Monday, March 28, 2005

Manager's Notebook

From dissonance to harmony - an improvisational management model

By Rudi Scheiber-Kurtz

Fusing the creative process of improvisational jazz with management in a startup with its knowledge rich workforce is a compelling idea.

Let's face it, growing a company into a commercially viable entity, remaining innovative and open to change or reinventing your business with new growth strategies is always a challenge. It needs improvised, creative problem-solving and thought.

A networked economy demands that you move with speed, embrace change and juggle this balancing act with openness and flexibility, in and out of dissonance and harmony. Traditional management models offer either too little or too much structure and autonomy.

Merging the highly autonomous, independent worker with a rigid management structure often stifles the teams and can bring negative tensions and lower productivity. Similarly this would be the case if you asked a jazz musician to stick to composed notes at all times. How do you embrace change yet stay focused, given the individualistic and creative workforce, and keep a positive tension?

One can view jazz, with its rich improvisational component. as a road map that includes a minimal structure of form, melody, harmony, rhythm and chord progressions.

Jazz improvisation is often a reinvention of an already composed piece upon which the musician embellishes and explores, a concept that applies to the idea of innovation and creation for an emerging company.

The purpose of your early-stage company is to commercialize your science or technology. For a later stage it may demand a restructure or realignment of your business strategy. Most likely this idea or change brings a tension similar to two musical notes rubbing against each other, creating dissonance.

In music, that leads to anticipation to resolve; in other words, harmony. For the emerging company, the necessary integration of tensions is accomplished with careful listening to all parties involved and structured with minimal guidance.

Freedom of expression and thought, or the creative process, needs some fundamental structure. John Kao, in his book Jamming, talks about the importance of setting boundaries for extraordinary people who often will need extraordinary limits.

You want to keep the workforce motivated through supported facilitation of continuous learning and a high degree of experimentation. Going back to the improvisation model, envision the piece being played with constant change, where a composition is being played over and over again yet with different nuances. It becomes experimental when it reaches out and listens to the audience or your customers. This concept is a great analogy for your evolving company and allows for a keen sense of customer need and encourages creative problem solving.

Transferring the concept of the improvisational model to an operational one is complex. It demands fluidity from the leader who must articulate the vision and goals, set up a minimal structure and be a facilitator and intense listener for the development teams.

Different phases in development will require a reinventing of structure and space for improvisation. You want to create an environment where individual thought and problem solving is encouraged within the realms of your strategic goals. In addition, building trust is a very important component to this process.

Creativity and innovation in a business may be risky, but stagnation could bring early death. Your instrument or expertise will be best exposed and optimized when the timing is right to solo and when to rejoin the group to end in harmony and success.

Rudi Scheiber-Kurtz is founder and president of Next Stage Solutions Inc. She can be reached at scheiberkurtz @nextstagesolutions.com.