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.

An organization is really a factory for producing new ideas and for linking those ideas with resources - human resources, financial resources, knowledge resources, infrastructure resources - in an effort to create value. These are processes that you can map, with results that you can measure.

I would argue that the management of creativity requires a skill set that's relatively different from the traditional management skill set that is appropriate to a large, complex, industrial-era organization.

Tunes have notes and tempos and rules. If the tune is "All the Things You Are," you have to adhere to its structure and to the tradition behind that structure.

Creativity is the crucial variable in the process of turning knowledge into value

The mark of the developed intellect is that it could accommodate two contradictory ideas at the same time.

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.