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.

In a large pharmaceutical company, where it's a big bet, you're going to need finance people to be involved in the decision-making because the investment can run into the hundreds of millions of dollars. You're going to have to run scenarios. You might even need agreement from the C.E.O. to make that type of decision. If it's an incremental, low-cost decision in a marketing-oriented company, it may be a very different set of stakeholders a lot further down in the organization.

The C.E.O.'s job in a creativity-driven company is to be an impresario, not a manager.

Rather than managing by clarifying events, the creative process may require raising the level of uncertainty. Sometimes this can be done by issuing a creative challenge that has resonance in that it inspires the team to activity.

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.

The traditional model for a company like Coca-Cola is to hire one big advertising agency and essentially outsource all of its creativity in that area. But Coca-Cola does not do it that way. It knows how to manage creative people and creative teams and it has been quite adept at building a network that includes the Creative Artists Agency in Hollywood, which is a talent agency.

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.