Praise for Yes to the Mess
“Finally! A book that applies the tools of an improvising jazz musician to great leadership. The modern world can no longer afford the orchestral model of management—lots of people playing the same part and a leader who stands apart from it all. The new world is premised on intense communication, lightning-speed decision making, risk taking, and a degree of perfected competence that allows spontaneous and brilliant composing—namely jazz. Yes to the Mess gets it right.”
—Roger H. Brown, President, Berklee College of Music; cofounder, Bright Horizons
“With the velvety tones of Wes Montgomery and the wail of Miles Davis, professional jazz musician and management scholar Frank Barrett plays a set to enchant us. Pour a glass of wine, sit back, and listen to this engaging story of how to help teams and organizations innovate instead of replicate.”
—Richard Boyatzis, Distinguished University Professor, Case Western Reserve University; coauthor, Primal Leadership and Resonant Leadership
“I’ve known Frank Barrett for over thirty years, and we’ve often discussed the strange confluence of learned experience and pure intuition that exists in jazz improvisation. Frank gives us an insight into that world and how its lessons can be applied to almost any walk of life—truly fascinating!”
—Ken Peplowski, jazz musician
YES TO THE
MESS
Surprising Leadership Lessons from Jazz
Frank J. Barrett
HARVARD BUSINESS REVIEW PRESS
BOSTON, MASSACHUSETTS
Copyright 2012 Frank J. Barrett
All rights reserved
Printed in the United States of America
10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in or introduced into a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form, or by any means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise), without the prior permission of the publisher. Requests for permission should be directed to [email protected], or mailed to Permissions, Harvard Business School Publishing, 60 Harvard Way, Boston, Massachusetts 02163.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Barrett, Frank.
Yes to the mess : surprising leadership lessons from jazz / Frank Barrett.
p. cm.
ISBN 978-1-4221-6110-4 (alk. paper)
1. Leadership. 2. Creative ability. I. Title.
HD57.7.B37 2012
658.4’092–dc23
2012013504
This book is dedicated to two people.
First to my mother, Mary Hagan Barrett, who listened to me practicing the piano for years, witnessed me suffering through several clunkers, miscalculations, and wanderings (musical and otherwise), but always saw my potential better than I could myself. She is still the most resilient person I have ever known and has modeled what it means to continually say “yes.”
This book is also dedicated to my late friend, mentor, and colleague, W. Barnett Pearce. Barnett was a continual source of friendship, inspiration, and good humor. I wish he were here to hold this book in his hands and see how his influence continues to grow.
CONTENTS
Preface
Acknowledgments
1 All That Jazz
Mastering the Art of Unlearning
2 “Yes to the Mess”
Developing Affirmative Competence
3 Performing and Experimenting Simultaneously
Embracing Errors as a Source of Learning
4 Minimal Structure–Maximal Autonomy
Balancing Freedom and Constraints
5 Jamming and Hanging Out
Learning by Doing and Talking
6 Taking Turns Soloing and Supporting
Followership as a Noble Calling
7 Leadership as Provocative Competence
Nurturing Double Vision
8 Getting to “Yes to the Mess”
Advancing Engaged, Strategic Improvisation
Notes
About the Author
PREFACE
I wake to sleep, and take my waking slow.
I learn by going where I have to go.
—Theodore Roethke, “The Waking”
On the surface this is a book about jazz improvisation. But relatively few of you who are reading these words are musicians, and many may not even like jazz music—although I hope that one consequence (not entirely unintended) of reading this book will be a deeper appreciation of jazz. This is really a book about the leadership mind-set and the kinds of activities and skills that help leaders understand and facilitate the innovation process.1
My own path may seem improvisational, or accidental. In the late 1980s when I was a graduate student in Organizational Behavior at Case Western Reserve University, I was at a conference where my dissertation advisor, Suresh Srivastva, introduced me to Karl Weick as “the doctoral student who used to play jazz.” I remember two things from this encounter. First, I couldn’t believe that I was really standing in front of, let alone talking to, Karl Weick. I and my fellow graduate students held his ideas in the highest esteem, and he had achieved, in our minds, pantheon status. The second thing I remember is what Karl said to me after Suresh told him of my former career as a jazz musician. Karl asked “Are you writing your dissertation about jazz as an innovative organization?” I mumbled an answer I don’t recall now, but I remember thinking “Huh? What does jazz improvisation have to do with organizational behavior?” In fact I was well into my dissertation at the time and would graduate soon after, but Karl’s question continued to echo, and I eventually began to see the connection that now seems so obvious. In the words of Theodore Roethke cited above, I was waking slowly.
I became increasingly intrigued with exploring the connection between my two passions—jazz and organizational behavior. In August 1995 at the Academy of Management in Vancouver, British Columbia, I partnered with Mary Jo Hatch to design and facilitate a lecture session and panel discussion on Jazz Improvisation and Organizational Complexity. Karl Weick was part of that panel. The papers that I and other participants wrote for this session were published in a special issue of Organization Science that appeared in 1998. Both the Vancouver session and the special journal issue further seeded my interest in the topic of improvisation in organizations. I began to draw upon the metaphor of jazz improvisation as a way to understand creativity and innovation, and developed executive education modules using improvisation as a lens for understanding collaborative innovation and organizational learning. I was surprised how much interest it generated.
This growing awareness and interest finally led me to write this book. I began to appreciate what a rich metaphor the jazz model is for understanding the nature of activity in organizations.