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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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John Kao
Age: 74
Born: 1950
Born: January 1
Author
Writer
Bottom
Large
Products
Contribution
Line
Subtle
Challenges
Product
Lines
Easily
Often
Track
Come
Challenge

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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.
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The creative process is different from the traditional production and work-flow process. It is not so linear.
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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.
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A pioneering and invaluable work about what it really takes to build innovation capability in society.
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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 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.
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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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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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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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.
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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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The traditional managerial mind-set is an analytical mind-set. It is about creating accountability and defining responsibilities.
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You are able to create an environment so that the creative process can take place and that you can get people to perform at their highest levels.
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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.
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Instead of command and control, managing the creative process is about facilitating and permitting.
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The mark of the developed intellect is that it could accommodate two contradictory ideas at the same time.
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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.
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