The Story
An entertaining and instructive approach to enhancing organizational performance using the insights and discipline that underpin the creativity of jazz improvisation.
Uncertainty and the risks that uncertainty brings with it are the defining characteristics of the world in which we live. For this reason, organizational success in today’s business environment is built on core elements of flexibility, an ability to change and learn, innovation and creativity.
The real challenge for organizational leaders is creating an institutional culture that nurtures and allows them to flourish. Overlooked in our search for ways to achieve these conditions is a robust functional model that has been around for most of the last century.
It is an example of a collective human enterprise perfectly designed for enhancing learning and innovation; for achieving that critical balance between flexibility and stability.
“Organizations continue to exist only if they maintain a balance between flexibility and stability.”
KARL WEICK, “The Social Psychology of Organizing”
The model? Jazz.
The essence of jazz is collective improvisation. Its magic derives from the spontaneous, dynamic and creative interplay of the performing artists. But the freedom, so essential for its performance, is grounded in a rigorous individual and collective discipline. Jazz figured out a long time ago how diverse but highly interdependent groups of people can perform collaboratively. Jazz has put the theory of synergy into practice. For this reason, jazz, because it thrives on uncertainty and sees it as an opportunity rather than a threat, has much to teach contemporary organizations.
