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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
Author
Writer
Creative
Instruments
Culture
Essentials
Communal
Happens
Jazz
Medium
Music
Communication
Mediums
Without
Sea
Swim
Going
Band
Communicate
Like
Happen
Management
Company
Essential

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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.
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The C.E.O.'s job in a creativity-driven company is to be an impresario, not a manager.
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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.
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Creativity is not like the weather: You can do something about it. And you can measure it well enough to determine its effect on sales and profits.
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Jazz musicians can be great teachers of business. Their creativity is not dependent on their mood, it does not have to be coaxed out of them, it has nothing to do with the phases of the moon or even how they feel that day. They go on stage and start playing. Being creative is their job.
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Organizations are about putting ideas through one or more types of gating procedures. In this way, ideas go from being a whim to becoming a project, from being a skunk works effort to becoming an official, mainstream effort, from being an unfounded program to a funded process, and so on.
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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.
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