By ERIC BARTON
Back in the mid-’90s, a manager at Hallmark Cards went to her boss to ask him to fast-track a line of cards for Kwanzaa. The holiday was getting mainstream attention, and the
manager explained that American Greetings and other competitors were likely working on the same idea.Her boss quickly shot down the idea. “Kwanzaa can’t be very important,” he said, “because I’ve never heard of it.”
The anecdote illustrates something I heard frequently while interviewing current and former employees of Hallmark for this story about the company’s layoffs. Many described a behemoth bureaucracy within Hallmark that stifles creativity and often sucks good ideas into a vortex of paperwork and budget meetings.
Turns out somebody has actually coined a phrase for Hallmark’s overblown officialdom. In 1998, former Hallmark employee Gordon MacKenzie dubbed it “the Hairball.”
MacKenzie worked for three decades at Hallmark, and he wrote and colorfully illustrated a book titled Orbiting the Giant Hairball: A Corporate Fools’ Guide to Surviving With Grace. The book describes the company headquarters on Grand as a “Big Grey Place” where a management hierarchy shoots down good ideas in the name of tradition.
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.
The Hairball.
MacKenzie discovered along the way, however, that it’s possible to live outside the hairball, to orbit it and exist without being sucked in. MacKenzie did this by convincing a Hallmark vice president to create for him a new department called the Humor Workshop. He brought in the most talented artists and writers in hopes of creating a place that could produce good ideas within a company that generally didn’t appreciate them.
When creating his Humor Workshop, MacKenzie used his budget to buy his employees roll-top desks and divided them using stained-glass windows and antique doors that were hung from the ceiling. Instead of wastebaskets, he bought old milk jugs. When a Hallmark bureaucrat found out about it, he was chastised for not buying the company-mandated cubicles and trash cans, even though his way cost less.
After the Humor Workshop, MacKenzie somehow convinced his boss to create him a new job. He called himself – and this is no joke – the “Creative Paradox.” He covered up the fluorescent lights in his office and filled it instead with candles. When low-level employees brought him ideas, he signed off on them, and their bosses assumed that the “Creative Paradox” must be high up in the company to simply approve ideas. In fact, he had no power. But he existed outside the hairball, and somehow got good ideas into stores.
MacKenzie tells his story mostly with anecdotes and with colorful and clever sketches that cover almost every page. A higher-up at Hallmark once asked MacKenzie to come up with a new way to think about the corporate hierarchy, to redraw the corporate pyramid. So in the book, MacKenzie includes his notes on how he reached his idea: a plum tree.
His plum tree was to remake the corporate culture where good ideas -- the plums -- have a lot farther to go before reaching the top branches. The idea was roundly loved when he presented it, but, like many good ideas at Hallmark, never went anywhere.
MacKenzie
Showing 1-12 of 12
I, too, heard Gordon's presentation in 1990. I was a marketing director in the shopping center business and was seated in a large auditorium with probably more than 500 other shopping center executives. Gordon first asked us to get comfortable, moving our chairs to where we wanted them if necessary. He then asked for a hand of those who believed they were geniuses. Two of us raised our hands. After his presentation, the executive suits were challenged to take the colorful crayons and paper in front of them on provided tables and create plans of pubic areas in shopping centers. These were to be areas that would be used as public spaces, to inspire and give people spaces that would increase their sense of creativity and well-being. The response was very surprising as the exercise even brought some tears to some of the staid eyes who saw his presentation. I am sorry to hear of Gordon's passing. He was and will remain one of my heroes, raising the banner on the necessity of creativity in our culture.
Bill Krabler
I was a Designer at HALLMARK in the 1960's - apparently pre-Gordon McKenzie. Hallmark and the Design Dept. Approval Committee encouraged creativity in every way... HOWEVER, they wanted ideas and art that would be SOLD as "social communication". Off the wall artistic creativity often DID get published. Example: the beginning of CONTEMPORARY CARDS, which were quite contrary to J.C. Hall's wishes. There were numerous occasions that the "committee" rejected what I thought were GREAT IDEAS. However, I was on the HALLMARK payroll. They paid my rent, put food on my table. I did my best to provide HALLMARK art.
i saw his speech when i was 17 years old, it help me fight the power of our capatlist system. i am 38 now and i am trying to hunt down a dvd/viedo of his speeches,the one where he has afew dozen images /words behind him and he goes over each image/words and tells a story about it.
does anyone have a copy??
fight the good fight
scott
I found this piece when searching for information to see of Gordon was still alive and well. I'm sorry to hear of his passing. I have his book and was fortunate enough to meet him and hear him speak. He was a true catalyst of creativity.
I found this piece when searching for information to see of Gordon was still alive and well. I'm sorry to hear of his passing. I have his book and was fortunate enough to meet him and hear him speak. He was a true catalyst of creativity.
Hi, Eric�thanks for your response.
Just to get it out of the way: Do I understand that I�m lucky to love my job? Absolutely. I�ve had enough others (at Hallmark and outside) that I know better than to take it for granted.
I don�t speak for Hallmark�and I certainly don�t claim to represent all Hallmarkers. But a few dozen people is still a pretty small sample. I�ve been exposed to hundreds, in many different departments, over time, so I feel pretty comfortable that I�m drawing conclusions from a more complete data set than yours.
As far as why folks were uncomfortable talking to you, I can�t say�but I can make a guess. I don�t think it would have been paranoid to be concerned comments might be taken out of context or opinions represented in an unsympathetic manner in support of the article you wanted to write. And as it turned out, you did tend to portray Hallmark�s supporters as being somewhere between delusional and disingenuous, and ex-employees as being completely and consistently in the right.
It's a corporation. Run by human beings. It's not perfect. But in many, many, many ways, it's better than most. Ultimately, your story just wasn't a fair or balanced look at what it's like to work here.
As far as Gordon goes, sadly, he has passed away. (I�ll bet if you�d called Julie, she could have tracked down the details for you�)
Trish
(Oh, and thanks for nuking that double post.)
Trish,
I did speak to an occasional Hallmarker who had nothing but good things to say about the company. But out of the several dozen people I called, they accounted for only three of the conversations. And I had the impression, with all three of them, that they were worried about speaking to me and that may be why they were saying what they did. I'm glad you landed your dream job, but it seems like you might be in the minority there.
It's true that you're likely to get caught in hairballs in every company. Hell, The Pitch isn't safe from the occasional clog. But when you talk to dozens of people and they all say the same thing -- that Hallmark has difficulty moving ideas to reality -- it becomes clear it might be a bigger problem at Hallmark than elsewhere.
As for whether Gordon is dead, prior to writing this piece, I called the only two Gordon MacKenzies listed in the phone book in Missouri and Kansas and didn't hear back from either. There's no obit in the Star's archives or elsewhere that I could find, so the best I could say is what I heard from two former co-workers. If you know different, please post a reply.
"According to a couple of Hallmarkers who worked with him, he has since died."
So this is reporting?
Gotta tell you, Eric, your journalistic approach is less than impressive. If you'd really dug into stories about Gordon�or talked at length to anyone who worked with him�you would have uncovered his enduring sense of optimism about Hallmark. Like any corporate entity, Hallmark has its share of challenges, but Gordon playfully and persistently got around them.
It�s naive to believe you won't get caught in a few hairballs if you work for a successful company with more than a few dozen employees. Most business reporters understand that. But based on what I've seen, your idea of reporting is stringing a few anecdotes together under a sensationalistic headline.
When Gordon spoke to new creative team members, he said (I'm paraphrasing), "If you've got something to offer Hallmark, and there's not a job that fits, make one up and ask for it.� I�m in my made-up dream job right now. I started at Hallmark in 1989, and to me, it's never been a more energized, more exciting, more satisfying place to work than it is today.
If you�d talked to more people�or been open to hearing it�you would have found more of that optimism.
But that's not a great cover story for an alternative weekly, is it?
Ummm...that's P-L-U-M....Just as it clearly shows in the picture, Not P-L-U-M-B, as you repeatedly used in your article. Don't you have Technical Editors? Oh, wait...they must all work at Hallmark...where they get better benefits and more money than they ever would working for the Pitch...
JS
I know Hallmark must be a slow moving behemoth that's really slow to make changes or embrace new ideas. But their the ones who came up with those Mahogany cards a couple years ago, the ones written and drawn to appeal to African-Americans.
I'd love to learn the story behind them. They're humorless and self-helpy, but I have to admit I find some of them oddly funny, in an uncomfortable way, especially the ones that say things like "You are a strong, good man who takes care of your responsibilities."
I can't decide. Are these cards cynical or brilliant?
like
dislike
