The capacity to creatively improvise is an important factor that differentiates successful companies - or teams - from those that are not successful.
John KaoThe manager's job - the impresario's job - is to preside over the company's efforts to jam so the business runs really well.
John KaoConducting a creativity audit can be very illuminating because it can tell you how the process is working internally and against the competition.
John KaoIn 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.
John KaoThe impresario function is about intervening with the company's more administrative management structure. It is about trying to establish a sense of boundaries and budgets and milestones and so forth on a project that does not necessarily lend itself to milestones. It is about translating between the intimate interior environment of the creative work team and the company's need to make money. And finally, it is about positioning the fruits of the creative process in the marketplace and selling them.
John Kao