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Communication is the essential medium of a creative culture: the communal sea in which we all swim. A company that can't communicate is like a jazz band without instruments: Music just isn't going to happen.

John Kao

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John Kao
Age: 74
Born: 1950
Born: January 1
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Without
Sea
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Band
Communicate
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Management
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Jazz
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More quotes by John Kao

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The capacity to creatively improvise is an important factor that differentiates successful companies - or teams - from those that are not successful.
John Kao
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The larger the price tag, the more you have to adopt what I call the postmodern management approach. What I mean by that is that you have to use everything when you make a decision.
John Kao
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The conventional asset-allocation method is like sheet music. It is prescribed, it has right answers and wrong answers and it sounds about the same every time. But jamming is different. Jamming is when you make the music. When you improvise and adapt to conditions. When you are creative.
John Kao
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The head of a record label sets up structures, but he also defines the sound of the label, which is to describe what is desirable, what fits and what is quality for that label and then to create an environment where that sound can thrive.
John Kao
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The manager's job - the impresario's job - is to preside over the company's efforts to jam so the business runs really well.
John Kao
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The C.E.O.'s job in a creativity-driven company is to be an impresario, not a manager.
John Kao
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Companies have to take risks to get new knowledge, in a manner similar to how jazz musicians take risks when they go after a new approach to a tune or a performance.
John Kao
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Creativity, my students learn, is as natural a function of the mind as breathing or digestion are natural functions of the body.
John Kao
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In the end it is the musician who actually plays the notes. The impresario - or the project leader - is only there to make sure that happens. That is a very different type of management mind-set.
John Kao
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Obviously businesses do not operate like an artists' commune. Business involves deploying finite resources to achieve goals in a competitive environment to make money. That is something creative people understand.
John Kao
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All of these creative ideas and decisions about new ways to reach the consumer can be tracked with regard to how well they are working, whether and how they are building awareness for the product, how well they motivate the consumption of the product, and so on.
John Kao
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Coca-Cola can get really fresh output because it is getting people who are outside the traditional model and they are combining ideas in very novel ways.
John Kao
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If you come up with a new product, you can very easily track its contribution to the bottom line. But often the challenge can be both large and subtle.
John Kao
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The creative process is different from the traditional production and work-flow process. It is not so linear.
John Kao
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A pioneering and invaluable work about what it really takes to build innovation capability in society.
John Kao
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The traditional managerial mind-set is an analytical mind-set. It is about creating accountability and defining responsibilities.
John Kao
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Managing the creative process means selecting the best people and then letting them do their work. That means nurturing. It also means, from time to time, creating drama - even uncertainty - so that the creative environment has an edge to it, a charge, and does not run out of steam.
John Kao
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The impresario functions as a bridge and a translator. He or she is a bridge between the creative point of view - which is often very focused on the creative task itself - and the resource-allocation process. The impresario has to make certain the funds and people required to get that task completed are available.
John Kao
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Jamming - which follows rules but not individual notes - gives you a different result each time, depending upon the players and the conditions in which they find themselves. It is adaptable to changing conditions.
John Kao
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The impresario's job is to pick the right people who can pick the right people. He picks the people who can pick artists and relate to them. People who know what the market craves.
John Kao