It takes creativity at every stage to make the discontinuous leap from one level of knowledge to the next. These discontinuous leaps of understanding lead to insights that in turn lead to value creation.

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

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.

If you are at Coca-Cola, the creative challenge is one of maintaining - rather than creating - a tremendous level of consumption for your products.

Coca-Cola can get really fresh output because it is getting people who are outside the traditional model and they are combining ideas in very novel ways.

Now jamming - which is about collaborative improvisation - has to do with getting people together to be creative musically. But it is a very powerful metaphor for understanding the grammar of the creative process. It applies to business and to other pursuits as well.

In the end it is the musician who actually plays the notes. The impresario - or the project leader - is only there to make sure that happens. That is a very different type of management mind-set.