Webby Clare

Thoughts and other writings by Clare Conroy

Book Review: Orbiting the Giant Hairball

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Orbiting the Giant Hairball: A Corporate Fool's Guide to Surviving with GraceOrbiting the Giant Hairball: A Corporate Fool’s Guide to Surviving with Grace by Gordon MacKenzie

My rating: 5 of 5 stars

I first heard one of the stories from this book when listening to Tom Kelley’s Entrepreneurial Thought Leaders lecture on how to be an innovator for life. I didn’t really know what to expect from the book, but I loved it! The author uses a series of often humorous, short, personal stories to reflect on and illustrate the problems with most organisational cultures and how to avoid losing one’s sanity and individuality when working in one.

My notes from Orbiting the Giant Hairball

[Disclaimer: The notes below are rough, and may be a mixture of direct quotes, paraphrasing, and my own thoughts/ideas/reminders. They’re written here primarily for me (so they may not make much sense out of context, especially for those who haven’t read the book)].

(17) Disruption with purpose.

(33) 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. [Read more…]

How aiming for the ‘wrong’ solution can lead you to the right one

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One of my favourite brainstorming/problem solving techniques is what I call ‘double reversal’. [I know that the inspiration for this technique (and perhaps even the name) has come from something I’ve read but I have no idea where (perhaps de Bono?), so apologies for the lack of attribution…]

Here’s how it works (and how I used it in a session today)…

Firstly, state the problem question.
‘How can we ensure that staff use (and use correctly) the quality assurance checklist?’

Then reverse it.
‘How can we ensure that staff do not use the quality assurance checklist?’

And then brainstorm answers to the the reversed question.

  • Make the checklist irrelevant
  • Ensure it’s hard to find
  • Make it hard to use
  • Tell everyone it’s not important
  • Make it time-consuming
  • Don’t provide any context or reason for its use
  • Don’t tell new staff about it
  • Reward people who don’t use it
  • Make fun of people who use it

Then reverse each of the answers.

  • Make the checklist relevant
  • Ensure it’s easy to find
  • Make it easy to use
  • Communicate the importance of the checklist
  • Make it quick to complete
  • Provide context and reasons as to why it needs to be used
  • Include it in new starter induction processes
  • Reward people who do use it
  • Follow-up and call out those people who don’t use it

You get the idea….

By reversing the question and aiming for the ‘wrong’ answers I find it frees up people’s thinking. They immediately start to think more broadly and get a bit silly with their ideas (which makes it lots of fun). It’s likely that if you just brainstormed solutions to the ‘right’ question then you’d come up with many of the same ideas in the end, but I always find I tend to get more through the ‘double reversal’ technique (especially those ideas that seem so obvious that they’re over looked). This technique seems to work really well for those problems where you want to get people to behave in a certain way or take certain action. Try it. It’s fun.

Some problems to get you thinking….

  • ‘How to stop people from speeding on the roads’. Reversed: ‘How to get people to speed on the roads’.
  • ‘How to get people to recycle more’. Reversed: ‘How to get people to recycle less’.

Practising creativity

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“I can’t believe that!” said Alice.

“Can’t you?” the queen said in a pitying tone. “Try again, draw a long breath, and shut your eyes.”

Alice laughed. “There’s no use trying,” she said. “One can’t believe impossible things.”

“I dare say you haven’t had much practice,” said the queen. “When I was your age, I always did it for half an hour a day. Why, sometimes I’ve believed as many as six impossible things before breakfast.”

Have been thinking a lot lately about whether creativity can be practiced and improved… Love this quote from Lewis Carroll’s ‘Through the Looking Glass’ which I stumbled across while enjoying the Anecdote blog.