Build Your Own Garage

Blueprints and Tools to Unleash Your Company's Hidden Creativity

Bernd H. Schmitt, Laura Brown

• Publisher: Free Press
• Year: 2010
• Print ISBN: 9780743202602
• eBook ISBN: 9780743218870
• Topic: Betriebswirtschaft
• Subtopic: Business allgemein

Is your company all bizz -- filled with professional managers, accountants, and financial planners who produce "smooth operations" but offer no customer savvy or soul? Or is it all buzz -- filled with talk, hype, and the brainstorming of half-cooked ideas that often lead nowhere?
To capture the best of these dichotomous worlds, creativity expert Bernd H. Schmitt and accomplished business writer Laura Brown introduce a groundbreaking model of a creative organization they call "The Garage." This powerful new framework demonstrates how any executive can manage the creative tension between the analytic, rational side of business and its dynamic, innovative side. After laying out the broad mission, or "blueprint, " for constructing The Garage, Schmitt and Brown present The Toolbox -- specific instruments for infusing creativity into all aspects of a business -- and show how to use The Blueprint and The Toolbox as essential strategy, recruiting, resource, and communications devices. At the center of this immensely readable book are the "Mastercrafts of The Garage" -- technology, branding, and customer-experience management -- the organizational forces that guarantee creative efforts are coordinated and well implemented to provide competitive advantage.
To illustrate particular aspects of creativity, Schmitt and Brown open each chapter with a story or "business parable, " each written in a different genre -- horror, detective, love story, or fairy tale -- accompanied by evocative photographs. They also draw on scores of cutting-edge examples of creative, innovative ventures such as American Express's Blue, W Hotels, Eli Lilly's "Answers That Matter, " SAP, and NTT DoCoMo's i-mode.
Build Your Own Garage is timely and instructive reading for any manager charged with the mandate to bring to market quickly the most useful and innovative products and services. The book's Web site is www.BuildTheGarage.com

entering the garage

What exactly is The Garage? How do we build The Garage? What happens in The Garage? How does The Garage capture, nurture, and manage chaos? And how can a garage affect a more traditional organization? Before we address these questions conceptually, we present our first parable, “They Walk Among Us.” Modelled after Bram Stoker’s novel Dracula, this parable contrasts the values of a young, successful, garagelike company with those of a horrific conglomerate monster.

“They Walk Among Us”

With apologies to Bram Stoker

Jonathan Harker’s Journal

September 3. Today the partners of Anglia, Ltd. spent our first day at our new parent company, LTVC—the Legendary Trans-V Corporation. The day began with something of a shock for us all—Mina, Lucy, Jack, and I were most disappointed to learn that we would not be working together in the same office; indeed, we are not even to be situated on the same floor. It will be a difficult adjustment for us, accustomed as we are to working side by side. At least Mina and Lucy are to remain together and continue their design work side by side—they work so harmoniously and so well complement one another as to be almost two halves of the same whole. Jack Seward, we have learned, will be working with LTVC’s marketing people. I know my colleagues and I have enjoyed the rare advantage of close collaboration during our three years of independence, but now with the buyout we must patiently suffer all the changes that will doubtless come our way. We must have faith that the benefits of working within so powerful a family of companies will outweigh any distress we may feel. But I must confess, I do not wholly grasp LTVC’s vision as yet.

I am not to be entirely alone in my work, however. It is a great honor that the CEO of LTVC, Dean Calendula himself, will be working closely with me during the transition period. He is a most striking-looking man, tall and thin, quite pale, but with dark eyes and a full red mouth. His dress is most distinctive, though a bit behind the fashion: a black suit with a rich red tie and handkerchief.

This gentleman’s elegant appearance is matched by his courtesy. His praise for our little company and its achievements has been most generous, and I would suspect him of flattery were his manner not so sincere. “Naturally we wish to learn all we can about how you have achieved your fine success,” he told me. “I hope it will not be an imposition if I sometimes pay you a call and observe your activities.” I assured him that he was most welcome in my office at any time.

Jack Seward’s Journal

It seems that my life at LTVC will be little more than a stream of meetings, tightly scheduled and—as I believe—to no purpose. Dean Calendula has requested that I attend meetings that have but little relevance to our business. An inauspicious beginning, to be sure, yet I hope that I may soon be able to leave behind these endless planning and strategy meetings and devote my energies to more productive work.

Mina Murray’s Journal

Lucy and I are now settled comfortably in our new office, which commands a rare view of the harbor and of the buildings surrounding it. To have my brilliant and inquisitive partner Lucy with me is a great blessing, but I know that we will miss the society of Jack and Jonathan. Indeed, I fear that Lucy is already missing it more than she will acknowledge. She was gone from the office for over an hour this afternoon, and when she returned her manner was so quiet and abstracted that I could scarce believe she was the same girl. Never have I known Lucy to be so subdued. Perhaps this is her way of adjusting to our new surroundings, but I do hope she will be herself again soon.

Jonathan Harker’s Journal

September 5. I spent much of the day in conversation with Calendula, who continues to profess great interest in our accomplishments. During the afternoon, we met in Calendula’s office. It is a tastefully decorated room, with an air of antiquity. His desk is an expansive mahogany piece, with nothing resting on it but an elegant MontBlanc pen set and a leatherbound organizer. I could not help but notice the absence of any photographs on his desk, but I expect that he must be a very private man. At the rear of the office, under the window, is a long, low mahogany chest that matches perfectly with the desk. When I made so bold as to admire the chest, Calendula smiled slightly and said only, “You are most kind. This piece belonged to my grandfather. I am very fortunate that my office is large enough to accommodate it.”

Later in the afternoon, I believe I saw Lucy entering Calendula’s office and shutting the door. I called out to her, but she did not hear me. I thought it odd that she did not stop to say hello after her meeting with Calendula, but no doubt she has many things to attend to, as do we all.

Shortly after five o’clock, I returned to Calendula’s office to proffer some ideas for a new Romanian venture, but I found him already gone for the day.

Jack Seward’s Journal

The meetings continue unabated. I am still not sure just what their purpose is meant to be. In the meanwhile, Calendula has been kind enough to lend me his own assistant while I familiarize myself with LTVC’s marketing. Tall and almost ghostly pale, Renfield seems a bright young man, but prone to anxiety over details and preoccupied with counting and arranging things. When engaged in some task that I have set him, he performs his duties to the letter, but no further—his is not a mind that ranges to ask questions or to consider the reasons behind what he does. When he has nothing to do, he occupies himself with poring over office supply catalogues, comparing prices and quantities and making copious notes of the information he has gleaned. I have more than once observed him at his desk, his pale hand sweeping the blond hair off his blue-veined forehead, his lips moving silently as he ponders some question of numbers and quantities. At the end of the first week of our work together, he approached me and asked obsequiously if he might order a box of paperclips. When I consented, his strange young face brightened with a kind of supernatural light, and I thought he would never make an end of thanking me. While there is something endearingly innocent about this young man, I cannot help but wonder how I am to accomplish my work with none but he to assist me, particularly if I am to be detained in meetings for the greater part of each day.

Jonathan Harker’s Journal

September 7. Again I spent several hours in conference with Calendula. He shows particular interest in our technological innovations and what he calls our “method” of achieving them. I made an earnest effort to answer his questions, but I felt bound to point out that none of us believes that there has been any hard and fast method to the way we have worked. Quite simply, each of us has worked to the greatest of his abilities, inspired by a vision and determined to make it manifest—each with the same goal in mind and all with the spirit of adventure and comradeship. Calendula seemed genuinely puzzled and, I thought, a little impatient at my speech. To share with him a thing so near to my heart, only to be met with incomprehension, leaves me feeling most downcast.

Mina Murray’s Journal

Lucy’s distant and distracted manner has not faded; indeed, it has grown worse. Since our arrival at LTVC, she has not been the cheerfully irreverent girl that I used to know. She is more pale than usual, and when I inquire if she is well, she replies only that she is busy. She is in the habit now of leaving the office every afternoon—she will not tell me where she has been—and returning almost in a daze.

This morning I ventured a conversation with her, raising the question of the integration of our marketing strategy with that of LTVC—a problem that I am certain is vexing our dear Jack. Lucy regarded me with greater life in her eyes than I have seen since we joined LTVC, and exclaimed, “But my dear Mina, why should you concern yourself with that? You are a designer, not a marketer. Marketing is not part of your job description.”

I confess I did not know how to reply to her. Since our early days of working together with Jack and Jonathan, we have relied on one another’s insights and good judgment at all times. Naturally, each of us has special talents, but it has never been our way to limit our contributions according to our job descriptions. When I remonstrated with Lucy, she became distant and evasive once more, and I almost regretted having spoken out at all. My dear friend! I can only hope that time will bring her back to the vibrant young woman she once was.

Jonathan Harker’s Journal

September 8. A most disturbing incident has occurred. Yesterday, feeling a bit drowsy in the afternoon, I took a turn in the park opposite our building. It being a fine day, I spent a quarter of an hour resting on a stone bench, turning over and over in my mind a programming problem that had been puzzling me. No doubt as a result of the fresh air, a solution to my problem shortly presented itself to me. When I returned, I found Calendula walking out of my office. He did not speak but merely smiled mockingly. This morning when I arrived, I found a memorandum resting on my blotter. It was addressed generally to “Staff” and appeared to have been photocopied, as the print lay somewhat crookedly on the page. “All Staff members,” it read, “are to remain at their desks and available at all times, except during authorized break times.” It was signed at the bottom merely “C.” I infer from this communication that Calendula is invoking some corporate regulation to punish me for my absence yesterday afternoon. I feel the walls of LTVC closing ever more tightly around me.

Jack Seward’s Journal

Following his triumph with the paperclips, Renfield has each successive day asked me for permission to order some different item for his desk—a stapler, a box of staples, a notepad. Naturally, I have granted these simple requests, but I am mystified—I confess frustrated—by Renfield’s peculiar behavior. I have noted that he keeps all in the most precise order on his desk and in his top drawer. This afternoon, he adopted a manner more than usually fawning and begged me for a Rolodex. When I pointed out to him that we have no need of a Rolodex, as we have all such information on our Palm organizers, his imploring look turned to one of rage. He fixed me with a glare that bespoke nothing short of murder. I marvel to think that I once considered him an innocent. An innocent, perhaps, but when thwarted in his desires, an innocent with the mind of a very madman! And yet his obsession with detail seems to be a common preoccupation with even the executives in this place. Between managing Renfield and attending the still-unstinting round of meetings, I feel that I have utterly lost myself, and I would be hard-pressed to say what value if any I am contributing to the company. I confess that I begin to have grave doubts about our acquisition by LTVC.

Jonathan Harker’s Journal

There is something so strange about this place and all in it that I cannot but feel uneasy. I wish I were safe out of it, or that I had never come. Yet another restriction has been placed upon my personal freedom, as I have learned today that we are forbidden to use e-mail for any personal purposes whatsoever. The despair with which I received this news, coupled with the frustration of having no one to whom I could appeal, is difficult to express. The restriction is particularly distressing when I reflect that it was my forwarding of an e-mail joke to an acquaintance that initiated our contact with Interlink. It was principally the Interlink account, of course, that gave Anglia its great early success and began a series of partnerships that established our not inconsiderable reputation. It is with bitter irony that I now reflect that without that account we would certainly not be where we are now, housed—nay, imprisoned!—in LTVC.

Mina Murray’s Journal

Alas! Poor dear Lucy is even worse than usual this morning. Indeed, when she arrived, I found her so changed that I hardly recognized her. She is morbidly pale, and came to work wearing a high-necked pink blouse and navy blue tailored trousers. In all the years that I have worked alongside Lucy, I have hardly known her to wear anything but black. Seeing her in this strange outfit, I hardly knew what to say. Indeed, it was all I could do to restrain myself from shaking her until she regained her senses. In this strange office, I cannot approach her with our old intimacy and directness. Quietly I asked her where her new clothes had come from. Smiling just a bit, like a shy little girl with a new treasure, she replied softly, “The Talbot’s catalogue. I got a robin’s-egg blue blouse just like this one, too. And pearl studs on sale.”

The rest of the morning passed quietly. When I returned from lunch, I found Lucy gone. On her desk, however, I observed several memos and a purchase order specifying that a Pentium III computer be acquired for our office. I cannot imagine the purpose behind this, as designers have no use whatsoever for such a computer; our work has always been done on Apple computers, which are far better suited for such tasks. And yet there was the purchase order, signed by Dean Calendula himself. I am afraid these are mysteries beyond my ken.

Jonathan Harker’s Journal

October 1. I must put down everything exactly as it happened. Confined as I am within the building, with no e-mail access to friends or outside world, I left my office in a fit of restlessness and roamed the building itself. Stumbling upon the freight elevator, I began to climb the darkened, dusty staircase that winds around the elevator shaft. Old worn marble steps and the stale scent of cigarette smoke invoked a sense of time past, and at least I felt some respite from the artificial environs of my office. Between the sixth and seventh floors, I believe, I came upon a small and irregular-looking door. Driven by an irresistable curiosity, I tried this door. It was unlocked but stiff, and it took the full weight of my body to force it open.

Once through the door, I came upon what appeared to be a storage area. A thick layer of dust overlay everything in view. Relics of time past lay on old desks and typewriter stands ranged around the room: an ancient IBM Selectric, sheets of carbon paper, a large and cumbersome Dictaphone. A mechanical adding machine, such as I have not seen in many a year, rested atop a pile of faded memorandum forms. A pair of coffee mugs, on which I could barely make out the words “excellence” and “teamwork,” sat beside a box of IBM punch cards. I allowed my imagination to roam, thinking of the secretaries who perhaps sat at these very desks, eating doughnuts and using these very machines, typing and retyping memos, letters, and reports.

At the far side of the room were large windows that opened to the south and west of the building. Even through the thick dust, a warm and pleasant light streamed in. Looking around, I espied an old vinyl-covered couch, such as might have once stood in a reception area. Leaving my footprints in the dust as I went, I dragged the couch under the window so that I might enjoy the exquisite light. Caring not at all for the dust, I lay down.

I suppose I must have fallen asleep. I hope so, but what then transpired was so terrifyingly real that I cannot imagine it to be a mere dream. Suddenly I was not alone. Three beautiful young women slowly approached me. Although they stood in the slanting golden sun of the afternoon, they cast no shadow on the dusty floor. They stood for a long time looking at me and whispering among themselves. One held in her long white fingers LTVC’s 1979 annual report. An...

Table of contents

• Cover Page
• Title Page
• CONTENTS
• First Leitmotif THE GARAGE NURTURES CHAOS THAT BEARS A DANCING STAR
• chaos and the garage
• entering the garage
• the blueprint and the toolbox of the garage
• Second Leitmotif WITH IT SAT ENTHRONED THE MASTERCRAFTS WISEST OF THINGS
• the technology of mastercraft
• the branding mastercraft
• the mastercraft of customer experience management
• chaos and the dancing star
• NOTES
• INDEX
• ABOUT THE AUTHORS