Sabbaticals Are Serious Business

By: Charles FishmanTue Dec 18, 2007 at 5:40 PM

Burned out? Take six months -- or just an afternoon. There are as many roads to 'creative renewal' as Hallmark has greeting cards.

The ethnicity sabbatical had a direct impact on Hallmark's business. it prompted a broader infusion of ethnic styles throughout the company's mainstream car lines. "we didn't think we needed a special line for Native Americans, and another for Laotians," Job says. "Putting a multicultural focus in existing lines-as long as we didn't water it down too much -- would do what we wanted."

Rotations have had an even bigger impact on the participants. The topics cut so close to their real experience, and people work so closely together, that they emerge with a different sense of themselves and a new sense of mission.

Jan Bryan-Hunt found her artistic voice in the course of the ethnicity rotation. In fact, she develop a new jewelry line, Symbolic Notions, based on multicultural symbols discovered in the rotation. Hallmark is test-marketing the line in 40 stores this fall.

"Before this rotation, I was always in the passive mode," she says. "Now I'm more aggressive. It forced me out of my comfort zone. If we were just told to stay in our cubicles and create all the time, we'd dry up. It's been three years since my rotations and it still keeps me gong.'

Charles Fishman is based in Raleigh, North Carolina. His cover story, "We've Seen the Future of Work," appeared in the August:September 1996 issue of Fast Company.