The traditional model for a company like Coca-Cola is to hire one big advertising agency and essentially outsource all of its creativity in that area. But Coca-Cola does not do it that way. It knows how to manage creative people and creative teams and it has been quite adept at building a network that includes the Creative Artists Agency in Hollywood, which is a talent agency.

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.

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 come up with a new product, you can very easily track its contribution to the bottom line. But often the challenge can be both large and subtle.

The 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.

Improvisation in the jazz sense - like the business sense - is not formless. It is built on a skill set. Jazz, for example, involves selecting a tune.

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.