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The Jazz of Innovation
To jazz up your ability to innovate, turn to
jazz – create
a clear guiding structure, establish a
creative chaos environment within this structure to liberate people and
trigger
accidental discoveries, and encourage improvisation. The structure, as
chords do in jazz, serves as a basis for improvisation,
experimentations,
discoveries and
innovation.
Case in Point Silicon
Valley
In
Silicon Valley, companies
challenge the status quo
and encourage
creative
out-of-the-box thinking
thinking mixed with pragmatic business judgment.
The "Inherent Sloppiness" of Innovation
 Tom Peters8
researched many innovative companies and had been impressed in his
researches by the "inherent sloppiness" of innovation.
The "messy world", or
the "creative
chaos environment", is its "given precondition". The necessary solution
has three parts, each one leading on to the next:
-
Experimentation
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Champions
-
Decentralized bands.
Management's
task is to generate the right climate for
creativity, experimentation, and individualism. This climate requires
managers to take advantage of that "inherent sloppiness" of innovation
– swimming upstream against the
innovation myths.
Finding the Right Balance Between
Structure and Chaos
You need a
certain amount of
chaos to be creative but not to the point that you feel overwhelmed by
its amount. Too much uncertainty
discourages people from mobilizing their best effort. Direction, purpose,
and the right amount of structure create freedom. People feel liberated by
goals and guidelines.
Case in Point
BP
Finding an Equilibrium Between
Chaos and Order
To evolve
BP into an
adaptive organization, one that would be better able to survive and
prosper in today's uncertain and turbulent times,
John Browne decided to
raise the creative tension. He established the preconditions necessary
for creating such tension and deliberately moved the organization to a
situation that was at the edge of chaos. That is, the point at which a
natural equilibrium is found between chaos and order, comparable to the
conditions in the evolving natural world.
Case in Point
Aetna Insurance
Many corporations are now working with the arts
community.
Aetna Insurance brought in jazz bassist Michael
Gold and his ensemble to teach improvisation. The theory is that kind
reactive thinking can help employees handle competition and conflict.
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