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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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John Kao
Age: 74
Born: 1950
Born: January 1
Author
Writer
Well
Efforts
Really
Managers
Effort
Company
Impresario
Jobs
Preside
Business
Jam
Running
Manager
Wells
Runs

More quotes by 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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Instead of command and control, managing the creative process is about facilitating and permitting.
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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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.
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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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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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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The traditional managerial mind-set is an analytical mind-set. It is about creating accountability and defining responsibilities.
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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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.
John Kao
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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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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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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 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 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 imagination is like a muscle: it strengthens through use.
John Kao
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People must get respect for their new ideas.
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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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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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