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Posts tagged ‘Orbiting the Giant Hairball’

May 25

redux: Orbiting the Giant Hairball

It’s been almost two years since I did a series of posts on Gordon MacKenzie’s Orbiting the Giant Hairball. Recently Jon read the book. He read “hairball” stories aloud and told stories of his own as ideas percolated.

Reminded of the book’s continuing relevance, I’m choosing to run the risk of getting more emails and links from companies specializing in hairball management of the feline sort. I’m bringing the “hairball” posts back to the top of the reading list. And, if you want a light, but thought-provoking read for the upcoming summer season, I highly recommend the book!

Start here (Orbiting thought – Over and out) and follow the thread or begin with Orbiting thought #7 and thread your way to #1.

Related posts:

My teacher got rid of my imagination…
Meep, meep …!

If you choose to read the quotes or the book, which experiences come to mind as you read?

May 6

1 Comment

Meep, meep …!

Growing up, I liked to get up before 7 a.m. on Saturday morning to watch the Bugs Bunny Road Runner hour. Every cartoon followed the same plot with the Road Runner constantly outwitting Wile E. Coyote and his unlimited supply of tricks purchased from Acme Corporation. The cartoon had its own law of gravity – Mr. Coyote could not fall until he looked down. And, no matter what he tried or how he planned, the Road Runner would shout, “Meep, meep!” as he zipped away into the sunset.

How often do our organizations run off a cliff and just keep going? The reports that no one has read for the last five years, the processes that are 90% workarounds of the original checklist, the employee that stopped contributing to the team two years ago – all things that are easier to ignore. We continue on as if we were standing on solid ground.

How often do we keep looking outside of our organization for the answers? Or look for quick fixes like the newest technology or the latest business fad. We continue on as if buying the same solutions will create a different outcome.

Looking down and falling leads to pain. Ending the ordering of new quick tricks from Acme requires change. We prefer to avoid pain and change. But the good news is that like Wile E. Coyote, we will live to fight another day. The only question is whether we will keep doing the same thing over and over again, or do the work of drawing a new cartoon.

Orbiting the Giant Hairball

Jul 31

6 Comments

Orbiting thought – Over and out

You may agree or disagree with Gordon MacKenzie’s ideas from Orbiting the Giant Hairball that I’ve been posting. Personally, I find his stories cause me to consider what works and what doesn’t work in organizations as well as my own life. I’ve been asking myself what the unspoken rules and systems are which create the hairball cocoon where it is safe to measure and plan based only on the past. And asking myself just what is invisible leadership?

Jon and I had lunch with one of our Friesen Group advisors last week who told me, “If you’re not a little uncomfortable, you’re not going to grow and make progress.”  He is right. It is time to try something new, push the boundaries, and, just maybe, achieve Orbit.

… if you do follow your bliss, you put yourself on a kind of track that has been there all the while, waiting for you, and the life you ought to be living is the one you are living.
  – Joseph Campbell, The Power of Myth

Orbiting thought – 7
Orbiting thought – 6
Orbiting thought – 5
Orbiting thought – 4
Orbiting thought – 3
Orbiting thought – 2
Orbiting thought – 1

Jul 30

2 Comments

Orbiting thought – 7

The escape from habitual culture must always be temporary if you wish to be permitted back into that culture…”Yes, you may go out and 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.
 – Gordon MacKenzie, Orbiting the Giant Hairball

Orbiting thought – 6

Jul 29

2 Comments

Orbiting thought – 6

How do we become so bogus? Well, our artificiality is caused, in part, by the many teachers and trainers who work so hard to instill a professionalism that prizes correctness over authenticity and originality. … Diamonds-in-the-rough enter business schools and come out the other end as so many polished clones addicted to the dehumanizing power of classification and systematization.
 – Gordon MacKenzie, Orbiting the Giant Hairball

Orbiting thought – 5

Jul 28

2 Comments

Orbiting thought – 5

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

Orbiting thought – 4

Jul 27

2 Comments

Orbiting thought – 4

If you are in a position of power and want to lead well, remember:
  Allow those you lead…
    To lead… when they fell the need.
      All will benefit.
 – Gordon MacKenzie, Orbiting the Giant Hairball

Orbiting thought – 3

Jul 26

2 Comments

Orbiting thought – 3

A management obsessed with productivity usually has little patience for the quiet time essential to profound creativity.

… Welcome to the If-we-work-hard-enough-long-enough-burn-ourselves-out-enough-we’ll-succeed-through-control Hairball.

… A healthier alternative is the Orbit of trust that allows time – without immediate, concrete evidence of productivity – for the miracle of creativity to occur.
  – Gordon MacKenzie, Orbiting the Giant Hairball

Orbiting thought – 2

Jul 25

2 Comments

Orbiting thought – 2

Orville Wright did not have a pilot’s license.
  – Gordon MacKenzie, Orbiting the Giant Hairball

Orbiting thought – 1

Jul 24

2 Comments

Orbiting thought – 1

If an organization wishes to benefit from its own creative potential, it must be prepared to value the vagaries of the unmeasurable as well as the certainties of the measurable.
  – Gordon MacKenzie, Orbiting the Giant Hairball

Idea for reflection – 16

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