Jazzing Up Business: Teamwork, Experimentation, Speed
This week's "free jazz" ensemble underscored parallels between improvisational music and modern business leadership, emphasizing team flexibility, experimentation, and quick adaptation.
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1. My Interesting Conversations
This week, I had the pleasure of seeing Eric Barber , who is the head of the Walnut Hill School for the Arts (where I am on the board), play saxophone in what is best described as a "free jazz" ensemble.?
It was truly wild, and felt rather random?at times, but there was no denying that the musicianship and sense of experimentation was amazing.
With very loose, and I mean very loose, song structures to guide them, the group used head nods, volume changes, and sudden flourishes to signal a change to the others. Time for someone else to solo, or time to accelerate and get louder. The interplay was impressive.
I know I have written before?about the lessons we can take from Jazz, and there is a classic article from the late CEO of 波士顿谘询公司 , John Clarkeson ,?Jazz Vs. Symphony, that does an amazing job of laying out the need for business leaders to think more like a jazz combo leader than an orchestra conductor.?
But as I listened and watched them this week, I took away even more that is so relevant to business leaders today.
So often, my clients are concerned that their teams are too slow, and not creative enough. My retort to that these days is that organizations have gotten too specialized, where everyone does a narrow thing, few people see the whole, and everything has to have a formal hand-off.?
In the jazz combo I saw, everyone is playing multiple roles as the pieces progress. A saxophone?may be leading the melodic line at first, but then moves into percussive support for the piano, or to hold a harmonic note as a long backdrop.? The pianist goes all over the place, moving from chord support to percussion to long complex solos.? Even the drums meander from rhythmic energy to leading statements.
Everyone is comfortable moving around, and everyone is contributing what they realize the team needs to deliver -- in real time. And they are certainly a team, small enough to sense each other, and play off each other. They essentially ask each other questions and work to find answers.
Along the way, as I mentioned earlier, they are constantly experimenting and trying to find ways of building on someone else's ideas to make them richer. But all are superb musicians in their own right, practicing their own technique for hours per week, and studying great solos of their predecessors.?
I believe that AI will make it easier for teams to act as jazz combos, as it offers tools to make execution easier, provides access to past knowledge, and offers random new ideas of its own. But to truly push its value, AI needs teams using it who are open to experimentation, who can flex to cover multiple roles, and who know that everything matters in the moment.
In using AI, these teams are relentlessly asking questions, testing, learning, and feeding new information back.? They recognize that everybody, including the AI, needs to pick up the signals "in the room" to push performance forward.
So ask yourself, how is my team driving to get more impactful? How do we work together?? Are we even a team? How tightly do we circumscribe our roles? Are we always listening and building on one another? Are we building our own skills so that we can contribute even more? And most importantly of all, how fast are we seeing our audiences' reaction? How fast can we tell we are on a roll? How fast can we change direction if something is not working??
Teamwork, experimentation, speed. The best jazz combos, and business teams, amazing us when it all clicks.
2. 5 Things To Share
2. A brand’s willingness to adjust to customers’ needs is essential, and digital technology can anticipate customer needs before they are expressed. https://www.forbes.com/sites/cherylrobinson/2024/07/18/pivoting-your-customer-engagement-strategy-for-the-digital-age/
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3. Businesses can use analytic tools to flag customers who may be good candidates for a particular kind of cross sell and more. Check out this video!
4. As AI in healthcare gains traction, health technologists can apply a consumer mindset to healthcare in order to better understand how technology and AI can help create desired experiences and outcomes. Fast Company offers four ways to ensure a better brand image: https://www.fastcompany.com/91158955/4-ways-to-rebrand-ai-in-healthcare
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