When you come into a creativity-driven environment, things are very different and there is the danger that a traditional managerial mind-set could even do damage. That is because managing creative teams and people is very different from managing the factory worker/foreman relationship.

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.

The manager's job - the impresario's job - is to preside over the company's efforts to jam so the business runs really well.

Managing the creative process means selecting the best people and then letting them do their work. That means nurturing. It also means, from time to time, creating drama - even uncertainty - so that the creative environment has an edge to it, a charge, and does not run out of steam.

Obviously businesses do not operate like an artists' commune. Business involves deploying finite resources to achieve goals in a competitive environment to make money. That is something creative people understand.

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.

There's real "right brain" creativity that goes into all of the organizational processes that a company utilizes and must continually reinvent in order to conduct its business. But there are also the "left brain" accounting functions that must continually ask how the company is doing financially and whether the creative processes are working for the bottom line.