Jamming: The Art and Discipline of Business Creativity - Hardcover

Kao, John J.

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0887307469 ISBN 13: 9780887307461

Publisher: HarperCollins, 1996

Synopsis

For the past fourteen years, in his Harvard Business School lectures and executive seminars, John Kao has challenged management to exploit the most valuable asset in the corporation: the creative minds of its people. Like jazz musicians in a jam session - playing off one another to create new sounds, at once unpredictable and harmonious - managers themselves must master the skills of creativity to reap unprecedented returns.
In Jamming, Kao shows how high-performance companies around the world have learned the lessons of creativity to leap ahead of their obsolete competitors. They have learned to make creativity tangible and actionable, they practice a new managerial mindset, and they have learned to leverage information technology to enhance creative collaboration.
From clearing the obstacles to organizational creativity, to conducting a "creativity audit" that assesses the current value of creativity in your company, Jamming shows business leaders, managers, and entrepreneurs how to take their companies to an entirely new level of success and growth by fostering an environment that will anticipate tomorrow's needs. Undercut this potential and you endanger tomorrow's opportunities.

About this title

About the Author

John Kao has taught business creativity and entrepreneurship at both Harvard Business School and Stanford University.

Reviews

It took a Chinese American student listening to jazz and jamming with a group of African Americans at a private boarding school to internalize the polar tensions between musical score and improvisation and come up with a formula for creativity. Kao, now a professor at Harvard Business School, has been using the jamming metaphor to teach creative entrepreneurship for 14 years. In business, the score is not a musical theme but an idea, process or question that takes on new dimensions when bandied about by a group. This business version of jamming, Kao says, is the creative advantage that can give a company a competitive edge. Kao tells how to audit and manage creativity and describes techniques for clearing the mind to render it receptive to the improvisational flow. Never was the need or the opportunity so great, he claims, as now amid the deluge of information descending from cyberspace. Chapters end with a list of "riffs," or pithy tips for business leaders. Kao offers succinct advice cleverly packaged.
Copyright 1996 Reed Business Information, Inc.

It is difficult to describe the process of making good jazz music--even though it is easy to recognize good jazz when it is heard. An understanding of what makes effective leadership or promotes creativity is similarly elusive. Max DePree's popular Leadership Jazz (1992) has already made the comparison between good leadership and inspired jazz, and now Kao likens the creative process to a musical jam session. Kao teaches an elective course on creativity at the Harvard Business School that has attracted more than 2,000 students in 12 years, and he is also an accomplished jazz pianist. Here he explains why business must encourage creativity, shows the impact of information technology and global organizational structure on creativity, and suggests how management can best create environments that stimulate workers to be creative. David Rouse

Kao (entrepreneurship, Harvard Business Sch.), who is also a jazz pianist, describes the developmental process of business creativity through the analogy of jazz. He argues that promoting creativity within a corporation is no longer optional but an integral element of business success. Kao writes in a conversational style, offering examples of major corporations that show the benefits of corporate creativity and the methods used to design a program. The appendix contains "The Creativity Toolkit," a guidebook to the discipline from the perspective of individuals, managers, and leaders. Several recent books have been written in the area of business creativity (e.g., Bryan Martimore's 99% Inspiration: Tips, Tales & Techniques for Liberating Your Business Creativity, AMACOM, 1994). Missing from this one are creativity exercises and bibliographical references. Not an essential purchase, but larger business collections may wish to consider.?Kathy Shimpock-Vieweg, Muchmore & Wallwork Lib., Phoenix, Ariz.
Copyright 1996 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Edition details

• Publisher: HarperCollins
• Publication date: 1996
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0887307469
• ISBN 13: 9780887307461
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 224