The Power of Simplicity in the New New Economy

We dug this HP ad out of the archives — something we held onto because it celebrates, if not actually captures, the ethos of Bill Hewlett and David Packard in 1939. Most businesspeople recognize these ideals, and just about every one of us has or will have the opportunity to work this way from time to time because:

A) we have to — we have to shake the dust off after a hard fall, and head back out to the garage to start over from scratch because the alternative is…there is no alternative…we’re workers; it’s what we do; it’s partly how we reflect God’s image (however faintly) embossed on us, and we are frustrated and disoriented until we find a way to create value — or,

B) we want to — we go out of our way to launch a skunkworks or contribute pro bono services to some bootstrappers dream that doesn’t have a snowball’s chance in hell unless people like us take up the dream  and practically will the thing to life in spite of everything against it…

Here’s the text of the HP ad, circa 2001:

RULES OF THE GARAGE

Believe you can change the world.
Work quickly, keep the tools unlocked, work whenever.
Know when to work alone and when to work together.
Share — tools, ideas. Trust your colleagues.
No politics. No bureaucracy. (These are ridiculous in a garage.)
The customer defines a job well done.
Radical ideas are not bad ideas.
Invent different ways of working.
Make a contribution every day. If it doesn’t contribute,
it doesn’t leave the garage.
Believe that together we can do anything.
Invent.

In some ways, we rode complexity to our present level of uncertainty. The deals were complicated, the formulae were dense, smart people went along with arrangements they didn’t comprehend, wealth was built and destroyed by algorithms so finely tuned they could only go soar or crash. As a consequence, institutional trust is largely decimated and will remain so until it is rebuilt, not by institutions as collectives but by individuals whose behavior signals a page turn in banking, finance, investments, insurance, governments, management, unions, industry, manufacturing, technology, marketing, transport, sales, service…all of it.

This is what Tom Peters was saying a dozen years ago when he urged us to build The Brand Called You. Peters’ call to create superlative value (wherever we are) was and remains the soundest of business advice. If we can’t enhance the quality of our companies, we can enhance the quality of our divisions, departments, sections or teams. if we can’t do that, we can still enhance the quality of our personal output, stamping everything we do with the unmistakable imprint of The Brand Called Me.

Wherever we find ourselves as the economy shakes out this year, there is work to be done in the garage — be it real or metaphorical — where it’s worth remembering and protecting the power of simplicity.

• Believe you can change the world
• Work quickly; work whenever
• Work as a team you can; as a free agent when you can’t
• Share. Trust you colleagues
• Simplify working relationships
• Look out for your customers
• Break the box
• Think different
• Make something good (or better) every day
• Insist on goodness (better yet, insist on greatness!)
• Believe in the potency of your team
• Dream. Execute. Deliver. Learn. Repeat