
above the rational on the wings of spiritual intuition. 01A/^lA/^/f/ynj(
Pla;/.
Magic.
Myth.
_
L L
Imagination.
115.
Chapter Thirteen
o-
About Teasing
About Teasing
A manager in Management Information Systems at Hallmark had

me to conduct a workshop on creativity for the people in his
section. He had reserved a meeting room in the Hyatt Hotel next door
invited
to Hallmark's headquarters in
On
midtown Kansas
the appointed morning,
we were scheduled
materials
arrived at 8:30, half an hour before
to begin, so that
and otherwise prepare
City.
for the group's arrival. Precisely at
9:00, about 25 people entered the room.
file,
if
^Qf
Although I'm sure they had
walked over from Hallmark's main building, which was

the square, they looked as
my
might have time to arrange
just across
they had arrived by tour bus. In single
three feet apart, they shuffled obediently to their seats.
All the
men had on dark blue
and conservative
ties.
About
or grey pin-striped suits, white shirts
a third of the
women
were wearing
solid,
navy blue suits, white blouses and one variation or another of those
product-management bow ties. The rest had on tastefully tailored
business dresses.
They'd have
fit
in beautifrilly at
except for one thing:
them
different.
fighter's
hat with
She looked
like
They were
remember,
all sorts
the
spirit
IBM
all
or
some
like corporation...
wearing goofy hats
in particular,
one
each of
woman wearing
of plastic fruits and vegetables stuck

of Carmen
Miranda reincarnated
a fire
on
it.
hut
without the energy.
None of the group

suits
displayed any real energy.
The
incongruity of the
and the crazy hats was not generating the good humor one
might expect. Instead, wooden smiles and just-as-wooden postures

suggested the synthetic aliveness of corporate marionettes.
'Afih/i...
thought:
we're having mandatory fun."
117-
"
Mandatory fun
is
the force -feeding of some cockeyed activity to a
captive audience with intent to generate joviality. Almost without

exception, these ill-advised intrusions
intended
to.
The
result
is
fail
to create the mirth they are
a discomfort that everyone feels, but
no one
acknowledges.
I
felt a
certain sympathy for these victims of obligatory happiness
and invited them to take their hats off if they wished. They did so
instantly, which tended to confirm my suspicions that they had been
intruded upon emotionally. Suddenly
it
became very important
not to infringe further. That resolve was to serve

very
first
to
me
well during our
exercise.
Because Hallmark owns Binney

Crayons, one of the perks
the
me
& Smith, which makes Crayola
enjoyed at Hallmark was
full
access to
all
wax crayons I wanted. That morning I had brought along with me
a cardboard carton filled with
dumped on
the
300 or 400 loose crayons, which
floor, saying:
"Help yourself to whatever colors you want. Pick up a sheet of

paper from
the room.
this pile.
Make
yourself comfortable anywhere in
And make marks on paper
that
have somethmg
to
do with who-you-are and Management hiformation Systems
and Hallmark.
(I
used the phrase marks on paper advisedly.
The word drawing has
inhibiting performance expectations attached to
make marks on paper
The
is
less likely to
it.
An invitation to
be intimidating.)
commotion of the group busying itself with selecting

crayons gave way to a meditative silence as people settled in around
the room and focused on their task. Sitting in the quiet, wondered
what was going on in these individuals' minds. Some seemed rapt;
general
About Teasing
others, lost.
more
hoped that none would see
one
foolish intrusion to be suffered silently.
After a while,
their
this exercise as simply
when people were
finishing, sitting back, gazing at
work or around the room, and
asked
if
starting quiet conversations,
anyone in the group would be
rest of us
what he or she had put on
Everyone went into
invisible
willing to risk sharing with the
paper.
mode.
All eye contact ceased. Suddenly every person in the group was
checking his or her fingernails

"No.
Had
We
don't
we
show the
think
rest of us
The message was
crayon wax.
clear:
to share."
not been so touched by the
the silly-hat fiasco,

to
want
for
spiritually
dampening
effect of
might have been tempted to coax someone
what he or she had done. After
all,
how
could
explore creativity without risking and sharing?
But,
hair's
when
it's
coming from
breadth from coercion.
workshop
leader,
And coercion is
coaxing
is
a deterrent to creative
participation.
And a workshop without

workshop
at
all,
creative participation
There must be no coaxing from

I
let
it
But
as
woman
me
in
workshop.
this
to share?
Okay,
let's
began describing the next
move on."
activity,
toward the back of the room
seemed
happened
to notice
who was making what would
describe as intentional eye contact with me.

that
not a creative
go:
"Nobody want
is
but rather an exercise in cultural indoctrination.
It
was an inviting
stare
to say:
119^
"
me
"If you will give
persorud encouragement,
my
will share
drawing with the group.

I
responded to her cue:

"You wouldn't by any chance he willing
to
show us what you
did in that last exercise?"
Without
a word, the
woman popped
out of her chair and, with a
bashful eagerness, walked directly to the
flip
chart at the front of the
room. There, on the large newsprint pad, she began cheerfully tracing
out what
presumed
to be
an enlargement of her
had not drawn more than three or four

began to tease her about the
added to the barbs.
in the
lines before
level of her
drawing
original drawing.
She
one of her co-workers

Others quickly
skill.
A rowdy taunting ensued. There was a stunning shift
woman's energy from one of delighted sharing
to a
shame-faced
defensiveness. After an apologetic explanation of her drawing, she

scurried, eyes
Back
I
felt
down, back to her
to the safety of the
anonymity of the group.
heartsick:
"Wait a minute!
about
"But
I
seat.
What just happened
here?
want
to talk
this.
first I
have
was once an
to give
alcoholic.
you some of my personal background.

M}' rehabilitation process included
attending various support groups where, over time,

find out about
behavior
One
some of the many lurking
intricacies
especially valuable revelation for
began
of addictive
me was
learn about the powerful role shaming plays in the
to
to
dynamic of
any family cursed by an addiction-poisoned environment.

"Addictive behavior does not
120.
damage just
the addict, but the
'
About Teasing
an
addict's family as well. In
of the
effort to survive die
imane behavim-
addicted one, other family members devebp
And pretty
insanities.
soon, the whole tribe
is
jumbled web of addiction-induced craziness.
reciprocating
participating in
The
craziness
member into compulsively controlling

member so that nobody gets any big ideas
seduces every family

every other fainily
about breaking the web of madness

to
in
some
rebellious effort
healthier behavior
move toward
"This compulsion to control, engendered by the addiction,
becomes a protector of the addiction. The controlling takes
many forms, one
of which
shaming.
is
"We were
discussing all this at group one evening
guy
next to
sitting
when
the
is
a disguised form of
long-bcked doors in
my mind hurst open.
me observed,
'Teasing
shaming.
"Bull's eye!
One of the
"For as far back as

frenzied teaser but
teased to control.
afraid.
could remember,
had never looked
Why
would
For wliatever reason,
of others.
skill
One way
of teasing
want
learned
at why.
to
this
Now I knew.
control? Because
liave held
of dealing with
it
had always been a
I
I
am
a long- standing fear
fear
was
to learn the
myself off
well, eventually walling
with a bristling armor of barbed banter desigied to blunt the
power of those countless people I feh threatened

teasing became a weapon intended to push others
and thus reduce the sense of menace in my life.
vuK Yuk"1 Jiave
y^t^-
y*<
a sinking feeling
colleague with just

that,
when you
yvK
y^^k
now
tluit
teased this
bakmce
you bombarded your
a similar strategy.
woman,
off
My
((Hff
the teasing
reflects
by.
it
suspect
was an unconscious
121,

*A -ffA- Ha
effort to control
from
her by throwing her off balance
which she was most
risking,
would you want

courage
Hairball
witness.
The
And
to
to risk to
that
to stop
clearly beginning to do.
her
Why
do that! Well, when one of us finds the
grow
can be
threat
to leave the status
quo of the
pretty threatening for the rest
ofu^to
that we, too, might be expected to grow.
is
sometimes growing can be a frightening and painful
experience. If we feel
we have
already suffered too
we
or are already frozen by a sense of menace,
anything
we can
to
much pain
are liable to do
avoid the pain or threat that often comes
with the experience of growth. So
we
our loop who display a
desire
willingness to grow.
way
shame them. But because we dont
stop them
to
want
to
growth,
admit
we
is
to
and
contrive to stop others in
to others or ourselves that
disguise
we
our shaming as teasing
more
are trying to stop
good fun.' ('Whatsa matter, cantcha take a
One
'all
little
in
spirit of
joke?'
shaming.)
ftA-HA--H/^ HA-HA-ff/l-...;^--^
"If
lam wrong about
this,
forgive me.
you teased your co-worker about

ability,
you were holding up a stop
StbPi
But
think that
the level of her
when
drawing
sign that said:
Growing!
^top
Sharing!
Living!
roPj
CtoP)
Because when
you finally stop

will
122.
no longer be a
living,
you
threat to me.
"
"
About Teasing
"None of us
deserves stop signs like that. So
those of you
who
would ask you
are inclined to tease others
the next
time you are about to tease someone, pause for just a moment.
Look deep
inside yourself See if you
can get
in
touch with
your motivation. And, perhaps, reconsider.
A few days after the workshop,

thanking
me
for
The whole
anonymous note
being aware of what was going on that morning.
thanked
to
me
received an
experience was so meaningful to
the story in the presentations that

the country.
me
that
recounted
was then beginning to give around
A man came up to me after one such presentation and

for the "teasing story," as
him because he and
relentlessly until
his wife
and
one day she had
he called
his
it.
He
said
son used to tease
tried to
commit
it
his
meant a
lot
daughter
suicide. Fortunately,
she did not succeed at killing herself, but she did succeed in getting
her family's attention. They
all
went packing
to a therapist, with the
daughter as the designated patient. Before long, the family learned that
every time they had teased the daughter, they had been cutting a
more
cuts
at her self-regard until eventually the
little
accumulation of all the
added up to a wound so painful that she simply wanted to
die.
little
To
escape through death.
Death of a Thousand Cuts. That
is
what teasing can
The man's lesson was so moving that I added it

stories. Some time later, when I was telling his tale
someone
to
be.
my
stable of
to another group,
in the audience protested:
"Wait a minute. Teasing
is
how I show
affection.
My response was:
"You must find a better way. " ff i^
123.
Chapter Fourteen
High-Tech Peaches
High-Tech Peaches
What
ever happened to
gone from the scene. Mostly
really juicy
all
peaches? They seem
all
but
you can buy are the high-tech peaches
painstakingly developed through the wonders of modern horticultural
manipulation.
A hardy durability and uniformity of size
have been bred into
them
this
and shape
contemporary generation of peaches to render
better able to survive the rigors of mass marketing.
The
juicy peaches of yesterday
needed to be handled with
care.
had
There
a delicacy about
is
no room
for
today's bruising race from orchard to supermarket.
must be tough.
And
tough they
are.
But
them and
such pampering
So
surprise!
in
today's peaches
when the
toughness was bred into them, the tenderness was bred out, along with
the juice and flavor.
What
Such
are the priorities of today's competitive world.
a loss!
as a kid, coming into possession of a large, ripe

peaches seem devoid of fuzz, this one wore a
today's
While
peach.
even taking into
lip-tickling, diaphanous velvet coating that was
childhood
of
to magnify the
the
memories
account the tendency of
easily an eighth- of-an-inch thick. There was
size of everything
I
remember,
juice to spare in that
chin as
my
peach
plenty
extra to go squirting
down my
teeth sliced easily through the delicate skin and into
the luscious flesh.
A flavor nothing short of erotic exploded in my
mouth.
What
The
innocent ecstasy.
It's
an ecstasy not readily available
today.
durability of high-tech has brought to peaches the flavor of
pasteboard. You bite into one and think:

"This
is
not a peachl This
is
some
sort of ingenious synthetic
substance cleverly pressed into the shape of a peach."
What
a loss, indeed.
127.
This sad state of lost juiciness
There, a
monomania
correctness has
enterprises.
is
echoed in the world of business.
tough-minded, cold-blooded competitive
for
bred the spiritual sensuousness out of most of our
That leaves us with a
reality
human
of synthetic personas and
pasteboard passions, an epidemic of barren careers and a wasteland of
workplaces devoid of flavor.
A friend and colleague, David Albright, and
were once asked to
create a video dramatizing the ongoing evolution of Crown Center, an

office, retail,
Kansas
entertainment, and residential complex in midtown
The content
City.
but we wanted the

to create
sound
video to be more than that.
something captivating,
So we went
camera
final
of the script presented to us was interesting,
flavorful
aiming
say, juicy.
to considerable lengths to invest the video with appealing
angles, on- camera activity,
track.
produce a
We were
even, you might
There were
to be
zestful presentation
time to add the voice-overs.
no
dynamic editing and an
inviting
Our efforts to
success until it came
"talking heads" here.
were met with easy
We wanted a woman's voice for the general
And we would need a man's voice giving directions to

Crown Center by automobile while, on-camera, the grime -encrusted
narration.
hand of a supposed service

routes on a city map.
station
David, being the audio/visual

this part of the production.
We
all
mechanic pointed
specialist, lined
met
at a local
to alternate
up the talent
sound
studio,
over the script and chatted about the tone we were looking
was important to
to
for. It
me that the quality of the voices be conversational

mood of the video casual and real. This was not
keep the overall
an audition. Ours was not a big enough job to merit auditions.

were
128.
for
went
just
going to go with the
woman and man David had
We
brought
in.
*^
High-Tech Peaches
The woman went
first.
Although
have seen sound studios depicted
in movies, the actual, in-the -flesh experience
the joy of a kid being allowed to

available to the general public.
microphone
in a
giant picture
was new
soundproof room of her own.
window
for
me.
felt
on some cool operation not usually

The woman, script in hand, stood at a
in
sit
in a dimly
lit
On the other side of a
control room, David and
were
seated in pamperingly comfortable real-leather swivel chairs.
To the
He
right of
David
sat a
sound expert.
know he was an
expert.
would have to be to understand the galaxy of dials, knobs, gauges
and switches that was spread out

electronic buffet.
We
all
come
some extravagant
at any moment.
expected Captain Kirk to walk in
wore earphones
things that
in front of us like
not the
twirpy sponge rubber
little
with a lot of walking audio- cassette players, but real
earphones. These were earphones that enveloped the ears.
were upholstered in
leather, too. Soft, pliable leather.
sound studio believed

studios are like that.
was
why
it
was awful.
tried to tell her that. Perfect
We
wanted
hard to get
real.
folks at this
sound
don't know.
to read her narration.
perfect. That's
think they
in indulging their clients. Perhaps all
Taking her cues from our video, playing on a
woman began
The
is
not
It
TV
monitor, the
was awful. Well,
We
didn't
real. Perfect
want
is
what turned out
it
had
not interesting.
Conversational. Imperfect. Authentic.
this across to
actually,
perfect.
It
was very
to be our professional
announcers.
No,
for
that's
them was
not
right.
They understood
to let go of their
right away.
What was
announcer training and be
real.
hard
They
both eventually rediscovered their authentic voices, but not before
we heard
take after take of flawless readings that were
all, alas,
devoid of the taste of humanness.
129.
How do we become
part,
by the
many
so bogus? Well, our artificiality
teachers and trainers
who work
is
caused, in
so hard to
instill
professionalism that prizes correctness over authenticity and originality.
Flesh-and'blood students persevere the rigors of broadcast school only

to
emerge with voices
as unreal as their
pancake make-up. Budding
designers, capable of passion, sweat the grind in schools of architecture
and graduate
to create
environments unconnected to the lusciousness
of life. Diamonds-in-the-rough enter business schools and

the other end as so
many polished
come out
clones addicted to the dehumanizing
power of classification and systematization.
Good news on
least
the peaches, though!
It
some horticulturists have come to
has been reported that at
their senses
and are now
working to breed the juiciness and flavor back into the bounty of our
gardens. In doing so, they will help renew
human
Sensuousness has to do with the senses.

senses that
we
And
are able to experience the world
sensuousness.
it is
through our
around
us. So, to
the
degree that horticulturists succeed in bringing natural flavor back into

fruits
and vegetables, they
will
be helping us get back in touch with
the natural juiciness of our primal genius.
Perhaps some fine morning, the designers of our work spaces and
the setters of our corporate priorities will find the
wisdom
to follow the
lead of those newly enlightened horticulturists, take up the banner of

professional sensuousness
and begin
so long gone from our bread
and
'9i
130.
^f
in earnest the quest for the flavor
butter.
Chapter Fifteen
Somewhere
in mid-career at
Corporate Ambition bug.

I
It
was
even went out and bought a
Hallmark,
my first
suit.
was bitten by the
time, so
it
me
hit
Here's the story:
pretty hard.
had been having
a rollicking, productive time in the
Contemporary Design department,
working with a bunch of eccentric
artists
and
writers to create
all sorts
when I was asked by my long-time boss, mentor,

Bob McCloskey, if I would be willing to head up a tiny,
of humor products,
and
protector,
voice -in-the -wilderness department called Creative Licensing.
on the condition
that
be allowed also to continue with
projects in Contemporary.
No problem. The deal was
my
agreed,
absorbing
struck.
Very shortly after that. Hallmark's perennial competitor, American

Greetings,
came out with
a cutsie character
named Strawberry
Shortcake? which quickly became a red-hot property in the world of

character licensing.
The sweet
little
Greetings getting
its
cut
on every
on every
thing began appearing
legitimate children's product you could imagine, with
American
sale.
Big bucks.
All of a sudden, Hallmark's movers and shakers

interested in licensing.
staff
old
mushroomed from
home
in
The
three to 33.
was sucked
Contemporary Design into the
Properties division
became very
fledgling Creative Licensing
Department
right out of
hastily created
my comfy
Hallmark
and put under another, much more intense boss.

if I could cut it, I'd be promoted to design
Broad hints were made that

director
as
high as you could go on the Creative side at Hallmark
without becoming a vice president. (That's

the
when I went
out and bought
suit.)
All sorts o( grandiose business plans and
around and the pressure to generate
from
lots
money
of income
licensable characters skyrocketed. In the
started flying
lots
of income
meantime,
had
133.
launched into a
writer
la-la grandiosity
who would
listen to
my
of my own, cornering any
rhapsodizing over what
artist
saw
as
or
an
opportunity to achieve a quality and richness comparable to the Walt
Disney Studios of the 1930s.
was
terribly naive.
Hallmark Properties had become the hot career

self-serving, overnight
predators
fast track. Fierce,
empire -building was under way. Career- obsessed
who had moved into
this alluring
new arena were making
some mighty ostentatious fiscal promises to top management. To fulfill

those promises, staff had to generate great volumes of business.
Accordingly, folks
on the business
side of the Properties Division
slapping Hallmark characters indiscriminately
product they could snag. Volume was the
The
spent in the protective
7 years
Design had
had
left
me
new game. Prior

to make the switch.
of the
was unable
had been the game.
on any non-Hallmark
name
to that time, quality
were
cocoon of Contemporary
ill-prepared to cope with the harshness of the
corporate turpitude that was churning into
thrashing around in a personal career
crisis
my
life. I
found myself
had me ranting
and good taste. At the
that
impotently against our abandonment of quality
same time, enchanted by the idea of becoming a design director, I was

scrambling to achieve my immediate management's get-rich-quick
goals and, in the process, was seriously abusing the talented artists and
writers
The
who
reported to me.
part of me that
measure up,
deal with
lost all
my colleagues
an end. To
way made
filled
total jerk
as if they
their great credit,
my behavior. That
was
is
it
to the fore. In
were threats
a few of the people
they each confronted
possible for
me
me
or,
I
my anxiety
to
worse, as
means
to
was abusing challenged
in such a loving, caring
to see the validity of their complaints.
with a crushing emotional distress that sent
a psychotherapist for help.
134.
came
sense of reasonable expectations and began to
me
careening to
This was
my first
a psychologist,
visit to
history of having long scorned
cowardly or self-indulgent.
anyone
What
and
brought to
it
in therapy as being either
a difference
need makes; now
couldn't get in to see the therapist fast enough. After a few
visits,
achieved a certain limited clarity and resolved to remove myself, one
way or another, from the

toxic work environment.
I
my
cesspit of
torment
my
irreconcilably
surveyed Hallmark in search of a department to jump
my state
areas.
of mind,
could find
little
let
did not yet have
go of the remarkable financial security that Hallmark
had so long provided
for
its
employees. Desperate,
turned to fantasy
and conjured a make-believe department that would be

creative -friendly oasis
at
empire building,
where
it
would be
ass covering,
and
all
possible to
me: a
one's nose
With
a cleansing sense
translated this fantasy of paradise -within-a- corporation
into a one-page, hand-written proposal to establish a
Making
ideal to
thumb
those other deterrents to
fashioning vigorous concepts and fresh products.
of excitement,
But, in
promise in any of our Creative
Leaving the company was not an option then.
the courage to
to.
a verhoten
end-run around
my boss,
Humor Workshop.
my proposal
presented
over lunch to the vice president of the Creative division.
By the end of the luncheon he had made

"We've got
to
do
his decision:
it."
A budget was approved, space was found, my flabbergasted boss

was informed, and
artists
the
and
set
writers I'd
up exploratory interviews with each of the 12
been allowed to
select as the charter
members of
new department. Meeting with each of them separately (none

yet who else would be in the department), I said:
of
them knew
135.
"Pretend that the 13 of us are
Pretend that
we
studio called the
we
are
our jobs at Hallmark.
money and
starting
Humor Workshop. Hallmark
our employer but

Because
all quitting
are pooling our
will, rather,
be our
will
our
client,
a creative
no longer he
sole client.
now on our own, we can design our environment
any way we want. Fantasize what our studio would be

Conjure
weekends,
any
to
it
would be
the place
that,
you would choose
like.
even on
over
to be
other.
"Now
To
your mind a place so wonderful
in
then,
tell
me.
What would
invite people to fantasize
is
this
to offer
place be like?"
them
a safe- conduct pass
muse beyond habitual fatahsm. The interviews yielded
variety of ideas for the
new
area.
antique, rolltop desks.
That
led
around roUtops.
There was one
me
a dazzling
recurring suggestion:
to decide to design a
department
enlisted the services of Donna Livingston,
in our Facilities Planning department.
an architect
With Fred Wolfe of our Purchasing
department, we raided every^ antique store in greater Kansas

This
is
the best
way
to go antiquing
with
Donna and I wound our way through shop

find a desk that
was
right for us,
City.
a corporate checkbook.
after shop.
we'd give Fred a high
Whenever we'd
sign.
He would
then bargain with the owner and complete the necessary paperwork.
I
told
Donna I wanted
every person in the department to have a
space that offered both a clear statement of personal territory and a

sense of privacy, without cutting everyone off from everyone else (as
do the energy-blocking cubicles that currently blight the offices of the

corporate world) She responded with a delightful concept: T? tie in
with the desks, we bought an array of stained-glass windows and old
.
156.
" "
doors with beveled-glass panels from a local salvage company. Using

hefty
hemp
rope,
we hung
the
windows and doors from the
ceiling in
an arrangement that established individual private/open work spaces.

For variety,
we had
additional doors hinged together in pairs or threes
to fashion privacy screens.
The
aesthetically invigorating.
was
result
was functionally
ecstatic.
The
charming wastebaskets. (Bad

to empty.)
asked the
idea,
It
struck
spied a couple of
me
was to learn
woman who was
that they'd
later:
easy to
jeopardize
signaled Fred to negotiate for 13, a
my
make
fill,
hard
puttering around behind the
counter whether she had more milk cans. She showed

basementful.
and
fantasy was materializing.
Toward the end of one afternoon s antiquing,

old milk cans in the corner of a shop.
effective
me
move
a half
that was to
dream- coming- true.
The following Monday, Donna called

summoned to a meeting in Purchasing.
to inform
me we had been
"When?"
"Right now.
"Whats
it
about!"
"Dont know.
"I'll
We
be right there."
met Donna
at the
entrance to the Purchasing department.
were ushered into a conference room where
bureaucrats awaited
pleasantries,
us. Five.
we moved
five
solemn-taced
After the ritual exchange ot Hallmark
directly to the issue at hand.
"We've been watching your recent flurry of purchase
and are puzzled by one of them, the one for 1 3

What exactly do you need with 13 milk cans!"
requisitions
milk cans.
157.
"
The cans had pushed
The
Purchasing's alert button.
requisitions
had passed by without question, as had those for the

doors and windows. Hallmark needs desks, doors and windows, so
nothing suspicious there. But milk cans? That was another matter.
for the desks
explained, at considerable length, the concept of the
Workshop.
When
woman
concluded, a
across the table
Humor
from me
one who, since Donna and

from a thick,
I had entered the room, had not looked up

opened Corporate Manual and stack of forms that
turned out to be our purchase requisitions

"These items are not on the
list
said, still
not looking up:
of approved furniture.
All eyes turned toward me. In the silence, a low-grade panic
announced
itself in
my stomach.
greater length, this time with
all
re -explained the
concept at even
the feeling and seductive power
could muster.
With her
requisitions,
eyes
still
locked on the open manual and the offending
my challenger repeated:
"These items are not on the
list
of approved furniture."
I was going to lose my paradise. I had an enthusiastic green light

from a corporate vice president and an approved budget, and yet this
bureaucrat was going to stop my concept dead in its tracks. She had
the authority to do so and,
was about
feared,
frustration of half a lifetime welled
up
in
me. Suddenly,
across the table emitting the malevolent aura
a green-eyed distillation of
who had
so often
plummeted
with
138.
my
seemed
into an
eyes.
It
all
all I
of...
it.
Anger and
saw the
woman
The Eternal Squelch
the withholders and door-slammers
to stand
between me and
irrational, paralyzing
was
to use
salvation.
hate and tried to
could think to do.
kill
her
Milk Cans
fA re
Not Allowed
Donna, apparently remaining free of the sort of self-destructive

mental contortions I was now enmeshed in, stayed in touch with her
own creativity and so was able to offer a way around my imminent
head-on
collision with bureaucracy:
"He}/, I
/ui5
hvyw\" she
a corporate art
flirted
then lend them to the
my would-be foe. "HaZ/mar/c

Why don't we just classify all
with
collection.
these things as antiques,
buy them for the
my enemy
art collection
and
Humor Workshop?"
Closing her corporate manual, the
woman I was
so eager to paint as
looked up, smiling brightly:
"What a great
idea."
Often things are slow to get through to me.
weeks
QvX'"
after
It
was not
until several
our meeting with the people in Purchasing that
it
began to
dawn on me: When I succumbed to my anger-tumed-hate reaction to

a fellow Hallmarker, who happened to make her living as a bureaucrat, I
was choosing victimhood
setting myself
up
to
as
become
my modus
operandi. In doing that,
charged to maintain. Donna's creative response saved
and taught me
Any
new
was
a prisoner of the Hairball that she was
me
from that
survival strategy:
time a bureaucrat
(i.e.,
a custodian of a system)
stands between you
and something you need or want,

your challenge
is
to help that
bureaucrat
discover a means,
harmonious with the system,

to
It is
meet your need.
a strategy that has helped
me
stay out ot
many
a Hairball.
139.
Aftemote:
For the
first
few weeks following
Humor Workshop seemed more
like
its
opening, the
an in-house
attraction than a high-performance artists'

studio.
and
tourist
writers'
A continuous stream of curious visitors from other
departments dropped by unannounced to see whether

there was any truth to the rumors of a funky
plunked down
in their sea of grey.
new
enclave
Although they were
nearly unanimous in their delight over our offbeat haven,

a few sightseers were scandalized at
as
what they perceived
an irresponsible lavishing of corporate funds.

"You cant justify spending the kind of money
taken to huild
this
Taj Mahal'."
it
must've
one perturbed division
vice president complained.
Wrong!
The
sterile,
assembly- line cubicles, standard at
Hallmark, cost, at that time, $4,200 per person.
We chose
instead to assemble a unique collection of furnishings that
both fostered the
free -spirited individuality of the staff
and promoted the mission of the department:
innovative
generation of product. Cost? Just $3,500 a head. That's
$700
a richer,
More
per person than the cubicle route.
less
more supportive environment
for less
money.
for less.
What
the disapproving vice president saw as troubling
evidence of irresponsible spending was, in

dividends of prudent ingenuity.
140.
We had created
fact,
the sweet
Chapter Sixteen
pS}^
^^^ ---
--^4
*"^.
.^^
'v
'
?,yTTBg
-i-.i-^
"
After three golden years in the role of what
might
self- deceptively
describe as "leader" of a dozen independent-minded creative geniuses

in the
Humor Workshop, I was
take a
new job
of the
Humor Workshop and
across the street in the
headquarters
that
it is
offer,
my
invited by
the Big Grey Place.

its
clearly pull
main building of the corporate

was so enjoying the funky energy
me
was
assignment would
wanting
me
me
entail.
new job
Humor Workshop because

what my new
a clear picture of just
remember
resistant to this
into the mainstream.
was especially reluctant to leave the
boss could not give
boss at the time to
location outside the corporate beltway
perhaps understandable that
which would
my
his saying
something about
his
to serve as a "burr in his saddle." Considering the man's
amounted to an invitation to become

Hun. Not a career I would seek.
reputation, this
to Attila the
devil's
advocate
whole thing had less to do with moving

more to do with moving me out of
the Humor Workshop, where my loose-leaf management style was
Further,
me
into a
was wary that
new
considered by
At one
many
straight arrows in the Big
Grey Place suspect
at best.
point, in hopes of getting a broader sense of what this
job would involve,
He
this
position and
asked
my boss
if
he had a position
title
in
new
mind.
responded:
"I
was
thinking of something like 'aide-de-camp!"
hate that! (There was probably
militaristic
Without
and
my voice.)
It
SOUTids
servile.
hesitation,
"Well then, you
a whining in
he responded:
come up with something."
143.
"
"
"
"
My paranoia hissed in my ear

"He doesnt
care
what
the job
will be
title
because there won't
be anything to do, anyhow.
With
that,
our meeting ended; and
paralyzed with anxiety over
my future
spent the rest of the afternoon
with the company.
my stress, went jogging after dinner. In

was at peace, my mind a blank. Shortly thereafter,
less than a mile,
without invitation, a single word popped into my head:
That evening,
to escape
PARADOX
(it
was
Feeling inexplicably excited,
in caps)
turned immediately and raced
back home to the tattered dictionary in

sweat,
raced
my fingers
through the
my
studio. Dripping with
L-M-N-Os
to P: pad... Pandora...
parade... paradox!
As
read the four definitions,
"This
I
became
is
what
want
electrified...
"If they will
won't
tell
This
is
a grin cross
what
144.
title.
am.
euphoric!
title, I'll
next morning,
my boss's
take the job. But
photocopied the definition, then
word paradox. At our next meeting,
desk:
"These are the definitions of the word

job
my face.
that.
scribbled over the actual
photocopy on
felt
OK this as my new
them
First thing the
to be.
would
like
as
my
laid the
beyond; doxin, opinion] 1: a statement

or proposition that seems absurd,
intellectually self -opposing, or contrary to common belief, yet may be
true. 2: a statement that is false
because it contradicts itself. 3: an
experience or thing that seems selfcontradictory. 4: a person who exhibits
contradictory or inconsistent behavior.
Have you ever
tried to
(Without the word's
determine a word from
letter
count?)
It's
its
not as easy as
definition?
it
might seem.
Being a Thirty-Days-To-A-More-Powerful-Vocabulary freak,
saw
I
it
as a challenge.
But he was unable to guess
this
my boss
word.
told him:
"The word's
'paradox.'"
"Could we put a modifier on
it?"
"Like what?"
"Somethijig
"Whoahl
of the Paradox.'"
like 'Office
Tlie suggestion hasn't been
on your desk for inore than
10 seconds, and you're already moving
He backed
off
"How about
(We were
He
to institutioiuiUze it!"
could sometimes be a very reasonable man.
'Creative
Paradox?"
in the Creative Division at the time.)
"That sounds good.
Yes,
like tliat."
(3)
145
^
He told me he would run it past his management and get back to
me. He did. The title was approved, and I took the job.
And so
it
was that the following Saturday morning,
was going
my personal belongings
them from my beloved Humor
through the melancholy task of packing
cardboard cartons and lugging

Workshop to a little windowless room on the ninth
Grey. Change can be depressing.
The
into
floor of the Big
following Monday, Hallmark's daily newsletter. The ]ôon
News, carried in
its
"New
Responsibilities" feature a one-line
announcement of my appointment
to the position of Creative
Paradox.
"Creative Paradox?"
lunch.
I
At
this point,
To
thrive,
to
I
tell
need
the
to give
didn't
woven
it
after
that?"
meant,
either.
you some background:
into the
is
the people of Hallmark.
its
No surprise,
company incantation chanted by Corporate
a call to creativity...
fclec(9
The people
respond. Magnificently.
this writing, there are
headquarters.
If,
at
How
to put a
number on
it.^
approximately 6,000 people at Hallmark's
any one time,
just 5
call to creativity, that translates into
thinking to the corporation.
146.
know what
is
me
even to survive. Hallmark must continually tap into
Communications
At
in
them.
primary creative resource
yofJH
to
Noon Nevuses
had nothing
then, that
people were coming up

hand "What
heck
percent of them answer the
300 people offering innovative
"
"
"
Unfortunately, while the heart of Hallmark sings the virtues of
company's
creativity, the
status
quo and
common
is,
intellect worships the predictability of the
thus, adverse to
new
ideas.
The
corporate personality disorder:
new
lauds the generation of
This incongruity creates

organization officially
ideas while covertly subverting the
implementation of those same
The consequence
ideas.
given day, umpteen people at Hallmark, responding to
is
that,
official
on any
corporate
come up with concepts for new methodologies or fresh,

products. Then those ideas, by nature of their newness, are
invitation,
original
deemed fundamentally unseemly by the same authority conglomerate

that asked for them in the first place. This makes for a lot of frustrated
ideamongers.
One
day,
one of these thwarted contributors vented her
frustration
to a friend. TTie friend said:
"Why don't you take your idea

He has nothing to do, anyway.
Creative Paradox.
to the
So the woman looked up my number and

"Could
come
see
you about an idea
called me:
have?"
bure.
She came and described her idea

idea,
and
"That's a wonderful idea.
She broke into a

"Thanks a
She
left
for a
new
product.
It
was a
terrific
told her so:
and
think
wc
should do
it.
grin:
lot.
remember
thinking:
"Boy That was easy."

I
147-
"
"
She went back
to her boss:
"The Creative Paradox

do
to
Now
thinks
my
idea
is
terrific
and we ought
it.
an unexpected phenomenon began to emerge. Because
Creative Paradox
had no meaning within the context of the corporate

I stood in the power hierarchy. But
nobody knew exactly where
culture,
how much power each player has is important information to those

especially middle
who cultivate their careers politically. And many
will, when in doubt, play it safe and guess on the high
managers
side in the power- estimating
had more power than

soon
as they
assumed
I
I
game. So a number of people assumed
actually had. (In fact,
"If the Creative
So he
did.
it,
had none
at
all.)
But
had
it.
as
had a certain amount of power:
The woman's boss, perhaps speculating

some power, must have thought:
support
Paradox supports her
that
idea,
might be a person of
maybe
I'd better
too.
And her idea became
a product.
And, lucky
for
me,
it
sold.
Soon word got around:

"If you liave
an
idea that
is
stuck in the system, just call the
Creative Paradox."
My phone started
ringing off the hook.
my emerging, indefinable (nonexistent)

power, set about to transform my little office into a corporate
version of Merlin's Den. A friend in Building Services cut me some
To enhance the
I
148.
illusion of
long, thin panels of pressed board,
which we hung under the overhead
fluorescents to block their light.
then
lit
the now-darkened
with candles and a single drawing board lamp. This gave

local light to work, but left the
room
still
me
very dark in contrast to the
antiseptic brightness of the rest of the corporate complex.
sense of the inscrutable,
room
sufficient
To suggest
adorned the walls with great enlargements
of Chinese calligraphy and cryptic
maxims scrawled on
large sheets of
newsprint.
From Anne Van Rossum Lawrence, a Hallmark artist, I bought a

had fashioned from an antique oak dining-room
fanciful sculpture she

chair.
Painted in brightly- colored zigzags, checks, stripes and waves,
the sculpture boasted wide-spread angel wings and sprouted a halo,
suspended on a
sculpture's
stick attached to the chair's back.
name, and
hung
it
from the
angle of about 45 degrees directly above
Angel Chair was the
ceiling, tilted
forward at an
my drawing board
to give the impression that I'd recently slid out of
it
chair,
hoping
and dropped down
to earth.
This
is
where
would meet with Hallmarkers who had hot ideas
stuck in corporate limbo.
Tap Tap Tap.
door into
A visitor would peer tentatively through the open
my darkened
room.
Sitting in the candlelight
through
would,
my notion of what method
of Shangri-la as
Ronald Coleman
Lama was 136

I
under the suspended Angel Chair,
acting is, become the High Lama

him played in an old black-and-white
Horizon. If I remember correctly, the mo\'ie
recalled seeing
film, Lost
years old. Frail, gentle
would become
and profoundly
wise.
36 years old.
149.
''Come"
"Sit"
would beckon
frailly to
my visitor
would whisper, gesturing toward the three
director's
chairs just inside the door.
We would sit in silence a moment,

emerge. Then,
"Tell
The
finally:
me, "
visitor
"Good
allowing an air of sacredness to
would open.
would describe the
idea, "
idea.
would pronounce
in a voice copied
Wise 'North- American- Indian character

another movie.
(I
"Thank you," the
think
visitor
did that for three years.
Hallmark
And yet
it
was Cry ojthe
would
The
smile.
I'd
from a
once seen in
Wolf.)
And leave.
Ratified.
three years of my 30 at
last
had no job description and
they were the most enriching,
a job
title
fruitful,
that
had no meaning.
productive, joy-filled
years of my entire career.
Talk about a paradox.
f XpL*'/^ ^
^^^'f^'^'p'
t/,e
X50.
poWer? of par<=ic(oX
"
Aitemote
One
1:
time after
I'd told
my
Paradox story
at a
conference, someone in the audience asked:
"Did you always
tell
people their ideas were good?"
"Yes."
"Were
all the ideas
good?"
"
"Almost
all.
"What about
the ideas that weren't good?"
"They were almost good."
"Wouldnt
that destroy
was a good
"In
any
forward
right
tell
truly
was
visiting
with wouldnt
someone an idea
new
is
good even
are very quick to say 'no.
was simply
worked. People
need a
make
lot
I told
everyone
if
it
isn't?"
workers
who put
Most companies are peppered with
alone wings. In saying
ideas to me,
know
ideas have the deck stacked against them
the beginning.
who
saying every idea
thing.
ideas are shot dowri befcne they even

let
large corporation, rank-and-file
from
people
same
"But why
credibility
idea?"
"The person
else the
your
'yes' to all
the difference.
to
who
grow feathers,
brought their
imbalance a
bit.
And
it
deep passion for their ideas don't
of encouragement.
"
Most newly hatched
those
leveling the
who have a
'
have time
One
'yes' in
a sea of
'no's'
can
Aftemote 2:
Someone in another audience
"These
with
been
stories you've
all
you did because
would have put up with
As
best as
can
it
offered the observation:
telling us... I think
was Hallmark.
the things
recall,
my
you
you got away
No
other
company
did."
response was something
like:
"You
re
probably
other things
worked
"If you
would
at that
saw
But neither you nor
right.
get
away with
could
at another
know what
company
until I
company.
soine of my steel sculptures,
that the reason
medium was
was
steel.
able to
And
you might say
me
my
to
make them was because

correct. Would you
you would be
then
say that marble would not put up with that sort of thing?
would not work with marble
You'd be right again. But
same way
steel.
"So, too,
I
if I
worked with
had moved from Hallmark
would have
the shift to
altered
different
you're a part of as
my
approach and
medium.
to
in the
another company,
style in
keeping with
Why not think of any orgardzauon
a unique medium
in
which you have the
opportunity to create?"
\.99^
7k^'2/M^''ô^^^^
Chapter Seventeen
Death Masks
Death Masks
Staff meetings were not
say
had
a real aversion to them.
each of the
staff
my first
six or
On one occasion, my hoss asked
who
him to come to our next

report on something. Each of us was to fill
seven of us
meeting prepared to
love at Hallmark. You might even
reported to
ten minutes.
I
felt
immediate anxiety. There was part of me that hated to report
on anything I was
doing.
was
afraid I'd be told either:
m^^^
St^/^
or:
^^j
"What
to
do?
know!
Vlljust report
on something
nothing to do with anything I'm doing. "

been
When
report,
(After
all,
my
that has
boss had not
specific.)
the next staff meeting was held, and
it
came my turn
to
held up a drawing:
"I
would
like to report
on masks.
Silence. Every face at the table
"
went blank.
155.
"M}; sense of these meetings
room, which,
(whatever
am
thuit is)
We all sit around

always reminds
told,
and
is lit
is
we come
that
into this
uindowkss
with balanced fluorescent lighting
decorated in tasteful corporate greys.
this long,
me
is
wooden conference
table that
of the lid of a coffin.
"And everyone has a mask
on.
"Now, one of the reasons for our coming together like this is to
work together to find more creative responses to the challenges
that are hurled at us every day.
"And
I've
been wondering:
'Why do we meet
this
way?
Surely there must be more promising approaches to finding

effective solutions to
"The more
our problems.'
thought about
about the masks,
especially.
it,
the
So
more
intrigued
thought
it
ask one of these people with a mask on
to
became
might be instructive
if
we might
look
"
behind
This
said,
his
mask
iri
hopes of learning something
held up another drawing:
Addressing the drawing of the masked face as

person,
156.
asked:
if it
were a
real
Death Masks
"Would
it
be
your mask
(I
moved
spoke as
if I
all right
with you
if,
in hopes of learning
the drawing to cover
were the
man in
"Well... (haltingly)...
just this once,
what
we removed
behind
it?"
my face, making
it
a mask,
1^
and
the drawing)
OK... but just
Moving the drawing away from my

spoke once again as myself,
lies
this
once."
this
face,
but
holding
still
it
up,
time addressing the people in the
meeting:
"Okay, we have his permission, which is important. But before
we remove his mask, notice his almost-twinkling eyes. And his
bright, jovial smile. Notice, too, the luind lield
'Hi!
"Just another
"Now,
let's
up as
if to
say:
How ya'll doin'?'
happy Hallmarker
remove the mask.
"Behind the cheery facade,
we find an
expression filled with
pain and anxiety. Suddenly, the hcmd that seemed to be saying

'Hi'.'
now
appears to be pleading:
'Stay
"Maybe
away! Dont
the source of this poor man's anguish
blemish at the side of his nose. This
is
is
get too close!'
the angry
a ZIT.
157.
"Besides a physical
And,
to
there
zit,
just like the physical
such a thing as a corporate
is
zit,
zit-
the corporate zit always seenis
emerge at the worst possible time.
"Have you ever known anyone

into
a week'hng,
way!
Zits
to get
a physical
solo retreat in the desert or
much prefer
to
zit
two days
mountains?
make an appearance
No
the afternoon
of the night of the big dance or some important banquet.
"So here you
you pass
are, getting dressed for
the mirror in the hall
a big night
you happen
to
out.
And as
catch a glimpse
of your reflection and...
ARRRGH!
"You see
this
unlovely thing that has arisen
from
the soft curve of your nose
and beaming angry
watching world. You dash
to the
uithin,
bli^ng
red out to a
bathroom, fling open the
medicine chest and frantically ransack
its
contents, desperately
searching for some magical commercial concoction designed

to shrink or at least
"It's
the
camouflage such untimely eruptions.
same way with corporate
worst possible time
zits.
right before
They pop up
monthly report or your
performance review, a surprise audit, or perhaps a

a major
up
Then
client.
"And
"And,
to
if
be
we
zit is to
human
are
suspect that
notion that
158.
visit
same mad scramble
to
from
cover
the offending imperfection.
"Well, to have a
"I
there's the
at the
if
less
is
be human.
to be less
than perfect.
than perfect,
many
of us
eventually
still
we
don't get
an A-plus.
operate under the mistaken
we accumulate enough
A-pluses,
"
'
Death Masks
they will
fill
the void that
was created by
the loss of
unconditional love somewhere in our infant past. Fool's errand!
All the A'pluses in the universe will not
fill
that void.
It is
an
emptiness that can only be dealt with from within, through a
growing acceptance of self leading

"There's a practical
recfuired to get
raise, clinch
when someone
So,
is
to
side, too,
asks,
to
a healthy love of self
though.
An A-plus
might be
a promotion, or even keep your job.
'How's
it
going?,' the great temptation
put on a mask with a fabricated smile and answer with a
counterfeit confidence:
'Fine, just fine. Everything's
"While beneath the mask

"Don't get
me wrong.
Masks have
and space
in
may
lie
support your right to wear a mask.
often brutal world.
But
pay for wearing a mask. Masks cause

soul deaths.
is
a price you
deaths
little
little
who you
really are.
When you wear a

what you
mask,
nobody (not even you)
gets to find out
And when you wear a
mask, nobody (not even you) gets
find out
what you
really
have
Most
likely
any value
for
my
will
never
really need.
to
to offer
"That's a ruinous price to pay for
there
you privacy
Wlien you wear a mask, nobody (not even you)
gets to find out
place.
control.
and need.
unrelenting hurt
real social value in that they allow
an
under
an A-plus.
know whether my
report
on masks held
colleagues in that meeting; their masks remained in
There was a wonderful payoft
tor
me, howe\'er: From that day on,
was excused from the torment of attending
staff meetings.
(Out of
the HairbalV.)
Candor
pays.
159.
Chapter Eighteen
The Pyramid & The Plum Tree
The Pyramid
&.
The Plum Tree
The poet's eye, in a fine frenzy rolling,

Doth glance from heaven to earth, from earth to heaven;
And, as imagination bodies forth
The forms of things unknown, the poet's pen
Turns them to shapes, and gives to airy nothing
A local habitation and a name.
William Shakespeare, A Midsummer Nighl's Dream
For years,
had been
and Hallmark's
rolling
my eyes at corporate
cultural convolutions in particular.
my boss asked me
to put
Hallmark might more
effectively organize itself
looniness in general
Then
surprise!
some thoughts together as to how

Fun assignment!
thought of Hallmark's organizational model, the pyramid.
Then
of
models in general. Then wondered:
"Why
models?"
Well, in an effort to cope with the incomprehensibility of infinite

reality,
we
ever- curious, ever-pondering, compulsively controlling
Homo sapiens create
theoretical models.
beams of speculation
that
we
These models
are ingenious
use to penetrate and define the dark
mysteries of boundless existence. Sometimes elegantly structured,

usually
self- confirming,
our models are
designed to light our way. Whatever
and we organize our

blind us.
lives
Too often we
the whole
reality,
around
it.
is
like the headlights
of a
car,
illuminated becomes our truth,
But
this light
we
create can also
are blinded into believing that our models are
forgetting that they are simply useful fact/fantasy
coping devices.
The more
fully
we
believe a
model becomes. And the more

us. There is a sense of security
model
rigid
it
more
becomes, the more
is
reality,
the
rigid the
it
confines
in this, the sense of security that
comes from being contained by the "known" and thus shielded from
165.
"
unknown. So the mixed
the threat of the
blessing of models
is
that
while they can generate a sense of coherence through a groundedness

(in
"knowledge"), they can
become addicting
also, if
used without mindfulness,
anesthetics to the pain of an inscrutable universe
and further insulate us from
full reality,
which
is
the realm of infinite
possibilities.
Like the overwhelming majority of corporations and similar
Hallmark was firmly grounded
organizations,
by
embedded
a deeply
in
and
securely hobbled
belief in the exclusive validity of the
pyramid
hierarchy model.
"Unhl This
is
heavy
stuff,"
thought and started sliding into
heavy- thinking mode.

Big Mistake.
"Hold
it!"
same trampled
And
I'll
track that so
better use of
my
"If I get
many
probably end up at the
would be a
the
stopped myself
heavy about
this, I'll
runners better than
have run before me.
unimaginative dead end of the bottom
time to lighten up
and
line. It
leave the heavy thinking to
heavy thinkers.
Thus
freed,
whipped out
a legal
pad and started to
Try to suspend judgment as you follow along. This
play.
is,
exploratory sport with "imagination the rudder.''^*^
OcMet
164.
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Orbming The Giant Hairball
took
all
of these frenzied scribhlinjjs
and massaged them into
on the direction thouj:,'ht HaUmark should go

organizationally, more or less inviting management to come out of
their pyramid and give birth to a plum tree.
a presentation
realized that the
group
would be presenting
defensive and sometimes combative.
to could
And many of the
be sensitive,
thoughts
intended to present could be taken as criticism of the way these people

operated within Hallmark. So there seemed to
me
a real
danger that
many members of the audience would tune out, shut down or otherwise
make themselves unavailable to much of what I planned to explore.
To avoid such
a non-productive response,
disarming foolishness.
qualified to discourse
and had,
chose a strategy of
opened my remarks by confessing that
on
was not
so profound a subject as corporate organization
therefore, arranged for
my place.
an outside consultant to take
As I launched
into a lengthy introduction of our surprise (and fictitious)
guest speaker,
produced an
electric razor
from behind the podium and
shaved off my not insubstantial beard. Continuing,

shirt, tie
and
suit coat.
finished
donned
my costume change just
as
a business
concluded
the introduction:
"Please join
me
in welcoming... Dr.
Sheldon Watts."
my hands and gestured toward the back of the

my amazement, everyone in the room turned in their chairs
and began to applaud, also. This gave me a perfect opportunity to
I
began to clap
room. To
duck behind the podium and quickly put on a wig and switch
to a pair
of horn-rimmed eyeglasses.
"Thank you! TJuink you!" an ebullient

magically from behind the podium.
on pyramids and plum
186.
trees.
Dr.
Watts responded,
He proceeded
rising
with his dissertation
"
The Pyramid & The Plum Tree
The
audience's responses were beyond anything
hoped or imagined: They were

presentation.
And
could have
raptly attentive throughout the entire
at the conclusion,
become Gordon MacKenzie once
when I removed my wig
again,
to
received an electrified
standing ovation.
Blew
me
away!
We broke
for coffee.
"opened a door and
let
was surrounded by well wishers.
the sunlight
to be "a turning point in the
in, "
way Hallmark
But the excitement faded over time,

not go away.
course of its
had
they said. This would surely prove

operates.
as
it
does.
The pyramid
The Hairball remains; and Hallmark has

own destiny, as great corporations do.
did
stayed the
I87.
The
saving grace was that declaring
effects of
my beliefs about the
asphyxiating
mechanistic organization versus the vitalizing results of
organic systems had an unexpected liberating effect on me. That

experience of liberation through speaking
in trying to
to midwife out of Hairballs
change Hairballs, but
anyone who longed
in offering
for a fuller,
more
work experience.
This then became

continues to bring
188.
along
would be best spent not

original
truths
my presentation caused no significant change of

Hallmark
convinced me that, in the future, my efforts
with the fact that

heart at
my personal
me
my
cardinal path
a path that, to this day,
both adventure and soulful richness.
Chapter Nineteen
Orville Wright
I.
Orville Wright
Orville Wright did not have a pilot's license.
191.
^^^^^.***fc
;rÊ|JiLfVfliui
Chapter Twenty
Beyond Measure
t^
Beyond Measure
En
route from Shreveport, Louisiana, to San Jose, California.
Finished one workshop.
Headed
for another.
Stuck on the tarmac
Our
plane
Waiting
at Dallas/Ft.
6th in line for
for a
Worth.
takeoff.
thunderstorm to
~"
pass.
Tired of reading, and having nothing better to do,

the
hair-like things that float
little,
eyeballs.
Their behavior reminded
creativity
among
me
got to watching
of the amorphous nature of
and a certain lack of appreciation of that amorphousness
the
many corporations
visit.
Perhaps
visual aberrations to illustrate a point for
name
randomly across the surface of my
of prudence,
awareness of these
Turning to the
needed
little
my clients. But first,
a quick reality
little
in the
check on the general
optical squiggles.
woman
"Excuse me.
could use these
in the seat next to mine,
Do you by any chance
have
little
asked:
hair-like things
floating across the surface of your eyeballs?"
"What?! You,
too?!
M}/ God!
had
to
I've
those, too?!
say anything to anybody about them.
think
But
I
Oh! Ha-ha-ha!
I've
was
never wanted
afraid they'd
was crazy!"
So. Serendipity
talk
Do you have
those things for years.
had brought
my seatmate
unexpected freedom to
about something she had heretofore considered to be unmentionable.
Now she was chatting affably about
"those lacy
phantoms
that glide to
and
fro" across her field of vision.
195.
Q'
Orbitinc} The Giant Hairball
J.
"Those are vitreous
floaters, "
on the other side of the

impromptu discussion group was
the scientific view of the
little
man in
interjected the
woman. Turns out
window seat
member of our
the
and he proceeded
a doctor,
squiggles.
the newest
to give us
^^Y^
<=*<^
The
drama of the advancing thunderstorm distracted us

from our conversation, and we each retreated into our own thoughts.
But my fascination with vitreous floaters as metaphor for the nebulous
irresistible
nature of creativity remained.
Have you ever

If you
noticed:
look right at them
the side?
all
at
if
you keep staring
have you ever noticed,
you have to do
them very
It's
squiggles,
mean
they go
off to
t~~^
Right out of view
And
the
is
if
them.
too, that, if you
stop looking at them?
gradually, they'll float
almost as
at
If you
want them
do that
back into your
to return,
stop looking
line of sight.
they're shy.
Stare at them, and they'll go away.
Look the other way, and,
silently,
^Y
they will reappear.
Shy.
Creativity
at creativity
it
196.
it
is
like that. It will
as
soon
simply vanishes.
as
not be looked
at.
you become conscious
As soon
as
you look
(or self-conscious) of
Beyond Measure
want
If you
it
to return,
you must give up trying to focus on
But, because you cannot focus
on
you cannot measure the actual
it,
creative process. Well, in the eyes of any

salt,
it.
anything that cannot be measured
is
Anal Retentive worth
his
of doubtful value and
even of doubtful existence.
No
surprise then that the
Hairball, are loath to
Anal Retentives,
commit resources
amorphous concept of creativity. They

(especially
when
as Trustees of the
or genuine moral support to the

lust for the fruits of creativity
they see the very measurable results of a successful
competitor's creative efforts) but mistrust the act of creativity, which
remains invisible and elusive.
Only the Renegades
in Orbit,
removed from the
Hairball's obsession
with quantifying everything, are free to reap the unpredictable bounty

of the inscrutable creative process.
If
it
an organization wishes to benefit from
must be prepared
its
to value the vagaries of the
own
creative potential,
unmeasurable
as well
as the certainties of the measurable.
I,
1
^'''
{
Chapter Twenty -One
A Conference Of Angels
Typically,
Ambassador Cards,
a subsidiary of
Hallmark, holds annual
regional sales conferences at strategic locations across the country.
Like sales meetings anywhere, a major purpose of the events

the field
people on
One year, I was
for the
asked to
first
sit
in
on the
task force assembled from
to observe the proceedings of the group
an ideation session aimed
to spur
continued prosperity of all.
My role
around the country to plan the next scheduled conferences.
was
is
at generating
and then to
concepts for
facilitate
new conference
formats.
met at 8:00 one morning. The centerpiece of their

room was that altar of numbers worshippers, the
overhead projector. It was immediately put to use. lb the accompaniment
of the projector's droning fan, task force members took turns fussing
with transparencies of unreadable charts and sleep-inducing columns
The
task force
dreary conference
of figures,
all
of which were eventually projected onto a plain wall
serving as a projection screen.
"You guys are dead
in the water, "
thought but did not
say.
Gathered to create excitement, the group was, instead, oozing into

a stupor of statistics. (So soon!)
It
took forever for coffee break to arrive.
emptied
down
fast,
people making a beeline,
first
it
did, the
room
rooms and then
the hall to the beverage machines, which are set to dispense
free drinks at certain times in the
midmoming and midaftemoon.
(Another of Hallmark's generous benefits

I
When
for the rest
waylaid the
"Is
it
woman who had originally
always
She grinned
like this?
blankly.
dont think
this
caffeine for the cause.)
asked
is
me
to join the group.
working."
"May
something different for the brainstorm?"
try
"Uh... Oh... Kay..."
That's
on
needed. With a rush of excitement,
all I
Time was
the floor above.
short. Coffee
what
was looking
keep fondue pots
magic props,
the clutter under
for
dashed to
its
dismal chamber.
my drawing board
warm and
The
set
room just
it
games faded to an uncertain

itself
table.
chatter about the past weekend's football
silence as the task force, filing
me lighting the half-dozen candles. The
of the group reseating
in
with the small
randomly along the length of the conference
ritualistic coffee -break
the room, eyed
found
a pair of Tibetan cymbals. Clutching these
hurried, puffing, back to the conference
which
till I
a handful of small candles of the type used to
time to sweep away the overhead projector and replace

candles,
my room
break would end soon, and
the task force would be shuffling back into
rummaged through
back into
muffled shuffling
only served to underline the
new
silence.
People were exchanging sidelong glances in search of some clue as to
what the
hell
was going on, but nobody asked. Every face had become
remarkably expressionless.
spoke in as reassuring a tone as
could
muster:
"The other
day, I
And although
the
met a
awareness that
what our
man who spoke
I'm not clear on

if
we
are to
all
make
202.
me
I
of empty mind.
came away with
ourselves available to
we must first empty

We must make room."
vast unconscious has to offer us,
the hoppers of our conscious minds.
to
he said,
"
produced the cymbals, two shallow- dished bronze disks measuring
two-and-three-quarter inches in diameter, both tied to opposite ends

of a foot-long leather thong.
"These are Tibetan Tingshas.

them,
was
told they are cast
that exist naturally in the

is
"What
now
do
is
would ask you
sound of the
the
Someone turned
holding
in
it
bells
body. Perhaps as a result,
turn off the overhead
are sitting in soft candlelight.
cymbals.
from
human
introduced to
eight of the trace elements
remarkably calming.
their resonating ring
I'd like to
When I was first
And
to close
so
lights
we
then I'm going to ring the
your
And
eyes. Relax.
let
wash over you.
the lights out.
took the cymbals by the thong,
both hands in front of me so the bronze
discs
three inches from each other, just below
my
hands apart and then toward each
The cymbals
other.
eye level.
of exquisite clarity caressed the silence of the room.
Their note, though inevitably fading slowly to
hung about
shifted
struck.
my
A tone
rang them again.
inaudibility,
was the
sound of eternity.
Twelve angels in business
1
suits sat serenely in the candles' glow.
rang the bells a third time.
As
their
sound ebbed once again,
quietly intoned:
"Picture in your mind's eye a small
and
delicate flower
Floating gently inside your skull.

Just behind the bone of your forehead.
Notice the flower's

Its
color,
shape,
203.
The
pattern of its petals.
Let the flower
drift
Gliding gently
down your
Drifting
down and
Between your
Coming
downward,
throat into your rib cage.
down...
lungs...
downward,
gently
to rest in the lowest place in
Where your
When
slowly
downward,
your abdomen
breath reaches
you breathe fully and
deeply.
A quiet touch of color deep in the darkness of your abdomen.

Hold
the flower there... hold
it...
hold
it...
Now:
Let
it
go!
Let the flower vanish.
But stay focused on
Deep down
iri
We sat in silence
the place
where
was
it
the dark center of you."
for
about 90 seconds, which
is
a very long time tor
busy business people.
"Now, when you re
ready... only
your eyes and come back
More
eyes.
204.
silence.
in the
you're ready... open
into the room.
Then, here and
There was a peace
when
"
there, people
room
that
began to open
had not been there
their
before.
"
"
"
"I'm going to turn the
lights
back on now. Sorry about
The glare of fluorescent ceiling lights intruded back

The angels moaned in protest. I continued:
"You have just experienced
that
when you
let
that.
into the room.
Please accept the idea
'letting go.'
go of the flower you also
let
go of any
notions or biases you held about where you thought
this
meeting
would or should go.
"Now,
if
you would, please feed me. Call out everything
youve ever hated about any

I'll
write
it
all
doun on
sales
meeting you've ever attended.
this flip chart.
We filled six pages.

"Now,
building
that rises
The group
and
on
these negatives, create
above them
exploded.
arid,
The
meeting format
shell of their corporate reserve split open,
grey conference
Eagerness, enthusiasm, optimism
on
sales
all.
a breathtaking flood of pent-up,
transformed their
common-sense know-how
room into a cauldron of creati\it>'.
filled
the
air.
Everyone threw ideas
the table with joyous abandon. People were listening, seizing others'
ideas
and vaulting
to the next plateau.
slipped out of the room,
chortling at the mischief that had just been unleashed.
The
task force
went on
to create a regional sales
meeting format
company had ever considered before. I heard

made upper management very nervous. But, to their credit,
that was unlike any the

later that
it
they stood aside and
let
the task force develop an event that excited
the enthusiasm of every sales region across the country and engaged
the people in the field to a degree unparalleled. Before or since.
205.
What had happenedarthatîrst task^rcemeeting?

the group's initiaHkmioi^ oXstatistical anchors
medium of tjieôverheadôjector was
Well,
think
via the static
in step with the analysis-
orient^d^rporate norm. In obsessing over the history represented by

ir statistics,
fhe group was being culturally appropriate. But
it
was
being funcuondlly inappropriate, because the goal of the meeting was

supposed
hsive
been
to create
creaUHg something new
To be
is
new
genesis,
sales
meeting concepts.
which comes
functionally inappropriate
is
And
before history.
to be dysfunctional.
One way
past this dysfunction was to give the meeting attenders (through the
unorthodoxy of candles,
bells,
and guided imagery presented
in a
non-threatening way) permission to escape from the Hairball of their

history
and move into
a nebulous alternate reality
genesis where to create
is
the Orbit of
the norm.
Release from their inculcated culture allowed the task force members
to
metamorphize
for a little while
from mere attendants
at a
meeting into vibrant participants in an evolving endeavor
The
escape from habitual culture must always be temporary
wish to be permitted back into that

"Yes,
you may go out and
if
you
culture...
play; but
you must be home by
"
dinner time.
However, temporary
as these Orbits
out of the Hairball
may be,
they are expeditions that promise finding in the chaos beyond culture
antidotes for the stagnation of status quo.
206.
Chapter Twenty-Two
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Dynamic Following
If
we were
to think of waterskiing as a
metaphor
following, the person at the wheel, in the boat, dry,
the leader.
And
for leading
would represent
the skier in the water, wet, would be the follower.
Wherever the
leader goes, the follower goes.
If,
for reasons
to the follower, the leader decides to steer the boat through
where
feet
clusters of reeds are
tall,
unknown
an area
growing up out of the water, about three
the reaction of the follower might be:
"Why
are
"This
is
"And
it's
If you
and
we goin
gonna
over there?
hurt.
gonna hurt me, not you!"
are a skier in this situation,
you have
at least a couple of
options other than being whipped painfully through the reeds.
Option #1:
You can
let
go of the towline. Become an entrepreneur
on
your own, in the middle of the lake.
Option #2:
You can become
a better waterskier.
the confines of the boat's wake,
Learn to
way 'round
ski
out beyond
to the right, thus
dodging some of the threatening reeds. Then, describing a great,

broad
arc, ski
'round to the
back over the wake, over the wake again and way
left,
avoiding more reeds.
Every point on the arc

,
is
a point of legitinuite jolhnving.
209.
"
my career at Hallmark, because I didn't

anything much to do, people felt free to come and visit
During the
seem
me
to
have
latter part of
from time to time. As often
wanted
as not, they simply
to unload.
more "stuff" is
continually dumped on us. Day after day after day. To ease the ordeal of
our ever-growing burdens, it sometimes helps to find someone to unload
It is
a fact of our current corporate cultures that
on. Well, not really unload on.
To
Unload
someone who is willing

Many Hallmarkers found
of would be
to witness our usually
find
pain.
in front
more
accurate.
hidden corporate
that witness in me.
When these visits first started,
was not ready
for
them.
had a
deep compulsion to control. As someone would begin to open up to
my knee-jerk
me,
they were
reaction would be to try to
fix
whatever predicament
describing.
Or I would
try to fix the person. Invariably,
always ended badly.
been heard, and
People would leave with
would be
could
fix neither. It
a sense of not having
with a sense of helplessness (not a
left
pleasant feeling for a control freak)
Then,
in the course of my efforts to develop spiritually,
to be reading
an
article
on Vipassana meditation. In
it
happened
the author wrote
about achieving a state of "compassionate emptiness."

Compassionate emptiness.
not
let go.
The two words
Compassionate emptiness. To
nonjudgmental receiving.
me
me and would
meant a state of
seized
that
"^^
thought:
"I will try to be in that state
when
people
come
to
me
to
recount their burdens.
From
that day on,
whenever somebody would come by
pour out their company woes,

I
would
listen.
would imagine myself to be an empty
to receive.
210.
As
fully as possible.
to
In silence.
vessel existing only
Without judgment.
"
Dynamic Following
1
when I stopped
Interestingly,
my visitors
solutions of their
for the experience.
Although I would
sit
wish
most of the time during these
in silence
when
there were occasions
"I
to
own. And, when we would part company, each of us
would be the better
One of those
many of
come up with
interfering with their process,
those who were ready would begin
verbal intervention
sessions,
seemed appropriate.
times would be whenever anyone said:

we had more dynamic leadership around here.
would respond:
"I
wish
we had more dynamic following around
where the
real energy of an organization
My last boss at Hallmark,
a fellow by the
comes from."
name
the wheel of one of the corporate speedboats.
towline on waterskis.
We
here. That's
of Bob Kipp, sat at
was
at the
end of a
spent our time together skimming across
great Lake Hallmark. Kipp was so sure of who he was
and why he was
where he was and where the power was that he was not threatened
all
when I would
around in a wide arc
ski
boat and sometimes even past

pulling the boat with
him
in
it.
it.
It
me
to lead
was up even with the
He knew I was not going
just doesn't
remains in the boat. But, in allowing

allowing
until
me
in
to start
work that way. The power
to ski past
he would unleash
at
him
in a sense,
me an excitement
about
our enterprise that served our shared goals well.

If
you are
in a position of
Allow those you
To
power and want
to lead well,
remember:
lead...
lead...
when
they teel the need.

All will benefit.
211,
<r^'
Chapter Twenty-Three
Pool-Hall Dog
w^
Pool-Hall Dog
On my way to a conference
hungry
little
it
roadside restaurant and pulled

diet cola,
Stevens Point, Wisconsin, feeling a
in
was near noon
spotted an invitingly funky-looking
After ordering a cheeseburger and
in.
scanned, with idle interest, the floor- to -ceiling clutter of local
memorabilia that served as interior decor. Eventually,
me
gaze carried
vacant
One
room, but with
table
was
legs.
dog
less interest
on the
tables
saw a dog's
the eating area.

table,
two pool
to
far side
in use; the other
Standing.
Still. I
my wandering
of the
room beyond
was not. Beneath the

continued to scan the
My eyes kept returning to the
than before.
legs: still still.
My cheeseburger came.
really,
by the motionless
ate without tasting. Distracted, transfixed
legs.
started feeling a
little
uneasy. Surely
the dog was not stuffed... like the sad heads of moose and deer staring
out from the cafe walls. That would be going too

thought, "Stuffed moose
motionless.
is
okay; stuffed dog
is
How repugnant! A stuffed dog.
tail
"Oh, good.
Just
The
my
tail
{"Strange," I'd
was regretting ever having
entered such a grotesque establishment when, to
moved ever
far.
not") But the legs remained
my
relief,
the dog's
so slightly.
was mistaken.
It's
not a stuffed dog, after
all.
imagination running rampant."
moved
again, a subtle wag.
Done
eating,
could not leave
without investigating what curious circumstances might keep

half-hidden dog standing
still
for so long.
paid
this
my check and walked
over to the other side of the pool tables.
Do you know how,

is
a slot or trough
had reached
his jaws
his
along the side or end of some pool tables, there
where the
mouth
balls
go when they're sunk.^ Well,
into the trough of the pool table
around one of the sunken
of his prize
balls.
No way was
but neither could he remove
his
this
dog
and locked
he about to
mouth. His
jaws,
let
go
"
accommodate the ball, were consequently opened too

allow him to escape from the confines of the trough. So there
opened wide
wide to
to
he stood, dead
wag of his
I
still,
except for the now-and-then, hope-against-hope
tail.
turned to the
men
absorbed in their play at the other table:
"Look at that dog!

"Oh, he does that
"I've seen
him stand
added the
Poor dog.
all the time,
other.
left
like that
"
responded one
for over
player.
an hour sometimes,"
"He wants someone
"
to play
with him.
the restaurant feeling both sad for the mutt and
fascinated by the lesson he'd provided:

If
To be
we do
fully free to create,
not
let
we must
we make prisoners
go,
first
find the courage
of ourselves.
and
willingness to let go:

Let go of the strategies that have
worked
for us in the past...
Let go of our biases, the foundation of our illusions...

Let go of our grievances, the root source of our victimhood...
Let go of our so -often- denied fear of being found unlovable.
You
will find
it is
not a one-shot deal,
again and again and again.

just once. Try
If
you stop
Now when
let
it:
say
go of something,
let
it
your creative
go,
spirit will
do not mean
will still
tap into other possibilities
216.
it
kind of like breathing. You can't breathe
reject.
be there for you
because you have stopped clinging, you
this
You must do
Breathe just once. You'll pass out.
letting go,
It's
this letting go.
will
Because when you
when you need
it.
But
have freed yourself up to
possibilities that
world of accelerating change.
pass out.
can help you deal with
Chapter Twenty -Four
Paint Me A Masterpiece
In your mind, conjure an image of the
Mona
Lisa. Visualize that
masterpiece's subtleties of hue and tone as clearly as you can.
Next,
the
shift to
Mona
the image of a paint-by-numbers
raw colors meeting hard-edged, one against the
flat,
Now,
and you.
let
It
me
relate a fantasy
goes like
Before you were
HI.
about masterpieces, paint-by-numbers
bom, God came

I
to
you and
said:
1US+ DRePPED BY
+0 WISH
YeU
LUCK. AND +0 ASSURE
YeU AND
+ HA+
BE
rriEE
WILL
AGAI
+ lNG
N.
YU KNW +
HEADING U+ N AN ADVEN+URE
SeN. BEFeRE
YeU'RE
other.
this:
+HEKE1
YeU
Envision
Lisa.
+ HA+ WILL
WI + H FASCINA+ING
EXPERIENCES. YU'LL S+AR+ U+ AS A
+ INY
SPECR FLA+ING IN AN
N
F
N
+
E
DARK CEAN, QUI + E SA + URA+ED
WI + H NU + RIEN + S. S YU WN' +
HAVE
+ G LKING FR
FD R A |B R
ANY + HING
LIKE +HA+. ALL YU'LL HAVE + D IS
I
BE FILLED
FLA+ IN 4-HE DARKNESS.

AND GRW
INCREDIBLY.
AND CHANGE miRACULUSLY.
YU'LL SPRU+ ARITIS AND LEGS.
AND HANDS AND FEE
219.
AND +eES.
f=R9m Ne + HING, YSUR HEAD WILL
AS
+ AKE fRm. YeUR NeSE, YeUR
msu + H, veuR eyes and ears will
AND
fINGERS
!f=
EFTIERGE.
Y9U CeN + lNUE +9 GKSW BIGGER

AND 31GGER, YSU WILL BECSmE
+HA+ +HIS DARK,
AWARE
CEANIC ENVIReNmEN+ 9F Y9URS
WHICH, WHEN YeU WERE +INY. SEErHED
AS
New
CRAmPED
AC + UALLY
AND CSNEINING. THA+ WILL LEAD YeU
C9NCLUS19N
+ 9 +HE UNAVOIDABLE
+ HA+ Y9U'RE G9ING +9 HAVE +9
m9VE +9 A B G G E R PLACE.
Se VAS+
IS
Af + ER muCH GR9PING AB9U+ IN +HE

DARK, Y9U WILL FIND AN EXI + THE
m9U + H 9F A +UNNEL.
.
"T99 smALU"Y9U'LL DECIDE. "C9ULDN' +

P9SSIBLY SQUEEZE +HR9UGH +H E RE."
BU+ +HERE WILL

APPAREN+ WAY 9U +
SPUNK.,
Y9UR
D9ING
EITIBARKING
220.
S9,
N9 9 + HER
WI + H
PRIFTIAL
Y9U WILL +A*Ê 9N

"im?9SSI3LE"
FIRS+
CHALLENGE
IN
BE
AND EN + ER +HE +UNNEL.
Y9U WILL BE
S9,
9N A 3RUTAU N9-+URNINGCB'
PHYSICALLY
BACK,
EXHAUS + ING,
+ H A +
CLAU$ + RPHeBIC PASSAGE
WILL lN + KDUCe YU + PAIN AND
FEAR AND HARD PHYSICAL LABR.

1+ WILL SEEm + +AKE F0REVER.
UNDULA + INS
BU+ mYS + ERieUS
+UNNEL
+ HE
SCpUIRm
AF + ER
+ SELF WILL
HELP
YU +HRUGH. AND FINALLY,

WHA+ WILL SEEm LIRE
+ ERmiNABLE S + RIVING, YU
WILL
BREAK +HRUGH + A
BLINDING LIGH +
IN
f/^
GIAN+ HANDS WILL
PULL
BU+
ANENRmUS
THERE WILL
GEN + LY.
IN+
Rm.
YU
FIRITILY,
BE
SEVERAL HUGE PEPLE, CALLED

ADUL + S, HUDDLING ARUND YU, AS
IF + GREE+ YU. IF 1+ IS AN LDFASHINED PLACE, NE F
HUm'NGUS
HLD
YU UPSIDE
ITIAY
+ HE LEGS
N +HE
PEPLE
DWN
BY
AND GIVE YU A SWA +

+ GE+ YU GING.
BACKSIDE
ALL F +HIS WILL BE WHA+ +HE BIG

PEPLE N +HE e + HER SIDE
CALL BEING BRN. FR YU, 1+ WILL
BE
NLY +HE FIRS+ F YUR
NEW
LIFE'S fTlANY
EXPLI + S.
221.
God
continues:
WeNDEMNG.
WAS
WHILE YSU'RE
eVER +HERE eN +HE e + HER SIDE,
weuLD Yeu De mE a fAveR?
1
"Sure!" you chirp.
WeULD Yeu +AKE +HIS

CANVAS WI + H Yeu AND
+ ERPIECE FeR
APPRECIA+E
rriAS
ITIE?
AR+IS + 'S
PAIN+ A
I'D
REALLY
+ HA+.
God hands you
Beaming,
a pristine canvas.
You
roll
it
up, tuck
it
under your arm and head off on your journey.

Your birth
is
just as
God had
predicted,
and when you come out of
the tunnel into the bright room, some doctor or nurse looks
down
at
you in amazement and gasps:

"Look! The
Knowing
little
that you
kid's carrying
a rolled-up
do not yet have the
with your canvas, the big people take
it
artist's
canvas!"
skills to do anything meaningful

away from you and give it to
society for safekeeping until you have acquired the prescribed

requisite to the canvas's return.
of yours,
it
cannot
pale blue lines
and
it
now carries
lines
blue numbers
little
is
all
returned to you,
the implied message that
and follow the instructions of the
be a masterpiece.
222.
society
is
holding this property
the temptation to unroll the canvas and draw
resist
Eventually, the canvas
While
skills
if
over
its
you
little
its
virgin surface.
rightful owner.
However,
will paint inside the
blue numbers your
blue
life will
And
that
is
\^
lie.
For more than 50 years
With uneven but
worked on my paint-by-numbers
persistent diligence,
numbers brush into color No.
blue -bordered area marked
little
dipped an emaciated paint-by-
and painstakingly painted

1.
creation.
Then on
on. Sometimes, during restive periods of my
each
and 3 and 4 and so
to 2
life,
inside
would
paint, say,
the 12 spaces before the 10 spaces (a token rebellion against overdoses
of linearity)
More than
once,
painted beyond a line and, feeling
embarrassed, would either try to wipe off the errant color or cover
over with another before anyone might notice
my
it
lack of perfection.
someone would compliment

me, unconvincingly, on the progress of my "masterpiece." I would
gaze at the richness of others' canvases. Doubt about my own talent
for painting gnawed at me. Still, I continued to fill in the little numbered
From time
spaces,
unaware
Then
there
less inside
of,
or afraid to look
came
my
any
real alternative.
a time, after half a century of daubing
the lines, that
my
more or
days were visited by traumatic events.
life
began
horrifically to
came home to roost, and the myth

come unglued. I pulled back from my
masterpiece-in-the -works and saw

It
it
with an emerging
clarity.
looked awful.
The
not
at,
dividends of my noxious past
The
of
to time, although not often,
stifled strokes
cheated, ashamed
much
paint.
But that
of paint had nothing to do with me.
who I am
illustrate
is
or speak of whom
anguished
was angry that
that
could become.
They
I
felt
did
duped,
had wasted so much canvas, so
had been conned into doing
so.
the past. Passed.
223.
Today
wield a wider brush
pure
ox-bristle.
And
I'm swooping
it
through the sensuous goo of Cadmium Yellow, Alizarin Crimson or

Ultramarine Blue (not Nos.
funniest, fiercest
4,
damn dragon
13 or 8) to create the biggest, brightest,

that
can. Because that has
more
to
do
with what's inside of me than some prescribed plagiarism of somebody

else's tour
de force.
You have
a masterpiece inside you, too, you know.
One
unlike any
that has ever been created, or ever will be.
And remember:
If you
go to your grave
without painting
your masterpiece,
it
will
not
get painted.
No one
else
can paint
it.
Only you.
224*
U.S. $22.00
Canada $32.00
C^ ordon MacKenzie worked at Hallmark Cards

m3 for thirty years, where he inspired his colleagues
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,
to slip the
exuberantly illustrated in
full
he shares
color,
on awakening and fostering creative genius.

He teaches how to emerge from the "giant hairlessons
ball"
that
tangled, impenetrable
systems, bas^d
mass of rules, and
on what worked
which can lead
in the past
and
to mediocrity in the present.
Having flunked out of the

University of British Columbia
in the early 1950s,
MacKenzie
stumbled into a job as a cartoonist
and writer
for the
Vancouver
Sun. At Hallmark Cards, he

evolved into a self-styled
corporate holy
man
of Creative Paradox. Since 1991, he
title
been giving workshops on maint:

within bureaucratic environ-
ments.
with the
He
lives in
Mission, Kansas.-
\\\M'7///
^ memt)er
of
Inc.
NewYork.N.Y. 10014
in U.S.A.
http://www.penguinputnam.com
0498
0)
O
ooboo" \
1005 A
BooKtBûe
Penguin Putnam
/Ret/B*^
r^
Shawnee*
375 Hudson Street
Printed
Y T g T WQ.
p-ooKs-W\an
"
Cover design by
rtilloughby Design Group
i# J^^^
%
h^^^
-^7.203

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1'

(Orbiting The Giant Hairball)

Digitized by the Internet Archive

the gist of what

From an embryo, whose nourishment comes

to a searcher after wisdom,

have a conversation with an embryo.

"The world outside is vast and

there are millions of galaxies,

the beauty of friends dancing at a wedding."

You ask the embryo why he, or

in the dark with eyes closed.

Listen to the answer

know what Vve

Orbiting The Giant Hairball

A Corporate Fool's Guide to Surviving with Grace

375 Hudson Street,

York 10014. U.S.A.

Penguin Books Ltd, 27 Wrights Lane,

Penguin Books Australia Ltd, Ringwood,

Penguin Books Canada Ltd, 10 Alcorn Avenue,

Penguin Books (N.Z.) Ltd, 182-190 Wairau Road,

Penguin Books Ltd, Registered Offices:

Harmondsworth, Middlesex, England

All rights reserved

for permission to use the following copyrighted material:

Page 3 Reprinted with the permission of Threshold Books,

Box 600, Putney,

Rumi, translated by Coleman Barks with John Moyne. Copyright

1995 by Coleman Barks.

Page 89 Reprinted with the permission of Simon

Page 101 Paws, Inc.

1992 by Orion Productions and John Gribbin.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Orbiting the giant hairball

a corporate fool's guide to surviving

Shawnee Mission, KS OpusPocus Pub., cl996.

Printed in the United States of America

Designed by Michelle Sonderegger

Without limiting the

under copyright reserved

part of this publication

be reprtxJuced, stored in or mtrtxiuced into a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any

form or by any means (electronic, mechanical, photiKopying, recording ot otherwise), without

Orbiting The Giant Hairball

Where Have All The Geniuses Gone?

The Giant Hairball

Preparing For Lift-off

Thou Shalt Not Have

Don't See Is What You Get

Then There's Rote

^=^ Chapter Ten

Introducing... Your Brain

Milk Cans Are Not Allowed

The Power Of Paradox

& The Plum Tree

Chapter Twenty -One

Paintings and Illustrations

Meg Cundiff (pages

14, 26, 82, 107,

Susi Lulaki (pages 34, 54, 68. 198, 218)

(pages 42. 98, 132)

Collins (pages 94, 114,212)

(pages 62. 142, 154, 192)