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Chapter One NDI was born in an atmosphere rife with abrasion. One culture had joined another for help in an area in which it was particularly uncomfortable: the breaking of traditions. A varied group of disciplines had been gathered closely together, each with its own aspirations for what the enterprise might become. I'd left a familiar, comfortable relationship with an established corporation to help found a new entity with strangers in an unfamiliar setting. And from Detroit's perspective, I was seen as having joined "the enemy," switching sides in an economic war between America and Japan. Clearly, this was not going to be a serene retreat for quiet meditation.
Friction between individuals and groups is typically thought of as something harmful. And it usually is. It generates heat and discomfort, disrupts interactions, and can destroy relationships. Between a couple it can lead to divorce. Between countries it can lead to war. Within corporations it can distort and disrupt communication and ruin cohesiveness. Businesses of all types spend considerable time and money trying to reduce or eliminate it. In human terms, it is surely one of the most plentiful and volatile sources of energy on the planet.
While the early years at NDI were disruptive and chafing, however, they were also exciting and explosively fertile. And since creative output was critical, we needed to find ways to reduce the friction without destroying the very ingredients that might be essential to the vibrancy of the process; without, in other words, disrupting our disruptiveness. Multiple disciplines in the same studio, fights over what radio stations to listen to, divergentperceptions of appropriate work hours, modes of dress, codes of behavior, even what was perceived as quality work . . . all of this I saw as a rich and yeasty opportunity for a kind of friction I wanted to turn into light rather than heat. The uneasiness in my stomach and the fireworks in my brain told me there was some vital connection between the abrasiveness itself and original thinking. If we could grasp this connection, we would be tapping into a vast reservoir of creative energy.
The room was tense as a group of Japanese engineers and planners confronted a team of American designers across a drawing-
littered conference table. The vehicle we had been laboring on for almost a year, the first-generation Nissan Pathfinder, was in its concluding developmental phase and was bristling with challenging innovations and new forms. It was to mark Nissan's first entry into the emerging off-road SUV (sport utility vehicle) market in America.
To the Japanese at the time, the imagined uses and romantic appeal of this sport/utility hybrid appeared nearly incomprehensible. The forms of the existing American versions seemed terribly bold, even rude to their eyes. And the very notion of wanting to go "off-road," of spontaneously breaking with the pack, simply turning off a legally marked driving pathway to explore unmarked territory on an impulse was unthinkable to this eminently law-abiding people. To the engineers, among the most cautious of a well-guarded population, the whole project felt uncomfortably Western, as in the Wild West, and very alien.
Although to our eyes we had fashioned a rather civilized, urbane variant of the genre, to Japanese eyes the forms NDI had modeled appeared audacious and rough-hewn. The fenders swelled with highly characterized "bulging triceps" around each wheel. Inspired by the protective structure of the roll bar jutting up from behind the front seats of jeeps and other military vehicles in the event of rollover on extremely rough surfaces, the Pathfinder integrated this extra bracing into the very skin of the vehicle itself. The diagonal struts strengthening the body pillar behind the front door framed the unusual triangular vent windows that appeared behind the front-door glass in the two-door version, and that provided badly needed ventilation for the rear passenger compartment.
Understandably, the Japanese planners and engineers wanted to grasp as much as possible of the thinking behind this challenging new design. By being even more thorough than usual, they provided themselves with some badly needed feelings of security and confidence in their task. Meanwhile, the American staff felt intuitively certain they had gotten hold of a truly fresh and appropriate interpretation for this kind of car and were eager to see it realized.
Each side was pushing hard and the groups had reached an impasse on the resolution of a variety of difficult issues. The project was running late due to a growing, almost obsessive need on the part of the Japanese to restudy, research, and refine every detail. In a moment of frustration at the meeting I said, "Gentlemen, aspects of this design are truly new, and if we don't get it to market soon, we simply won't be first!"
The shukan (project leader) leaned forward, somewhat agitated, and responded, "But Hirshberg-san, we were thinking about being best!"
There was an abrupt, suspended silence. The Americans looked at the Japanese, then each other, and no one moved to fill the silence or bridge the gap. What had been laid bare, exposed in its purest form, were two inarguable, fundamentally alien points of view embedded deeply in each of these cultures.
Some dawning instinct urged me to step back from the moment rather than debate "first" versus "best." I thanked the Japanese for sharing their concerns and suggested that the meeting be concluded at that point. Each group left with these dual polarities nagging and pulling at each other, like the flip-flopping images in a reversible figure/ground illusion, neither prevailing for long and nearly impossible to perceive simultaneously. In the ensuing days and weeks, however, the Japanese moved with dispatch to resolve the remaining issues while the Americans refined their concepts, double-checking every new aspect with painstaking thoroughness. Neither gave up its principal goal, but each now more fully comprehended the concerns and motivations of the other. With subtle but profoundly broadened ends in mind, the vehicle concluded in a reasonably brief period of time, all innovations included and questions fully resolved.
