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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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John Kao
Age: 74
Born: 1950
Born: January 1
Author
Writer
Impresario
Manager
Managers
Driven
Creativity
Company
Jobs

More quotes by 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
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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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The mark of the developed intellect is that it could accommodate two contradictory ideas at the same time.
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.
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The imagination is like a muscle: it strengthens through use.
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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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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 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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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.
John Kao
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People must get respect for their new ideas.
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 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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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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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.
John Kao
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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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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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A pioneering and invaluable work about what it really takes to build innovation capability in society.
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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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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Instead of command and control, managing the creative process is about facilitating and permitting.
John Kao