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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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John Kao
Age: 74
Born: 1950
Born: January 1
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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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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.
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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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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 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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The traditional managerial mind-set is an analytical mind-set. It is about creating accountability and defining responsibilities.
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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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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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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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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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You need judgment, you need to utilize conventional resource-allocation analysis, you have to work backward from estimations of the market to the current investments and you have to do some benchmarking of your product and its potential against your competition.
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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.
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Instead of command and control, managing the creative process is about facilitating and permitting.
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People must get respect for their new ideas.
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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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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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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 imagination is like a muscle: it strengthens through use.
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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