Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #17562 in Books
• Published on: 1998-04-01
• Original language: English
• Binding: Hardcover
• 224 pages

From Booklist
There is no denying the creativity of someone who can persuade one of the 50 largest private companies in the U.S. to create a position for him called "creative paradox," or someone who can convince the accounting department of that same company to write off to the company art collection the purchase of more than a dozen roll-top desks to be used in his "creative lab," or someone who could come up with such a goofy title for a book. MacKenzie worked for the Hallmark greeting card company for 30 years, first as a sketch artist and eventually as an upper-level manager, until he escaped the "hairball" by creating his own niche. A corporate hairball is an entangled pattern of behavior or a mess of bureaucratic procedure that discourages originality and stifles imagination. A consultant for the last seven years, MacKenzie tells what he knows about creativity and what he learned about the creative process in a corporate setting. David Rouse

Customer Reviews

Enjoyable, insightful, inspiring!
This book is a must read for anyone trying to live creatively inside an environment that lends itself to repetitive, dry and dusty monothink. Presented in a dynamic visual style, this book will vault you out of the rut into fresh and expansive new terrain - don't miss it!

Orbiting the Giant Hairball
As the college I worked for reorganized, this book inspired me to look at the way we were doing things and to bring my full creativity into my administrative role. It helped me to be open to the changes and discover new ways to work. In the process, I recreated my position and felt the joy of the change as it reverberated through my staff (lowered the turnover and gave people a sense of joy in their work).

I think it gets bad reviews because it doesn't do the work for you. You have to ask yourself how am I like what he describes and how could I break from this routine? And isn't that his point? He is not about formula. Get out and just question one of the rote ways you proceed and the magic of change happens. If you feel uncomfortable about it, he has covered that, too. (and don't forget it is a process -- once you change that can become rote, too -- so keep dreaming up new things -- this work/fun pays off in the beauty of removing yourself from the same dried up place.)

You Know You Got a Classic When
You know you've got a classic when people either love it or hate it. My wife tries to get this idea across to students who either love E.A. Poe or hate him as being 'too creepy'. The point is that the work creates strong emotions. What, if anything, you do with your reaction is up to you. MacKenzie's 'hairball' is one of these. Me?, I love it.