The conventional asset-allocation method is like sheet music. It is prescribed, it has right answers and wrong answers and it sounds about the same every time. But jamming is different. Jamming is when you make the music. When you improvise and adapt to conditions. When you are creative.

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.

Performers may play in the studio, but they need to go out and tour every once in a while to keep their edge, or a performer who is a stranger may be asked to "sit in" on a set.

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.

Jamming - which follows rules but not individual notes - gives you a different result each time, depending upon the players and the conditions in which they find themselves. It is adaptable to changing conditions.

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.

The management of creativity is more intimate. By that I mean that it deals with an individual's personal, psychological landscape. It deals with the way you create relationships. It deals with creating an atmosphere and environment that support the creative process. As a result, it is a management skill set that is inherently psychological and that encourages desired outcomes rather than demands those outcomes.