Mavericks at Work: Why the most original minds in business win. William Taylor

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СКАЧАТЬ differently. They devise a strategic vocabulary that distinguishes them from their rivals and sets expectations in the marketplace and for everyone in the organization.

      The best way to appreciate the power of language in business (and to evaluate how your own vocabulary stacks up) is to visit a company that speaks a language all its own. Consider our visit to the Seattle headquarters of Cranium, a seriously important young player in the deeply troubled world of toys and games. It’s a bit overstated (but only a bit) to suggest that Cranium is to board games what Pixar is to animated films—a maverick newcomer that has produced a string of hits by infusing a tired industry with fresh energy and a different perspective on how to compete. Since November 1998, Cranium has released a stream of games aimed at adults, preschoolers, and just about every age in between. The games have won rave reviews and millions of loyal fans. Cranium, its namesake title and the Toy Industry Association’s 2001 Game of the Year, ranks as the fastest-selling independent board game of all time. (It is now available in 10 languages and 20 countries and has sold a staggering 5 million copies.) Cadoo, the company’s second title, won Game of the Year in 2002, and Hullabaloo was Game of the Year in 2003 and again in 2006.

      All told, in less than ten years, Cranium has won more than 80 industry awards, sold more than 22 million copies of its products, and attracted an estimated 30 million players for at least one of its games. This is, quite simply, a performance without precedent in a $20 billion industry that is actually shrinking, torn apart by kids’ fascination with computers, the Internet, video games, and all forms of electronic entertainment and by Wal-Mart’s stranglehold over the distribution of traditional toys and games, which has resulted in the bankruptcy of fabled retailer F. A O. Schwarz, the humiliation of Toys “R” Us, and other devastating shocks to the retail system. There hasn’t been much fun in toyland for an awfully long time—unless, that is, you work at Cranium.

      In the media, Cranium’s track record has been a source of both celebration and mystification. Is it the latest in a line of press-savvy consumer companies that have mastered the art of good PR? (When Julia Roberts appeared on Oprah and declared herself a Cranium enthusiast, the game’s popularity went into overdrive.) Is its unrivaled sales record a testimony to the power of clever packaging and smart design? (All of the company’s artwork, from the games themselves right down to its business cards, feature distinctive illustrations by Gary Baseman, creator of the TV series and feature film Teacher’s Pet.)

Or is the Cranium phenomenon about something deeper, an emerging New Age ethos gripping society? In a long essay for the New York Times Magazine, writer Clive Thompson deconstructed Cranium’s unparalleled performance in the marketplace and concluded that the company’s games have become an emblem of “America’s insatiable thirst for self-esteem.” Why has the company won in the marketplace? Thompson asks. Because, he argues, “Cranium appears to have discovered the paradox that gets kids and families playing together: a game where no one loses.”3

      Richard Tait, Cranium’s cofounder and “Grand Poo Bah” (yes, that’s the title on his business card), is adamant that at the heart of the company’s consistent growth is a disruptive business strategy—and that at the heart of the strategy is a homegrown language that communicates the ideas that define the company. How Cranium thinks about its business shapes how everyone at the company talks about the business, both among themselves and to the outside world. And the fact that everyone at the company talks about the business in the same way allows it to keep introducing new games, targeting new slices of the market, even venturing outside board games to book publishing, television, and other fields, without straying from its core values.

      “This wasn’t about games at the beginning,” explains Tait, who was a rising star at Microsoft (where he won Employee of the Year honors) before he and cofounder Whit Alexander (also a decorated Microsoft veteran) decided to trade the rigors of software for the fun of games. “We wanted to provide an alternative to the entertainment choices people have, to create a movement around that alternative. So much of entertainment is destructive and demeaning. Look at television: ‘You’re fired!’ ‘You are the weakest link.’ Who’s going to sleep with whose girlfriend on the island? Our disruptive moment was when we said, ‘We’re going to create lighten-and-enlighten experiences, a unique combination of laughter and learning that gives everyone a chance to shine. People will laugh and feel and connect, but at the same time they are going to be getting smarter. That was our disruptive idea.”

      The language of “lighten and enlighten” and “shine”—reflecting a genuine sense of mission and a feel for the interplay between seriousness of purpose and flat-out fun—infuses every aspect of how Cranium operates. Life here just sounds different from life at most companies. Executives have job titles that make perfect sense to their colleagues, but not to many other people. Whit Alexander is Cranium’s “Chief Noodler.” The business card of Jack Lawrence, the company’s CFO, identifies him as “Professor Profit.” Catherine Fisher Carr, the person responsible for the content of the games, has the title “Keeper of the Flame.” Customers aren’t just customers, they’re Craniacs—game players who share the passion and values that animate the company that makes the game. “I get e-mails from customers that say, ‘Proud to be a Craniac,’ ‘I am a Craniac,’” says Richard Tait. “This really is a movement.”

      Even hard-core business operations are described in unusual ways. Scattered around Cranium headquarters are “Pulse” stations—fun, colorful, visual representations of key financial indicators, including sell-through numbers at retailers, operating profits, and on-time delivery of products. These stations (which measure the “pulse” of the company) are updated regularly and keep everyone posted on the guts of Cranium’s business results. Meanwhile, the watchwords of the product development process are “Gather-Grow-Glow.” Gather—which friends or family members are expected to play the game? Glow—what are the moments of success and celebration (of “shine”) that the game is meant to unleash? Grow—what are the players going to learn from the game?

      To outsiders, Cranium’s offbeat titles and homegrown vocabulary may sound forced, hokey, even off-putting. But for Richard Tait this vocabulary is vital to the company’s business strategy and operating success. “Every great company has a distinctive culture,” Tait says, “and every culture has a language, a shared sense of values. We’ve established a culture in the company that is impregnable. We defend it, we rally around it, we refine it. And as part of that culture, there is a vocabulary. Everyone you meet at Cranium can talk to you about lighten and enlighten, about shine, and about what it means to bring that into people’s lives.”

      Everyone you meet at Cranium can also talk about CHIFF, perhaps the centerpiece of the company’s strategic vocabulary. CHIFF stands for Clever, High-quality, Innovative, Friendly, and Fun. The acronym is meant to explain the games’ personality and performance—how they should look, how they should be built, and how the product brochure should read. In fact, if you spend any amount of time at Cranium headquarters, you can’t help but chafe under the relentless drumbeat of CHIFF. Do the company’s new TV ads feel CHIFF? Do the latest changes to the Web site look CHIFF? Are the instructions for the newest game CHIFF enough?

      The company has a senior executive, Jill Waller, whose title is actually “CHIFF Champion.” Her job is to make sure that the product development process stays true to this crucial element of Cranium’s vocabulary. Waller’s CHIFF checklist involves a detailed methodology that shapes everything from how to vet ideas for new games (a process called “the Cranium Cuisinart”) to how to make detailed production plans (“the Manufacturing Mindmeld”) to how to revise games once they’re in the market (“Operation Big Ears”). “Everyone knows what a game has to be like, what the experience of playing it has to be like,” Waller says. “Everything we do has to be CHIFF.”

      Some readers may be rolling their eyes at the colorful language spoken at СКАЧАТЬ