Orbiting the Giant Hairball: Learning to Manage Creative People

Quite a few years ago, someone shared a remarkable book with me. Orbiting the Giant Hairball by Gordon MacKenzie changed my life and my view of both managing creative people and what it means to be a creative person.  I've made it a practice to go on line about once a year and buy a few copies of the book so I have a supply to give away or circulate among colleagues.

MacKenzie worked many years for Hallmark Cards.  As an artist who later helped to manage artists, he became well aware of the challenges associated with managing "Creatives".  The title of the book refers to organizations or corporations that have to have many rules or hairs that hold them together.  A large corporation might be considered to be a Hairball.

If left to their own devices, artists will create remarkable things.  If allowed to create without constraint, their value to the organization may be limited.  If kept close to the corporation, they will be sucked into the hairball and lose their creative spark.

Managing "Creatives" requires putting them into an orbit that allows them to operate just outside of the gravitational pull of the Hairball and not so far away that their creations have no relevance or connection to the Corporation.

Let's all be reminded that it takes more to manage creative people than it does to manage mere mortals.

Is your Organization The Place where Good Ideas Go to Die?

We've all been in this situation: Board meeting, Boss Meeting, group gathering...talking about what we should do next, how should we fix the situation, finding something that will make us feel fresh, new, and .... being as positive as the Carousel of Progress soundtrack of

"There's a great big beautiful tomorrow"!

But, alas, you remember that the last good idea that saw the light of day from this situation was perhaps the one that made you a part of the organization you're trying to fix.

The question to ask as an organizational manager, leader, or facilitator is:

Is this a place where good ideas go to die?If you have to ask that question more than once, put up headstones for anything that sounds new or innovative... and wave goodbye to people who have those ideas.

How do you avoid becoming the graveyard for innovation.... Make sure that your organization is an environment that promotes discussion, difference, silliness, and the creative process itself. People should feel comfortable to try out ideas without the fear of public embarrassment, or just outright rejection.

But, you're thinking, there's that guy who comes up with these really crazy ideas and we have a tight agenda and we don't have time for this tonight! (I know that guy because much of the time ... it's me)

What you're really saying is, "I don't know how to manage the discussion, capture all the ideas, find a time to process them, and still get out in time to get home to see the beginning of "Lost".

The next time you're about to thank someone for their contribution and follow that by saying "but", stop right in your tracks and figure out how you could use that idea. Who could help make it happen; how can you connect this idea with other things you're trying to do; can you discuss the idea after the time allotted; can you create a time to fully develop this idea?

Think of yourself as trying to catch every idea as it leaps towards it's inevitable demise! If you can save it, you can move your organization ahead. You can also let other idea creators know that this is a place that is safe for them.

If you don't save the ideas, you'll be just another place where good ideas go to die.