The company's current culture evolved under Hugh's middle son, Duncan Highsmith, a fine-arts-student-turned-radical-press-publisher- turned-Japanese-sculptor's-apprentice-turned- architecture-student who vowed never to work for his father's company and who became its CEO and president in 1987. Highsmith's interest in librarians as more than just a market for his company's products emerged early in the decade, when he was the executive vice-president and chief operating officer of the then $16-million company. The company had engaged some consultants in projects involving warehouse expansion, software development, and catalog design, but the results weren't satisfactory. Highsmith concluded that "we had sought out consultants not because they had skills we didn't have but because they had access to information we didn't have. And I hypothesized that if we could get access to that information, we could make those decisions and recommendations ourselves and do it more to our satisfaction."
At the same time, Highsmith was trying to build an organization rich in human potential in an area poor in actual humans. "We have a very limited labor market, so I wanted to make the most of the people we had by helping them become decision makers, by providing them with information and the context to make good decisions," he says. The idea was to create an environment in which warehouse workers, for example, could resolve issues as small as what kind of packing material to use by reading news articles about environmentally sound alternatives, and as large as how their duties should be structured in a flat organization by reading case studies in business books.
Much of the information his employees would need, Highsmith believed, was the nonquantitative, nonformatted, nonobvious stuff floating around outside the company's walls and, consequently, outside the reach of its data-processing systems. So in 1988 he hired a professional librarian who would report directly to him--his only direct report aside from the vice-presidents. (The librarian has reported to the executive vice-president since Highsmith gave up some administrative duties in 1992.)
Although she resembles China Beach star Dana Delany, it would be difficult to mistake Guedea CarreÑo for anything but a librarian. She avoids using the word Listserv in conversation because it is trademarked. Articles passed on by her often arrive accompanied by a quote pulled from the text. When she describes a recent indexing project--Guedea CarreÑo creates indexes for all the company's catalogs--her words come a little more quickly, and her eyes grow brighter. (For more on indexes and other secret loves of librarians, see the "Think Like a Librarian" boxes below.)
Which is all to the good, since some of what Guedea CarreÑo does is, in fact, routine library stuff. She spends 15% of her time finding answers to questions. Most of them are straightforward. ("What is the status of the Manufacturers Life Insurance class-action suit?") Some of them are baroque. ("Why does authenticity matter?") The latter question, not surprisingly, came from Highsmith, whose intellectual curiosity is reflected in the subjects--epistemology and the interaction between people and computers, among others--that Guedea CarreÑo tracks for him independently of Life, the Universe, and Everything. "It took me five years to admit to him that I read People on the plane," says Guedea CarreÑo. "I was afraid he'd think I was incredibly shallow."
The subjects (there are 68 currently) that Guedea CarreÑo and her colleagues track for other employees are more prosaic than some of Highsmith's interests, ranging from the effect of wellness initiatives on health-care costs, to best practices for trade-show exhibits, to competitive activity. The librarians typically scan 100 or more publications a month, plus Web sites, electronic mailing lists, and other sources; they then pass along to employees only those articles, excerpts of articles, or annotated tables of contents that are likely to interest them. Altogether, Highsmith managers say that about 80% of the external information they read is chosen for them by Guedea CarreÑo and her staff, a practice that dramatically reduces the amount of paper accumulating on people's desks and ensures that what does accumulate there is relevant.
Guedea CarreÑo gets it right so often because she has mastered "customization"--the big bright promise of the Web. But Web sites require frequent visits and the inputting of personal data to "learn" customers' preferences; Guedea CarreÑo accomplishes the same thing by chatting people up. She starts from general topics defined by individual staff members and then acts like an exquisitely nuanced version of My Yahoo!, culling material appropriate not only to their interests but also to their information-consumption habits. "She knows from conversations we've had that I'm a very touchy-feely person and that I prefer working with people to numbers," says Patty Sehnert, team coordinator for customer service. As a result, when Guedea CarreÑo chooses articles for Sehnert, she avoids anything reeking of process.
Guedea CarreÑo also customizes how she delivers material. For John Kiley, director of marketing, she often provides a verbal summary. "You can hand John this beautifully presented and annotated outline with tabs and everything, and he will call you and say, 'Well, what's the answer?' or 'Could you come up here and tell me about it?" says Guedea CarreÑo. "It's good to have the documented stuff, but he needs to talk it out." Other employees prefer bullet points or charts or, on occasion, the full text of everything.
"I think it depends on their learning styles--whether they are visual, aural, or textual--as well as on the particular type of information being delivered," says Guedea CarreÑo.
