There are some pretty obvious ways of benchmarking creativity. One way is to perform what I call a creativity audit, which is to look at your capabilities and look at your performance and examine the percentage of revenue that comes from products that are less than five years old, less than three years old and that are current with the present accounting period. You can then compare those figures to those of your competition along the same axes.

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.

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.

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

Jazz has to work. It has to play with the audience and with the marketplace. I think that is relevant to business.

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.

Conducting a creativity audit can be very illuminating because it can tell you how the process is working internally and against the competition.