Computer giant HP described their organisation as a “garage” in their 1999 annual report in honour of the place where the company founders, Bill Hewlett and Dave Packard, created their first product. Their “rules” of the garage remind us how to stick to the basics and focus on being real:
- Believe you can change the world.
- Work quickly, keep the tools unlocked, work wherever.
- 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.
What rules do you have in your “garage”?
