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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
Wells
Runs
Well
Efforts
Really
Managers
Effort
Company
Impresario
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Preside
Business
Jam
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Manager

More quotes by 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.
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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.
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A pioneering and invaluable work about what it really takes to build innovation capability in society.
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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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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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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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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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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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People must get respect for their new ideas.
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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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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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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 capacity to creatively improvise is an important factor that differentiates successful companies - or teams - from those that are not successful.
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The imagination is like a muscle: it strengthens through use.
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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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
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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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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 traditional managerial mind-set is an analytical mind-set. It is about creating accountability and defining responsibilities.
John Kao