Coda: Creativity and Improvisation in Jazz and Organizations: Implications for

Organizational Learning
Author(s): Frank J. Barrett
Source: Organization Science , Sep. - Oct., 1998, Vol. 9, No. 5, Special Issue: Jazz
Improvisation and Organizing (Sep. - Oct., 1998), pp. 605-622
Published by: INFORMS

Stable URL: [Link]

JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide
range of content in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and
facilitate new forms of scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact support@[Link].

Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of the Terms & Conditions of Use, available at
[Link]

INFORMS is collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve and extend access to Organization
Science

This content downloaded from

[Link] on Thu, 09 Nov 2023 [Link] +00:00
All use subject to [Link]
 Coda

Creativity and Improvisation in Jazz

and Organizations: Implications for
Organizational Learning

Frank J. Barrett
Department of Systems Management, Naval Postgraduate School, Monterey, California 93943

I wake to sleep and take my waking slow. I learn by going where be able to think, plan, innovate, and process information,
I have to go. new models and metaphors are needed for organizing.
Theodore Roethke, poet Drucker has suggested that the twenty-first century leader
will be like an orchestra conductor. However, an orches-
We must simply act, fully knowing our ignorance of possible
tral metaphor-connoting pre-scripted musical scores,
consequences.
Kenneth Arrow, economist
single conductor as leader-is limited, given the ambi-
guity and high turbulence that many managers experi-
I think the fear of failure is why I try things ... if I see that ence. Weick (1992) has suggested the jazz band as a pro-
there's some value in something and I'm not sure whether I totype organization. This paper follows Weick's
deserve to attempt it, I want to find out. suggestion and explores the jazz band and jazz improvis-
Keith Jarrett, jazz pianist
ing as an example of an organization designed for max-
imizing learning and innovation. To help us understand
At the dawn of the twenty-first century, we are in the
the relationship between action and learning, we need a
midst of a revolution that has been called variously the
model of a group of diverse specialists living in a chaotic,
post-industrial society (Bell 1973), the third wave (Toffler
turbulent environment; making fast, irreversible deci-
1980), the information revolution (Naisbitt 1983), and the
sions; highly interdependent on one another to interpret
post-capitalist society (Drucker 1993). We do not yet per-
equivocal information; dedicated to innovation and the
ceive the entire scope of the transformation occurring, but
creation of novelty. Jazz players do what managers find
we know that it is global, that it is based on unprecedented
themselves doing: fabricating and inventing novel re-
access to information, and that since more people have
sponses without a prescripted plan and without certainty
access to information than ever before, that it is poten-
of outcomes; discovering the future that their action cre-
tially a democratic revolution. Perhaps the management
ates as it unfolds.
of knowledge development and knowledge creation is be-
After discussing the nature of improvisation and the
coming the most important responsibility for managers as unique challenges and dangers implicit in the learning
we enter the twenty-first century. Indeed, ideas generated task that jazz improvisers create for themselves, I will
by various streams and movements, including socio- broadly outline seven characteristics that allow jazz bands
technical design, total quality management, re- to improvise coherently and maximize social innovation
engineering, remind us that the fundamental shift we are in a coordinated fashion. I also draw on my own experi-
experiencing involves empowering people at all levels to ence as a jazz pianist. I have played with and lead com-
initiate innovative solutions in an effort to improve pro- binations of duos, trios, and quartets in addition to touring
cesses. in 1980 as pianist with the Tommy Dorsey Band under
Given the unprecedented scope of changes that orga- the direction of trombonist Buddy Morrow. I will explore
nizations face and the need for members at all levels to the following features of jazz improvisation.

1047-7039/98/0905/0605/$05.00
Copyright C) 1998, Institute for Operations Research
and the Management Sciences ORGANIZATION SCIENCE/Vol. 9, No. 5, September-October 1998 605

This content downloaded from

[Link] on Thu, 09 Nov 2023 [Link] +00:00
All use subject to [Link]
FRANK J. BARRETT Creativity and Improvisation in Jazz and Organizations

1. Provocative competence: Deliberate efforts to inter- of engaging in an activity in which the future is largely
rupt habit patterns; unknown, yet one in which one is expected to create
2. Embracing errors as a source of learning; something novel and coherent, often in the presence of
3. Shared orientation toward minimal structures that an audience.
allow maximum flexibility; Gioia captures a sense of the challenge and difficulty
4. Distributed task: continual negotiation and dialogue inherent in jazz by considering what practitioners of other
toward dynamic synchronization; art forms would subject themselves to if they relied on
5. Reliance on retrospective sense-making; improvisation as design.
6. "Hanging out": Membership in a community of prac-
If improvisation is the essential element in jazz, it may also be
tice;
the most problematic. Perhaps the only way of appreciating its
7. Taking turns soloing and supporting. peculiarity is by imagining what twentieth-century art would be
Finally, I will suggest implications for organizational like if other art forms placed an equal emphasis on improvisa-
design and managing for learning. tion. Imagine T. S. Eliot giving nightly poetry readings at which,
rather than reciting set pieces, he was expected to create im-
promptu poems-different ones each night, sometimes recited
The Nature of Improvisation at a fast clip; imagine giving Hitchcock or Fellini a handheld
There is a popular misconception that jazz players are motion picture camera and asking them to film something, any-
inarticulate, untutored geniuses, that they have no idea thing-at that very moment, without the benefits of script, crew,
what they are playing as if picking notes out of thin air. editing, or scoring; imagine Matisse or Dali giving nightly ex-

As biographies of jazz players and studies of jazz have hibitions of their skills-exhibitions at which paying audiences

shown, the art of jazz playing is very complex and the would watch them fill up canvas after canvas with paint, often
with only two or three minutes devoted to each "masterpiece."
result of a relentless pursuit of learning and disciplined
(Gioia 1988, p. 52)
imagination. Since (until recently) there have been no
conservatories or formal schools of jazz instruction, vet- Improvisation involves exploring, continual experi-
eran jazz players are highly committed to self-renewal, menting, tinkering with possibilities without knowing
having had to create their own learning opportunities. where one's queries will lead or how action will unfold.
Jazz improvisers are interested in creating new musical
material, surprising themselves and others with sponta-
neous, unrehearsed ideas. Jazz differs from classical mu- Learning to Improvise: Preparing To Be
sic in that there is no clear prescription of what is to be Spontaneous
played. From the Latin "improvisus," meaning "not seen It is worth exploring for a moment the way that jazz mu-
ahead of time," improvisation is "playing extemporane- sicians learn to improvise in order to gain a deeper un-
ously ... composing on the spur of the moment" derstanding of how they think while they are playing.
(Schuller 1989, p. 378). Given the highly exploratory and Learning to play jazz is a matter of learning the theory
tentative nature of improvisation, the potential for failure and rules that govern musical progressions. Once inte-
and incoherency always lurks just around the corner. Sax- grated these rules become tacit and amenable to complex
ophonist Paul Desmond said that the improviser must variation and transformation, much like learning the rules
"crawl out on a limb, set one line against another and try of grammar and syntax as one learns to speak. Jazz play-
to match them, bring them closer together" (Gioia 1988, ers learn to build a vocabulary of phrases and patterns by
p. 92). Jazz saxophonist Steve Lacy discusses the excite- imitating, repeating, and memorizing the solos and
ment and danger inherent in improvisation and likens it phrases of the masters until they become part of their
to existing on the edge of the unknown. repertoire of "licks" and "crips." According to trumpeter
Tommy Turrentine,
I'm attracted to improvisation because of something I value.
There is a freshness, a certain quality, which can only be ob- The old guys used to call those things crips. That's from crip-
tained by improvisation, something you cannot possibly get pled... In other words, when you're playing a solo and your
from writing. It is something to do with the "edge." Always mind is crippled and you can't think of anything different to
being on the brink of the unknown and being prepared for the play, you go back into one of your old bags and play one of
leap. And when you go out there you have all your years of your crips. You better have something to play when you can't
preparation and all your sensibilities and your prepared means think of nothing new or you'll feel funny laying out there all
but it is a leap into the unknown. (Bailey 1992, p. 57) the time (quoted in Berliner, 1994, p. 102).

The metaphors of leaping into the unknown, hanging After years of practicing and absorbing these patterns,
out on a limb, suggest the exhilarating and perilous nature they train their ears to recognize what phrases fit within

606 ORGANIZATION SCIENCE/Vol. 9, No. 5, September-October 1998

This content downloaded from

[Link] on Thu, 09 Nov 2023 [Link] +00:00
All use subject to [Link]
FRANK J. BARRETT Creativity and Improvisation in Jazz and Organizations

different forms, the various options available within the The results of these deliberations could be a swinging and ex-

constraints of various chords and songs. They study other hilarating experience for the listener, but they reflected less a

players' strategic thought process that guided their solo carefree abandon, than the well-honed craftsmanship of a very
serious performer working in the manner of a classical com-
construction, why they chose certain notes and how their
poser. The adjective most frequently applied to his music is
motifs fit the contour of the overall phrasing.
"introspective" (Gridley 1991, pp. 302, 303).
A transformation occurs in the player's development
when he or she begins to export materials from different It is uncertain to what degree improvisers go through
contexts and vantage points, combining, extending, and an "unheard, continuous self-editing," an anticipatory,
varying the material, adding and changing notes, varying virtual trial and error as they consider different directions
accents, subtly shifting the contour of a memorized and interpretations of the material. Within a split second,
phrase. Combining elements from different musical mod- musicians must project images and goals gleaned from
els, mixing different harmonies and grace notes, extend- some musical model or one they have just heard. Al-
ing intervals, and altering chord tones is a metaphorical though Gridley theorizes that Bill Evans is thinking fairly
transfer of sorts (Barrett and Cooperrider 1990), transfer- far ahead and choosing phrases long before he played it,
ring from one context into another to produce something some musicians seem to be deciding within shorter time
new. By combining, extending, and varying, they breathe spans which notes to play. One player describes the subtle
life into these forms. The variation could involve some- interplay between prehearing, responding, and following
thing as simple as taking automatic phrases and extending an idea, who sees the direction of the phrase that is just
them into new and unfamiliar contexts, such as trying out ahead of him and likens it to "chasing a piece of paper
a phrase over a different chord. Pianist John Hicks recalls that's being blown into the wind" (Berliner 1994, p. 190).
experiencing a breakthrough when he combined previ- Others speak of going on automatic pilot while they think
ously unrelated chords. Saxaphonist Lee Konitz attempts of something, repeating a phrase in order to buy time
to create new substitutions as he plays to enrich the basic while their imagination wakes up. This no doubt, is one
harmonic structure of standard songs (Berliner 1994, p. characteristic that distinguishes great soloists: how far
161). ahead they are thinking and strategizing about possible
The aim is to integrate ideas, freeing attention so that phrases, how to shape the contour of their ideas, how and
players can think strategically about their choice of notes when to resolve harmonic and rhythmic tension. This
and the overall direction of their solos. Hargreaves et al. points toward a delicate paradox musicians face, a point
(1991, p. 53) hypothesize that when improvisers employ I will explore below: too much reliance on learned pat-
automatic thinking1 to execute patterns, they are free to terns (habitual or automatic thinking) tends to limit the
plan the overall strategy of the piece; they are "aware of risk-taking necessary for creative improvisation; on the
playing detailed figures or 'subroutines' at a relatively other hand too much regulation and control restrict the
peripheral or unconscious level, with central conscious interplay of musical ideas. In order for musicians to
control reserved for overall strategic or artistic planning." "strike a groove," they must suspend some degree of con-
Saxaphonist James Moody practices "trying to play trol and surrender to the flow of the music.
something that you like and being able to put it anywhere The previous section addressed the nature of improvi-
you want in a tune" (Berliner 1994, p. 174). Jazz critic sation, the challenging task of playing unrehearsed ideas,
Mark Gridley claims that Bill Evans was a master strat- the process of developing improvisatory skills and the
egist. process of learning the jazz idiom. In the following sec-
tion, I will outline seven characteristics of jazz improvi-
Evans crafted his improvisations with exacting deliberation. Of-
sation and explore how these features apply in non-jazz
ten he would take a phrase, or just a kernel of its character, then
contexts.
develop and extend its rhythms, its melodic ideas, and accom-
panying harmonies. Within the same solo he would often return
to it, transforming it each time. And while all this was happen-
ing, he would be considering ways of resolving the tension that
Seven Characteristics of Jazz
was building. He would be considering rhythmic ways, melodic Improvisation
ways, and harmonies, all at the same time, long before the mo-
ment that he decided was best for resolving the idea.... During
1. Provocative Competence: Interrupting Habit
Bill Evans's improvisations, an unheard, continuous self-editing
Patterns
was going on. He spared the listener his false starts and dis- Perhaps because of the treachery involved in improvising
carded ideas.... Evans never improvised solos that merely and the risk of playing something that is incoherent, there
is often
strung together ideas at the same rate they popped into his head. a temptation to do what is feasible, to play notes

ORGANIZATION SCIENCE/VOl. 9, No. 5, September-October 1998 607

This content downloaded from

[Link] on Thu, 09 Nov 2023 [Link] +00:00
All use subject to [Link]
FRANK J. BARRETT Creativity and Improvisation in Jazz and Organizations

that are within one's comfortable range. This is why, as are playing themselves automatically. Even when stimuli
many jazz critics attest, there is a temptation on the part change, organizations tend to generate the same responses
of jazz improvisers to rely on "certain stock phrases (Weick 1991). Many routines are automatic and not even
which have proven themselves effective in past perfor- accessible to ordinary recollection and analysis, so that
mance (rather than) push themselves to create fresh im- individuals and organizations continue them long after
provisations" (Gioia 1988, p. 53). Yet, the art of jazz im- actors have ceased to be able to provide an account of
provisation demands that the musician create something their purposes (Cohen 1991). Levitt and March (1988)
different. Musicians and critics agree that "musicians who refer to this as the competency trap: the tendency for an
'cheat' by playing the same or similar solos over and over organization to become competent and specialized in a
again are looked down upon by colleagues and fans" routine that was successful, thereby squelching experi-
(Gioia 1988, p. 52). Saxophonist Ronnie Scott contrasts mentation (March 1991).
Oscar Peterson's flawless pre-rehearsed solos with the Especially under stressful conditions, such as environ-
risk taking of Sonny Rollins, who attempts to transform mental turbulence, there is a tendency to fall back on
the harmonic and melodic materials that the tune presents. habitual responses. In this sense, managers often face the
same dilemma that jazz players face: their actions are
Oscar Peterson is a very polished, technically immaculate, per-
quite public and therefore stressful; they too are tempted
former, who-I hope he wouldn't mind me saying so-trots out
to repeat what they do well rather than risk failure if they
these fantastic things that he has perfected and it really is a
should depart from what has been proven to work. As
remarkable performance. Whereas Sonny Rollins, he could go
Argyris (1990) has pointed out, the pressure to look com-
on one night and maybe it's disappointing, and another night
he'll just take your breath away by his kind of imagination and
petent leads people to defend their actions and reasoning.
so forth. And it would be different every night with Rollins. This regression becomes an obstacle to the questioning
(Quoted in Bailey 1988, p. 51) of assumptions and considering situations from a fresh
perspective that could lead to novel initiatives.
Because of the temptation to repeat what they do well Hedberg writes that organizations and managers can
rather than risk failure, veteran jazz musicians make de- voluntarily switch from routines to a deliberate search for
liberate attempts to guard against the reliance on pre- alternative possibilities but this is rare: "learning is typi-
arranged music, memorized solos, or habits and patterns cally triggered by problems" (Hedberg 1981, p. 16). Of
that have worked for them in the past. Keith Jarrett de- course, even deliberate search for alternatives might not
cries those who play overlearned cliches and become im- be sufficient for creation of novelty.
itations of themselves: "The music is struggle. You have This creates a challenge for jazz players: their purpose,
to want to struggle. And what most leaders are the victim by definition, is to avoid that which is automatic and safe
of is the freedom not to struggle. And then that's the end and formulas that simply repeat past success. Some jazz
of it. Forget it!" (Carr 1991, p. 53). Jazz musicians often musicians avoid "competency traps" and keep fresh al-
approach their work with a self-reflexiveness, guarding ternatives open by deliberately exploring the limits of
against the temptation to rely on ingrained habits, so that their knowledge and comfort level. Herbie Hancock re-
they don't repeat stock phrases and comfortable solos that calls an early moment when he discovered the limits of
contradict the goal of improvisation. Tony Oaxley recalls his knowledge. He remembers being inspired when he
moments of self critique following performances: "The heard someone playing a passage that he (Hancock) could
search was always for something that sounded right to not play. For some this might be discouraging. But for
replace the things that sounded predictable and (there- Hancock, and most successful jazz musicians, this is the
fore) wrong (Bailey 1992, p. 89). Jarrett put it succinctly: beginning rather than the end of the story.
"I think you have to be completely merciless with your-
self' (Bailey 1992, p. 122). I had been a musician all my life, had all this training, played
with all these great players, but I knew I could never have cre-
Organization learning theorists have noticed that or-
ated that. And if I can't do it, something is missing-I have to
ganizations also are tempted to rely on past successes and
find out how to do it! I've always been like that when I've heard
repeat stock phrases. Behavior in organizations is based
something I liked but I couldn't do. That's how I got into jazz.
on routines-rules, recipes, practices, conventions, be-
I heard this guy playing (jazz piano) at a variety show in high
liefs-in short the response system that encodes activity
school, and I knew that he knew what was doing, and he was
learned from the past. Ordinary learning in organizations doing it on my instrument-but I had no idea of what was going
tends to lead to stable routines (March 1991) that perpet- on. So I wanted to learn how to do it. That's what got me started.
uate and become fixed even if they are no longer appro- In order to do that, you have to know what you don't know.
priate or detrimental (Levitt and March 1988), as if they (Novello 1990, p. 445)

608 ORGANIZATION SCIENCE/VOl. 9, No. 5, September-October 1998

This content downloaded from

[Link] on Thu, 09 Nov 2023 [Link] +00:00
All use subject to [Link]
FRANK J. BARRETT Creativity and Improvisation in Jazz anid Organizations

What has not been explored much by learning theorists the demands of a challenging task. He believed in their
is managers' consciously "switching cognitive gears" overall potential and capacity to perform successfully
from habitual to active thinking (Louis and Sutton 1991). even if they felt uncomfortable (and possibly irritated).
Hedberg et al. (1976) encourage organizations to nurture In fact, his band members were often able to perform at
small disruptions and incremental re-orientations to keep a higher level. Second, he did more than just disrupt habit
learning processes vital and handicap inferior routines. patterns: he created alternative pathways for action. He
Incremental experiments sharpen perception and activate imported new material that opened possibilities and sug-
thought processes. gested alternative routes for his players. Once the song
Many veteran jazz musicians practice provocative begins, passivity is not an option: the activity is imper-
competence; they make deliberate efforts to create dis- sonally structured so that musicians are required to play
ruptions and incremental re-orientations. This commit- something, to take some kind of action. Third, the inter-
ment often leads players to attempt to outwit their learned ruption was incremental. These foreign contexts were
habits by putting themselves in unfamiliar musical situ- scaled to be challenging, but not overly disruptive. This
ations that demand novel responses. Saxophonist John suggests the role of leadership in cultivating generative
Coltrane is well known for deliberately playing songs in metaphors and seeding suggestive narratives (Barrett and
difficult and unfamiliar keys because "it made (him) Cooperrider 1990).
think" while he was playing and he could not rely on his Hedberg et al. (1976) contend that system designers
fingers to play the notes automatically. Herbie Hancock have weak direct influence on participants' behavior.
recalls that Miles Davis was very suspicious of musicians They suggest that designers reconceive their roles as cat-
in his quartet playing repetitive patterns so he forbade
alysts for a system's self-design by focusing on third or-
them to practice. In an effort to spur the band to approach
der strategies for carrying out second order learning.
familiar tunes from a novel perspective, Davis would
Miles Davis had a talent for creating incremental obsta-
sometimes call tunes in different keys, or call tunes that
cles and nurturing small disruptions that provoked his
the band had not rehearsed. This would be done in con-
musicians to experiment with new actions that yielded
cert, before a live audience. "I pay you to do your prac-
new levels of creativity. This suggests that managers, like
ticing on the band stand," Hancock recalls Davis telling
Miles Davis, develop a provocative competence that in-
them. Keith Jarrett recalls Davis' commitment to "keep-
spires alternative possibilities, an ability to create anom-
ing the music fresh and moving" by avoiding comfortable
alies and unconventional obstacles that make it impossi-
routines. "Do you know why I don't play ballads any
ble for members to rely on habitual responses and rote
more?" Jarrett recalled Davis telling him. "Because I like
thinking.
to play ballads so much" (Carr 1992, p. 53).
It would be useful to consider the organizational equiv-
Miles Davis not only practiced this provocative com-
alent of requiring members to abandon overreliance on
petence in live concerts, he also extended this to the re-
automatic processing and practicing familiar routines.
cording studio. This is illustrated in a famous 1959 ses-
Clearly this would have implications for dislodging con-
sion. When the musicians arrived in the recording studio,
ventional assumptions regarding such conventional prac-
they were presented with sketches of songs that were
tices as job descriptions, performance evaluations, and
written in unconventional modal forms using scales that
recruitment. Perhaps this is what W. L. Gore and Asso-
were very foreign to western jazz musicians at that time.
ciates, the makers of Gore-tex, have in mind by abandon-
One song, contained 10 bars instead of the more familiar
8 or 12 bar forms that characterize most standards. Never ing formal job descriptions or conventional chain of com-

having seen this music before and largely unfamiliar with mand reporting structures. Reportedly, when a newly

the forms, there was no rehearsal. The very first time they hired MBA reported for work one day, Bill Gore, the
performed this music, the tape recorder was running. The President and founder advised him to "look around and
result was the album Kind of Blue, widely regarded as a find something you'd like to do." Such a loosely struc-
landmark jazz recording. When we listen to this album, tured environment makes it more difficult to rely on ac-
we are witnessing the musicians approaching these pieces cepted routines and forces new hires to improvise new
for the first time, themselves discovering new music at actions. Or consider the example of the R & D executive
the same time that they were inventing it. at Sony who, wanting to create a mini compact disc
What makes a disruption provocative rather than nox- player, was faced with engineers who were convinced the
ious can be gleaned from Miles Davis' example. First, his CD technology could not be compacted further. Based on
interruption was affirmative (Barrett 1995): he held an familiar routines, and perhaps enamored of the technol-
image of members as competent performers able to meet ogy they themselves developed, they could not imagine

ORGANIZATION SCIENCE/Vol. 9, No. 5, September-October 1998 609

This content downloaded from

[Link] on Thu, 09 Nov 2023 [Link] +00:00
All use subject to [Link]
FRANK J. BARRETT Creativity and Improvisation in Jazz and Organizations

a smaller alternative. The executive walked into the meet- discrepancies between intention and action: sometimes
ing with a 5-inch block of carved wood and told them the hands fail to play what the inner ear imagines. Some-
that the new CD player needed to be no bigger. The en- times musicians misinterpret others' cues or simply play
gineers now had novel constraints to work through, a the wrong notes.
challenging puzzle not unlike the modal sketches that
Somebody who decides to play jazz for a living knows he will
Miles Davis' band found when they walked into the Kind
struggle for the rest of his life, unless he opts for predictable
of Blue recording session.
and smoothing compromise. Honest jazz involves public explo-
This suggests that we expand our definition of leader- ration. It takes guts to make mistakes in public, and mistakes
ship to include creating conditions that encourage mem- are inherent. If there are no mistakes it's a mistake. In Keith
bers to bring a mindfulness to their task that allows them Jarrett's solo improvisations you can hear him hesitate, turn in
to imagine alternative possibilities heretofore unthinka- circles for a while, struggle to find the next idea. Bird used to
ble. Consider the example of British Airlines which held start a phrase two or three times before figuring out how to

an off-site workshop for its executives to consider ways continue it. On the spot. Now. No second draft. It can take a

to improve customer service for the business class. How- toll night after night in front of an audience that just might be
considering you shallow. (Zwerin 1983, p. 33)
ever, instead of sleeping in regular hotel rooms, one ex-
ecutive had the beds removed and replaced them with Jazz players are often able to turn these unexpected
airline seats. This no doubt disturbed the taken-for- problems into musical opportunities. Errors become ac-
granted routines, not to mention sleep patterns. Faced commodated as part of the musical landscape, seeds for
with the puzzle of these unexpected constraints, they activating and arousing the imagination. Drummer Max
came up with a number of innovations to improve com- Roach sees the value in errors, "if two players make a
fort, including the design of a more comfortable seat that mistake and end up in the wrong place at the wrong time,
included a footrest. Provocative competence involves cre- they may be able to break out of it and get into something
ating irregular arrangements that disturb "stock phrases" else they might not have discovered otherwise." (Berliner
and comfortable playing, encouraging members to im- 1994, p. 383). Herbie Hancock recalls playing an obvi-
provise new solutions. ously wrong chord during a concert performance. Hearing
the unexpected combination of notes, Miles Davis used
2. Embracing Errors As Source of Learning them as a prompt, and rather than ignore the mistakes,
If past successes create routines that drive out experi- played with the notes, embellishing them, using them as
mentation in organizations, there is a tendency to construe a creative departure for a different melody. Any event or
errors as unacceptable. However, errors are a very im- sound, including an error, becomes a possible spring-
portant source of learning. Abdel-Hamid and Madnick
board to prime the musical imagination, an opportunity
(1990) discuss the need to learn from failures in the de- to re-define the context so that what might have appeared
velopment of new software. The Seifert and Hutchins
an error becomes integrated into a new pattern of activity.
(1992) study of decision making on a Navy ship dem-
Looking backward, the "wrong" notes appear intentional.
onstrated the learning potential of error-making, how er- Rather than treat an enactment as a mistake to be
rors serve as an opportunity for receiving feedback and avoided, often what jazz musicians do is to repeat it, am-
becoming familiar with the wider task environment. As plify it, develop it further until it becomes a new pattern.
individuals learned through error correction procedures, Pianist Don Friedman recalls listening to a recording with
they came closer to the eventual goal of error-free per-
himself on piano and Booker Little on trumpet. When
formance. Jazz bands also embrace errors as source of listening to the recording 20 years later, Friedman dis-
learning, but for quite different reasons. These studies covered that he played a major third in the chord instead
suggest the value of learning from errors as a way to of a minor third and Little brilliantly accommodated it,
eliminate them under the assumption that in actual per- allowing the "wrong note" to shape his solo.
formance, errors are ultimately intolerable. Jazz bands,
on the other hand, see errors as inevitable and something Little apparently realized the discrepancy during his solo's ini-
tial chorus, when he arrived at this segment and selected the
to be assimilated and incorporated into the performance.
minor third of the chord for one of the opening pitches of a
Since jazz improvisation is a highly expressive art form
phrase. Hearing it clash with the pianist's part, Little improvised
that leads players to go out "on the edge of the unknown",
a rapid save by leaping to another pitch and resting, stopping
it is impossible to predict where the music is going to
the progress of his performance. To disguise the error further,
lead. Risky, explorative attempts are likely to produce he repeated the entire phrase fragment as if he had initially in-
errors. In fact, jazz improvisers regularly make mistakes, tended it as a motive, before extending it into a graceful, as-
often without the audience's awareness. Often, there are cending melodic arch. From that point on, Little guided his solo

610 ORGANIZATION SCIENCE/VOl. 9, No. 5, September-October 1998

This content downloaded from

[Link] on Thu, 09 Nov 2023 [Link] +00:00
All use subject to [Link]
FRANK J. BARRETT Creativity and Improvisation in Jazz and Organizations

according to a revised map of the ballad. "Even when Brooker where employees are encouraged to "respond to unrea-
played the melody at the end of the take," observed Friedman sonable customer requests." Stories circulate about an
with admiration, he varied it in ways "that fit the chord I was employee paying a customer's parking ticket when the
playing." (Berliner 1994, p. 383)
store's gift wrapping took too long. Such capacity for
accommodation and adjustment might be indispensable
Repeating the phrase with the clashing note, Little
when attempts at innovation and customer satisfaction do
made it sound intentional. When errors do happen, rather
not immediately meet expectation. Rather than simply re-
than search for causes and identify responsibility, musi-
warding managers for "fixing" problems, perhaps orga-
cians treat them impersonally: they make adjustments and
nizations should consider the way that managers perse-
continue. In this vein, Weick (1990) cites critic Ted Gioia
vere and make use of mistakes as points of creative
who calls for a different standard for evaluating perfor-
departure. An aesthetic of imperfection implies that errors
mance, an "aesthetic of imperfection". Rather than eval-
would be framed not so much as character blemishes, but
uate the success or failure of individual creations based
as unavoidable mishaps to be creatively re-integrated as
on some external standard of perfection (such as one
negotiation proceeds.
might find in the evaluation of a classical musical per-
This also suggests that if organizations advocate ad hoc
formance), Gioia calls for the need to evaluate coura-
action and serendipitous learning, then there are times
geous efforts. Such an aesthetic would involve evaluating
when members must be willing to release one another for
the entire repertoire of actions that the musician at-
consequences that they could not predict, for errors of
tempted, the beautiful phrases combined with the clunk-
trespassing and over-extension. Hannah Arendt (1958)
ers that were the result of risky efforts, the same expan- noted that the one antidote to the predicament of unpre-
sive efforts that no doubt produce beautiful passages.
dictability is forgiveness. Imagine executives developing
One implication for enhancing innovative action in or- an aesthetic of forgiveness, releasing those who make no-
ganizations is to question the way we look at errors and ble efforts, for consequences that could not be foreseen.
breakdowns. How can people in organizations be ex- Otherwise, tightly bound bureaucracies might be neces-
pected to attempt something that may be outside of their sary to ward off trespassers.
reach if breakdowns are seen as unacceptable? This
would suggest that innovation would be enhanced if or- 3. Minimal Structures That Allow Maximum
ganizations resisted the attempts to over-focus on the Flexibility
elimination of error or to see mistakes as character blem- In an effort to guarantee consistency and efficiency, or-
ishes. Too often managers create monuments to organi- ganizations often attempt to systematically avoid changes
zational breakdowns through exhaustive search for causes and ambiguity through creating standard operating pro-
and framing mistakes as unacceptable. This often has the cedures, clear and rationalized goals, and forms of cen-
unintended consequence of immobilizing people. Given tralized control. Hedberg et al. (1976) suggested that or-
the nature of knowledge work in the organizations of the ganizational processes would be improved if designers
future, this suggests that perhaps organizations need to create minimal structures that allow diversity and mini-
adopt an "aesthetic of imperfection," an acknowledge- mize consensus. Similarly, Eisenberg (1990) analyzes
ment that learning is something that often happens by trial
jamming in jazz bands and contends that creativity is en-
and error, by brave efforts to experiment outside of the hanced when emphasis is placed on coordinating action
margin. This would propose a different standard for or- with minimal consensus, minimal disclosure, and mini-
ganizational evaluation: evaluate performances not just mal, simple structures. Modest structures value ambiguity
on conventional standards of success, but on strength of of meaning over clarity, preserve indeterminancy and par-
effort; level of purposeful, committed engagement in an adox over excessive disclosure. By "making do with min-
activity; perseverance after an error has been made; pas- imal commonalities and elaborating simple structures in
sionate attempt to expand the horizon of what had been complex ways," (Eisenberg 1990) players balance auton-
considered possible. At the very least, it suggests distin- omy and interdependence.
guishing between errors that are the result of carelessness Jazz improvisation is a loosely structured activity in
and those that are the result of caring deeply about a pro- which action is coordinated around songs. Songs are
ject. made up of patterns of melodies and chord changes,
Similarly, once errors are made, how do managers turn marked by sections and phrases. Following Bastien and
these unexpected events into learning opportunities, as Hostager (1988) songs are "cognitively held rules for mu-
imaginative triggers and prompts for new action? Con- sical innovation" (p. 585). When musicians improvise, it
sider an example from Nordstrom's department store is usually based on the repetition of the song structure.

ORGANIZATION SCIENCE/Vol. 9, No. 5, September-October 1998 611

This content downloaded from

[Link] on Thu, 09 Nov 2023 [Link] +00:00
All use subject to [Link]
FRANK J. BARRETT Creativity and Improvisation in Jazz and Organizations

These guiding structures are nonnegotiable, impersonal norms of organizational design, prototypes are often the
limitations: musicians do not have to stop to create agree- exclusive property of design engineers, kept separate
ments along the way. The selection of standard tunes and from manufacturing, marketing, and other groups, not to
their chord changes embody minimal tacit rules that are mention the customer. As a result, many brilliant designs
rarely articulated. The musicians know the chord changes never get produced, or worse, different engineering
to "All of Me" or a 12 bar blues, so that often musicians groups work on their parts separately, only to discover in
who have never met are able to "jam" and coordinate the final stages that their contributions, however brilliant
action. These moderate constraints serve as benchmarks and innovative, do not fit together. Often technical dis-
that occur regularly and predictably throughout the tune, ciplines are segmented as knowledge specialists develop
signalling the shifting context to everyone. Everyone ideas at different rates, produce solutions that work well
knows where everyone else is supposed to be, what in lab settings, but are difficult to reproduce (Purser and
chords and scales players are obliged to play. These min- Pasmore 1992).
imal constraints allow them freedom to express consid- As Weick (1990) pointed out, organizations pay dis-
erable diversity. Players are free to transform materials, proportionate attention to beginnings and endings, but not
to intervene in the flow of musical events and alter direc- much attention to ongoing temporal coordination. Many
tion. Once there is a mutual orientation around the basic breakdowns in innovation occur because organizations
root movement of the chord patterns, even the basic are too segmented. Often members do not share a mutual
chords themselves can be altered, augmented or substi- orientation after a project is launched, so that when some-
tuted. one alters action or changes direction, no one is sure
Songs impose order and create a continuous sense of where others are located, and do not find out until it is
cohesion and coordination: all the players know where too late. As a result they either feel too constrained to
everyone is at any given moment. Individual players are take creative action, or when they do, they discover too
able to innovate and elaborate on ideas with the assurance late that it causes problems for others.
that they are oriented to a common place. How can or- But what would be the organizational equivalent of
ganizations achieve fluid coordination without sacrificing song, a structure in which options are minimally-limited,
creativity and individual contributions? What would be publicly shared, impersonal, simultaneous, and tempo-
the equivalent in organizations, of structures that are min- rally punctuated? Perhaps one counterpart to a song
imal, non-negotiable, impersonal tacitly accepted rules would be rapid prototyping, regular updating and chang-
that do not need to be constantly articulated. Weick ing of design prototypes. Such a practice would allow
(1990) suggests that one organizational equivalent of cross-discipline communication so that people can create
minimal structure might be credos, stories, myths, vi- while knowing how and where their ideas fit into the
sions, slogans, mission statements, trademarks. Organi- whole evolving system. Consider an alternative that Ko-
zational slogans, such as Avis' "we try harder" are catchy dak initiated when they were developing the Funsaver
phrases awaiting embellishment, encouraging individual camera. Rather than working separately, the engineering,
members to elaborate on their version of the melodic path manufacturing and marketing departments created a
that fits within the tacit constraints. Organizational stories shared work space and collaborated to develop a proto-
and myths, such as the Nordstrom's employee who paid type for the camera. Designers made changes and creative
a waiting customer's parking ticket, persist as markers to contributions to their individual parts, but would update
remind and seed other employees to embellish on the mel- the schematic for the whole camera. Each morning these
ody, initiating unusual actions to satisfy customers. individual changes were made public and accessible so
One counterpart to minimal models in organizations is everyone saw the results of their joint efforts on an on-
the design prototype. The prototype is the design pattern going basis and each knew where everyone else was
upon which engineers model and create variations on ba- through each stage of the design. Using computer tech-
sic structures. For example Crick and Watson, credited nology to make these contributions public on a regular
for discovering the structure of DNA, recall that when basis allows everyone to attune themselves to possible
they were exploring the molecule, they frequently built direction, like changing the root movement of the chord.
and re-built prototypes and copper models even though People add variants, like the drummer adding accents,
they knew the models were not completely accurate. The that might inspire creative departures. Rapid prototypes
DNA prototypes acted as a minimal structure that pro- function like the loose framework of the song: they leave
vided imaginative boundaries around which they could a great deal of room to depart and deviate; and yet there
explore options, a shared orientation that invited them to is enough structure there to give players enough collec-
elaborate upon their ongoing creation. Under traditional tive confidence to play together. The temporal updating

612 ORGANIZATION SCIENCE/VOl. 9, No. 5, September-October 1998

This content downloaded from

[Link] on Thu, 09 Nov 2023 [Link] +00:00
All use subject to [Link]
FRANK J. BARRETT Creativity and Improvisation in Jazz and Organizations

of the minimal structure notifies everyone where others I want to relate to the bass player and the piano player and the
are in their incremental innovations, like the chord drummer, so that I know at any given moment what they are all

changes of a song, and increases the likelihood that peo- doing. The goal is always to relate as fully as possible to every
sound that everyone is making.... but whew! It's very difficult
ple can achieve a successful joint awareness throughout
for me to achieve. At different points, I will listen to any par-
the life of the project.
ticular member of the group and relate to them as directly as
4. Distributed Task: Continual Negotiation Toward possible in my solo. (Lee Konitz quoted in Berliner 1994, p.
Dynamic Synchronization 362)

Although there are many players well known for their

soloing, in the final analysis, jazz is an ongoing social Players are continuously shaping their statements in an-

accomplishment. What characterizes successful jazz im- ticipation of others' expectations, approximating and pre-

provisation, perhaps more than any factor mentioned dicting what others might say based on what has already
happened.
thusfar, is the ongoing give and take between members.
Players are in a continual dialogue and exchange with one Traditional models of organization and group design

another. Improvisers enter a flow of ongoing invention, a feature static principles in which fluctuations and change
combination of accents, cymbal crashes, changing har- are seen as disruptions to be controlled and avoided. Jazz

monic patterns, that inter-weave throughout the structure bands are flexible, self-designed systems that seek a state
of the song. They are engaged with continual streams of of dynamic synchronization, a balance between order and
activity: interpreting others' playing, anticipating based disorder (Purser and Pasmore 1992), a "built in instabil-
on harmonic patterns and rhythmic conventions, while ity" (Takeuchi and Nonaka 1986). In jazz, ongoing ne-
simultaneously attempting to shape their own creations gotiation becomes very important when something inter-
and relate them to what they have heard. rupts interactive coherence. Given the possibility of

Jazz improvisation is an emergent, elusive, vital pro- disorientation and miscalculations, they must be able to
cess. At any moment a player can take the music in a new rely on one another to adjust, to amend direction. Drum-

direction, defy expectations, trigger others to re-interpret mer Max Roach recalls a performance of "Night in Tu-
what they have just heard. Trumpeter Wynton Marsalis, nisia" when the players lost the sense of a common beat.
in terms reminiscent of John Dewey's dictum that genu-
When the beat got turned around (in Night in Tunisia), it went
ine learning is by nature a participative, democratic ex-
for about 8 bars. In such a case, someone has to lay out. You
perience, compares improvisation to working out ideas in can't fight it. Dizzy stopped first because he heard what was
democratic groups. happening quicker than the rest of us, and he didn't know where

Groups of people can get together and the process of their ne- "one" was. Then it was up to Ray Brown and Bishop and my-

gotiation can have an integrity, and the fact that they can get self. One of us had to stop, so Bishop waved off. Then it was

together and have a dialogue and work-it's like what the UN up to Ray Brown and myself to clear it up. Almost immediately,

does. They sit down, and they try to work things out. It's like we found the common "one" and the others came back in with-

any governing body. It's like a wagon train, you know. out the public realizing what had happened. (Berliner 1994, p.

(Marsalis and Stewart 1995) 382)

Pianist Tommy Flanagan discusses his duo albums with The example above illustrates the dynamic, flexible po-
Hank Jones and Kenny Barron. tential when a group successfully creates a distributed
You don't know what the other player is going to play, but on task. Seifert and Hutchins ( 1992) refer to the features that
listening to the playback, you hear that you related your part make up a distributed task: shared task knowledge, ho-
very quickly to what the other player played just before you. rizon of observation, multiple perspectives. Jazz members
It's like a message that you relay back and forth.... You want are able to negotiate, recover, proceed, adjust to one an-
to achieve that kind of communication when you play. When other because there is shared task knowledge (members
you do, your playing seems to be making sense. It's like a con-
monitor progress on ongoing basis), have adequate hori-
versation. (Tommy Flanagan quoted in Berliner 1994, p. 369)
zon of observation (they are witnesses to one another's
In order for jazz to work, players must develop a re- performance); and they bring multiple perspectives to
markable degree of empathic competence, a mutual ori- bear (each musical utterance can be interpreted from dif-
entation to one another's unfolding. They continually ferent points of view).
take one another's musical ideas into context as con- When the players successfully achieve a mutual ori-
straints and facilitations in guiding their musical choices. entation to the beat, they develop what they call a
Saxophonist Lee Konitz discusses the interactive inter- "pocket," or some refer to as "achieving a groove." Es-
play. tablishing a groove is the goal of every jazz performance.

ORGANIZATION SCIENCE/Vol. 9, No. 5, September-October 1998 613

This content downloaded from

[Link] on Thu, 09 Nov 2023 [Link] +00:00
All use subject to [Link]
FRANK J. BARRETT Creativity and Improvisation in Jazz and Organizations

Groove refers to the dynamic interplay within an estab- preparation and active conscious attention (controlled
lished beat. It occurs when the rhythm section "locks in" cognition) in disciplined practice; but when the moment
together, when members have a common sense of the beat comes when one wants the perfect shot, the archer must
and meter. Establishing a groove, however, is more than surrender and let go of conscious striving. At that mo-
simply playing the correct notes. It involves a shared ment:
"feel," for the rhythmic thrust. Once a group shares this
nothing definite is thought, planned, striven for, desired or ex-
common rhythm, it begins to assume a momentum, as if pected, which aims in no particular direction ... which is at
having a life of its own separate from the individual mem- bottom purposeless and egoless . .. is therefore ... called "right
bers. There is a sense that the groove acts as what presence of mind." This means that the mind ... is nowhere
Winnicot called a "holding environment," a reliable nest- attached to any particular place. (Herrigel 1989, p. 41)
ing that provides a sense of ontological security, a sense
This sense of aimless aiming, a surrender in which "noth-
of trust that allows people to take risks and initiate ac-
ing is left of you but a purposeless tension" (Herrigel
tions.
1989, p. 35) is similar to the way clarinetist Ken
When you get into that groove, you ride right on down that Peplowski describes such peak musical moments.
groove with no strain and no pain-you can't lay back or go
When we play at our best, I find many times that I'm not actually
forward. That's why they call it a groove. It's where the beat
thinking about anything and you can actually have a strange
is, and we're always trying to find that. (Drummer Charlie
experience of going outside of yourself and observing yourself
Persip in Berliner 1994, p. 349)
while you're performing. It's very strange. And you can actually
Every musician wants to be locked in that groove where you listen as you're playing and listen to the rest of the group and
can't escape the tempo. You're locked in so comfortably that you can be completely objective and relaxed. And come to think
there's no way you can break outside of it, and everyone's of it, completely subjective also, because you are reacting to
locked in there together. It doesn't happen to groups every sin- everything else around you. (Peplowski 1995)
gle night, even though they may be swinging on every single
This points to a core paradox at the heart of jazz im-
tune. But at some point when the band is playing and everyone
gets locked in together, its' special for the musicians and for the provisation: if musicians strive too much to attain this
aware, conscientious listener. There are the magical moments, state, they obstruct it. Regulation and control can restrict
the best moments in jazz. (Franklin Gordon in Berliner 1994, the interplay of musical ideas. Peplowski goes on to say
p. 388) that what makes this possible are prior intensive practice,
learning to master tools skills; but at the moment of leap-
I don't care what kind of style a group plays as long as they
ing into playing, "you're forgetting about all these tools
settle into a groove where the rhythm keeps building instead of
changing around. It's like the way an African hits a drum. He you've learned."
hits it a certain way, and after a period of time, you feel it more Musicians often speak of such moments in sacred met-
than you did where he first started. He's playing the same thing, aphors. They speak of the beauty, the ecstasy, the divine,
but the quality is different-it's settled into a groove. It's like the transcendent joy, the spiritual dimension associated
seating tobacco in a pipe. You put some heat on it and make it with being carried by a force larger than themselves. They
expand. After a while, it's there. It's tight. (Saxophonist Lou talk about these moments in language strikingly close to
Donaldson in Berliner 1994, p. 349)
what has been described as an autotelic experience, or
What happens when musicians strike a groove adds a flow (Csikszentmihalyi 1990). This research suggests that
paradoxical dimension to our earlier discussion of atten- people are able to attain a state of transcendence when
tion and cognitive processing. Good improvisers, we said, they are absorbed in pursuit of desired activity, they feel
employ a combination of automatic and controlled cog- like they are being carried away by a current, like being
nition. However, this experience of groove that impro- in a flow.

visers hope for seems to involve a surrender of familiar When musicians are able to successfully connect with
controlled processing modes; they speak of being so com- one another at this level and establish a groove, they
pletely absorbed in playing that they are not consciously sometimes experience an ability to perform beyond their
thinking, reflecting, or deciding on what notes to play, as capacity. This dimension is perhaps the most elusive, if
if they are able to simultaneously be inside and outside vital characteristic of jazz improvisation. Pianist Fred
of their bodies and minds. Controlled thinking is depicted Hersch recalls that playing with bassist Buster Williams
sometimes as an obstacle, something to develop only to inspired him to play differently.
escape. Buster made me play complex chords like Herbie Hancock
Herrigel suggests a similar paradox in the practice of sometimes plays-that I couldn't even sit down and figure out
archery. Like jazz, the art of archery involves deliberate now. It's the effect of the moment and the effect of playing with

614 ORGANIZATION SCIENCE/VOl. 9, No. 5, September-October 1998

This content downloaded from

[Link] on Thu, 09 Nov 2023 [Link] +00:00
All use subject to [Link]
FRANK J. BARRETT Creativity and Improvisation in Jazz and Organizations

Buster and really hearing everything, hearing all those figures. and worked out, like pieces of a puzzle. The improviser
(Pianist Fred Hersch in Berliner 1994, p. 390) begins to enter into a dialogue with her material: prior
selections begin to fashion subsequent ones as themes are
And Buster Williams recalls that when playing with Miles
aligned and reframed in relation to prior patterns.
Davis, the music took on a life of its own.
Weick (1993) likens the jazz improviser to Levi-
With Miles, it would get to the point where we followed the
Strauss' (1966) concept of bricolage, the art of making
music rather than the music following us. We just followed the
usage of whatever is at hand. The bricoleur, like the jazz
music wherever it wanted to go. We would start with a tune,
musician, examines and queries the raw materials avail-
but the way we played it, the music just naturally evolved.
able and entices some order, creating unique combina-
(Buster Williams in Berliner 1994, p. 392)
tions through the process of working through the re-
Most of our studies of organizational behavior have a sources he/she finds. Weick cites the example of a man
rational-cognitive orientation. Organizational learning in upper state New York who built a tractor from a myriad
theQries in particular stress rational, adaptive modes of collection of unrelated junk and diverse parts he had ac-
inquiry. Appreciating the interactive complexity involved cumulated in his front yard. The jazz musician, like the
in jazz improvisation suggests that we pay attention to junk collector, looks over the material that is available at
intuitive and emotional connections between organiza- that moment, the various chord progressions, rhythmic
tional members, the experience of passionate connection patterns, phrases and motives, and simply leaps into the
that inspire deeper levels of involvement and committed quagmire under the assumption that whatever he is about
participation. Studies of jazz improvisation suggests that to play will fit in somewhere. Like the bricoleur who as-
researchers revisit such familiar concepts as empower- sumes that there must be a tractor somewhere in that pile
ment, motivation, and team building, concepts which of junk, the improviser assumes that there is a melody to
have been studied almost exclusively from a cognitive be worked out from the morass of rhythms and chord
and individualistic perspective. The experience of spiri- changes. As new phrases or chord changes are introduced,
tual intimacy, synergy, surrender, transcendence, and the improviser makes connections between the old and
flow warrant wider study. Would it not be useful to study new material. In the absence of a rational plan, retro-
the role of supportive relationships in drawing out one spective sense-making makes spontaneous action appear
another' s latent capacities, for example? At the very least, purposeful, coherent, and inevitable.
this would suggest a relational view of the learning pro- Organizations tend to forget how much improvisation,
cess, in the spirit of Vygotsky's concept of the zone of bricolage, and retrospective sense making are required to
proximal development. (Vygotsky 1987) complete daily tasks. In an effort to control outcomes and
deskill tasks, they often attempt to break complex tasks
5. Reliance on Retrospective Sense Making
down into formal descriptions of work procedures that
as Form
can be followed automatically. Following Brown and
Because jazz improvisation borders on the edge of chaos
Duguid (1991), managers wrongly assume that these sim-
and incoherence, it begs the question of how order
ple steps reflect the way that work actually gets done.
emerges. Unlike other art forms and other forms of or-
Given that many tasks in organizations are indeterminate
ganized activity that attempt to rely on a pre-developed
and people come to them with limited foresight, members
plan, improvisation is widely open to transformation, re-
often need to apply resourcefulness, cleverness, prag-
direction, and unprecedented turns. Since one cannot rely
matism in addressing concerns. They often have to play
on blueprints and can never know for certain where the
with various possibilities, re-combining and re-
music is going, one can only make guesses and anticipate
organizing, to find solutions by relating the dilemma they
possible paths based on what has already happened,
face to the familiar context that preceded it. In spite of
meanwhile continue playing under the assumption that
the wish for a rational plan of predictable action, they
whatever has happened must amount to something sen-
often must take a look around and act without a clear
sible. Gioia (1988) writes:
sense of how things will unfold.
The improviser may be unable to look ahead at what he is going Consider Orr's (1990) study of Xerox's training of ser-
to play, but he can look behind at what he has just played; thus
vice technicians representatives. The trainers, in an effort
each new musical phrase can be shaped with relation to what
to downskill the task of machine repair, attempted to doc-
has gone before. He creates his form retrospectively. (p. 61)
ument every imaginable breakdown in copiers so that
The improviser can begin by playing a virtual random when technicians arrived to repair a machine, they simply
series of notes, with little or no intention as how it will looked it up in the manual and followed a pre-determined
unfold. These notes become the materials to be shaped decision tree to perform a series of tests that dictate a

ORGANIZATION SCIENCE/Vol. 9, No. 5, September-October 1998 615

This content downloaded from

[Link] on Thu, 09 Nov 2023 [Link] +00:00
All use subject to [Link]
FRANK J. BARRETT Creativity and Improvisation in Jazz and Organizations

repair procedure. Their premise was that a diagnostic se- trade. One young trumpeter even recalls learning how to
quence can be devised to respond to the machine's pre- dress from "hanging out" with Miles Davis (Berliner
dictable problems. However, the study revealed that no 1994). Central to learning jazz is the institution of the jam
amount of documentation could include enough contex- session, in which musicians get together to play extem-
tual information necessary to understand every problem. poraneously. A special fraternity often develops among
Orr (1990) relays a story of a technical rep confronting a jazz musicians as they guide each other through various
machine with error codes and malfunctions that were not learning experiences, borrowing ideas from one another.
congruent with the diagnostic blueprint. This machine's Brown and Drugid (1991), refer to organizations as
malfunction did not fit the kind of errors that were doc- communities of practices. To foster learning, they con-
umented nor had anything like this problem been covered tend, organizations must see beyond conventional, ca-
in his training. Both he and the technical specialist he nonical job descriptions and recognize the rich practices
called in to help were baffled. To simply give up the re- themselves. In the example of the technical rep above,
pair effort and replace the machine would have been a their successful experience with the recalcitrant machine
solution, but would have meant loss of face with the cus- became part of the technicians' folklore, told and retold
tomer-an unacceptable solution. After exhausting the during coffee breaks. These stories form a community
approaches suggested by the diagnostic, they attempted memory that others could draw upon when facing unfa-
to make sense of this anomaly by connecting it to pre- miliar problems. Essential to organizational learning is
vious experiences and stories they had heard from others' access to legitimate peripheral participation (Lave and
experience. After a five-hour trouble shooting session of Wenger 1990), understanding how to function as an in-
trials and errors, they fell upon a solution. Many jobs in sider. This recognizes that learning is much more than
organizations require this kind of bricolage-fumbling receiving abstract, acontextual, disembodied knowledge.
around, experimenting, patching together an understand- It is a matter of learning how to speak the language of
ing of problems from bits and pieces of experience, im- the community of practitioners.
provising with the materials at hand. Few problems pro- This has real consequences for organizations. Consider
vide their own definitive solutions. the case of how a technological change attempted at a
Jazz players, junkyard collectors and technical reps manufacturing plant failed because management did not
find themselves in the middle of messes, having to solve value the communal foundation of learning: useful local
problems in situ, creating interpretations out of poten- innovations were not disseminated, learning from mis-
tially incoherent materials, piecing together other musi- takes was limited, and good routines that varied from the
cians' playing, their own memories of musical patterns, officially sanctioned ones were kept unofficial. Learners
interweaving general concepts with the particulars of the need access to experienced practitioners, through formal
current situation, creating coherent, composite stories. and informal meetings, conversations, stories, myths, rit-
uals, etc.
6. Hanging Out: Membership in Communities 7. Alternating Between Soloing and Supporting
of Practice One of the most widespread, yet overlooked, structures
An essential part of learning jazz is becoming a member in jazz is the practice of taking turns. Jazz bands usually
of the jazz community, "hanging out," learning the code, rotate the "leadership" of the band: that is, they take turns
behaving like one of the members. Learning is not simply soloing and supporting other soloists by providing rhyth-
a matter of transmitting de-contextualized information mic and harmonic background. Such an egalitarian model
from one person to another. Local jazz communities of assures that each player will get an opportunity to develop
peers in large metropolitan areas such as Detroit, Chi- a musical idea while others create space for this devel-
cago, and especially New York have serve as informal opment to occur. In order to guarantee these patterns of
educational systems for disseminating knowledge. Mu- mutuality and symmetry, it is necessary that people take
sicians get together to listen to recordings of great solo- turns supporting one another. The role of accompaniment,
ists, memorize their solos, play tunes in different tempos or "comping" is a very active and influential one: it pro-
and keys until they could find the right feel. They join vides a framework which facilitates and constrains the
other musicians, "hanging out" in coffee shops and bars soloist. In written arrangements, the scored passages of-
after a performance and exchanging stories. Stanley ten precede the soloist's improvisation and channel, sus-
Turrentine remembers he learned from others by "asking tain, and embellish it. In a sense the background accom-
about things I didn't understand." Novices discover they paniment conditions the soloist, organizes the course of
need to learn certain "standard" tunes; they learn appro- the solo through passing chords, leading tones and rhyth-
priate keys and tempos: the norms and conventions of the mic accents.

616 ORGANIZATION SCIENCE/Vol. 9, No. 5, September-October 1998

This content downloaded from

[Link] on Thu, 09 Nov 2023 [Link] +00:00
All use subject to [Link]
FRANK J. BARRETT Creativity and Improvisation in Jazz and Organizations

It is not enough to be an individual virtuoso, one must practices were to become more widespread in organiza-
also be able to surrender one's virtuosity and enable oth- tions: employees, managers, and executives evaluated on
ers to excel. In order to "comp" or accompany soloists their capacity to surrender self and ego in effort to support
effectively, jazz musicians need to be very good listeners. the development of another's idea. Perhaps if organiza-
They need to interpret others' playing, anticipate likely tions would recognize and reward those who strive to
future directions, make instantaneous decisions in regard nourish, strengthen, and enhance the expressive capacity
to harmonic and rhythmic progressions. But they also of relationships, they would unleash their capacity to im-
may see beyond the player's current vision, perhaps pro- provise and innovate.
voking the soloist in different direction, with accents and
chord extensions. None of this responsiveness can happen
unless players are receptive and taking in one anothers' Implications for Non-jazz Contexts
gestures. If everyone tries to be a star and does not engage Managers often attempt to create the impression that im-
in supporting the evolution of the soloist's ideas, the re- provisation does not happen in organizations, that tightly
sult is bad jazz. When they listen well to others' soloing, designed control systems minimize unnecessary idiosyn-
they help the soloist reach new heights. Usually we think cratic actions and deviations from formal plans. People
that great performances create attentive listeners. This no- in organizations are often jumping into action without
tion suggests a reversal: attentive listening enables ex- clear plans, making up reasons as they proceed, discov-
ceptional performance. ering new routes once action is initiated, proposing mul-
This has considerable implication for organizational tiple interpretations, navigating through discrepancies,
learning. In spite of the increasing popularity of empow- combining disparate and incomplete materials and then
erment and employee involvement, organizations often discovering what their original purpose was. To pretend
have difficulty supporting participation (Pasmore and that improvisation is not happening in organizations is to
Fagans 1991). Organizations struggle with finding ways not understand the nature of improvisation.
to include voices that traditionally have been silenced. Many business organizations, under pressure to per-
The deceptively simple practice of taking turns creates a form, create cultures that reinforce instrumental, prag-
mutuality structure that guarantees participation, inclu- matic, rational, and deliberate action rather than a culture
sion, shared ownership without insisting on consensus that is expressive, artistic, paradoxical, and spontaneous.
and its unintentional hegemonic consequences. In fact, there are locales and durations which seem to rely
Beyond a model for sharing leadership through turn- on routines and predictable outcomes, particularly in
taking, it also offers a model of followership. Given the functions such as production and manufacturing. Orga-
complex and systemic nature of problems that cross con- nizations must face a tradeoff between servicing effi-
ventional boundaries, managers, as knowledge special- ciency and stewarding attention as a scarce resource to
ists, cannot be solo operators: they need one another's be focused where needed. In this sense, improvisation is
expertise and support in order to arrive at novel solutions. best conceived as an activity that occurs for stretches of
The term "job rotation" takes on new meaning when we human behavior.
think about the shifting of leadership and support respon- Clearly there are certain industries and contexts that
sibilities that jazz bands enact. Perhaps organizational in- require an improvisatory mindset: high velocity, high
novation would thrive if members were skilled at giving technology firms; research and development activities;
others' room to develop themes, to think out loud and cultures of high urgency and excitement, such as the early
discover as they invent. One suggestion would be to have days of the Apple Macintosh; interdisciplinary project
organizational "jam" sessions in which members take teams formed to address a specific problem. Certainly
turns thinking out loud while others listen. Recent interest
popular management literature has created a language
in organizational dialogue (Senge 1990) resemble at- that resonates with the jazz idiom: suggesting that orga-
tempts to include disparate voices that might otherwise nizations need to learn to thrive on chaos; managers are
become overlooked. encouraged to create a sense of urgency by "turning
Yet, organizations tend to reward individual perfor- things upside down," doing away with job descriptions,
mance and achievement rather than supportive behaviors. and valuing failures as a sign that people are experi-
This emphasis often leads to excessive competition to menting and learning (Peters 1987).
achieve stardom, efforts to be in unilateral control, efforts Are there ways to socialize a mindset that nurtures
to defend one's position against challenges, hesitancy to spontaneity, creativity, experimentation, and dynamic
acknowledge the limits of one's knowledge: all obstacles synchronization in organizations? What practices and
to the learning process (Argyris 1993). Imagine if such structures can we implement that might emulate what

ORGANIZATION SCIENCE/Vol. 9, No. 5, September-October 1998 617

This content downloaded from

[Link] on Thu, 09 Nov 2023 [Link] +00:00
All use subject to [Link]
FRANK J. BARRETT Creativity and Improvisation in Jazz and Organizations

happens when jazz bands improvise? The jazz band as promises and incremental disruptions as occasions for
prototype offers a few suggestions. stretching out into unfamiliar territory.
1. Boost the processing of information during and after Provocative competence is a leadership skill that in-
actions are implemented. volves challenging habits and conventional practices,
Jazz players act their way into the future, then justify challenging members to experiment in the margins and
their actions by placing their statements within a context to stretch in new directions. Organizational learning the-
of meaning (chord changes, rhythmic emphasis, etc.). orists (Argyris 1990) write that one of the shortfalls of
Like jazz soloists who realize how notes, phrases, and single loop learning is that managers choose to address
chords relate as they look back on what they have created, only those problems that are familiar, those issues for
it is during and after action that people in organizations which a solution is imaginable. Miles Davis surprised his
become aware of the goals and values they implicitly hold band by disrupting their routines and stretching them be-
and what constraints these values place upon their future yond comfortable limits: calling unrehearsed songs and
actions (Weick 1995). Within the ongoing flow of every- familiar songs in foreign keys. Of course there is a po-
day organizational activity, people retrospectively make tential downside to disruptions. Research suggests that
sense or construct a story or justification for what they when people confront environmental jolts, they fall back

have already done (Staw 1980). These stories can become on habitual modes of action (Walsh 1995). Also, there

the seeds for greater discoveries and inventions. There- might be a tendency to escalate commitment to a wrong

fore, one implication is to boost the processing of infor- course in the context of a threatening interruption (Staw
and Ross 1987).
mation and surface multiple interpretations of diverse
One way leaders practice provocative competence is
participants within close proximity to action.
by evoking a set of higher values and ideals that inspire
Organizations might consider a strategic orientation
passionate engagement. A context in which goals that are
that links planning, action, implementation, and environ-
beyond the capacity of single individuals to accomplish
mental scanning. Organizations could benefit from cre-
might enhance the need for improvisation, testing com-
ating virtual strategic planning sessions in which mem-
fortable boundaries, cooperation, and negotiation. Barrett
bers engage in trial and error thinking, just as jazz
(1995) discusses visionary organizations that make ex-
musicians do when they solo. Generating multiple, si-
pansive promises that defy "reasonable limits" and stretch
multaneous alternatives minimizes escalation of commit-
members to re-define the boundaries of what they have
ment to a single option (Staw 1980, Eisenhardt 1989) and
experienced as constraining. Consider Canon's promise
allows members to make adjustments and re-orientations
in the 1970s to produce a personal copier that would sell
as they receive disconfirming feedback regarding any sin-
for $1,000 (Prahalad and Hamel 1989). Given the con-
gle action scenario. This view would challenge the tra-
straints that existed at the time, (the least expensive copier
ditional notion of strategic planning as a form of rational
sold for several thousand dollars), such a proposal seemed
control, or as an abstract exercise divorced from and prior
preposterous. Surprised engineers engaged in different
to action. In this spirit, Senge (1990), advocates a view
kind of conversations, searching for new approaches, ex-
of planning as play or as a "practice field" in which man-
perimenting with substituting a disposable cartridge for
agers practice thinking ahead, predicting, and guessing
the very complex image-transfer mechanism that Xerox
future moves within various constraints. In virtual plan-
and other companies, including Canon, had employed in
ning scenarios managers could try out alternative maps their copiers. Such tasks demand cooperation, explora-
and alter the core assumptions that have remained un- tion, and improvisation.
questioned (see Hampden-Turner 1990). This is appar- 3. Ensure that everyone has a chance to solo from time
ently a practice familiar to managers at Shell Oil (DeGeus to time.
1988) who were asked to respond to multiple (and some- When self-directed work teams are performing well,
times contradictory) assumptions regarding their environ- they are often characterized by distributed, multiple lead-
mental constraints, including entertaining the notion that ership in which people take turns leading various projects
the price of oil might be slashed in half-something that as their expertise is needed (Guzzo 1995). In jazz bands,
seemed unthinkable at the time. This became in DeGeus' everyone gets a turn to solo. Organizations might con-
words, a "license to play." These incremental disruptions sider evolving norms that insist on including diverse
also created a larger repertoire of knowledge structures, voices, giving everyone a regular turn at bat and valuing
higher variety of responses, when such an unprecedented those who make room for others to shine.
event did occur. Organizations might experiment with a structured pro-
2. Cultivate provocative competence: Create expansive cess that provides participants with a chance to solo and

618 ORGANIZATION SCIENCE/VOl. 9, No. 5, September-October 1998

This content downloaded from

[Link] on Thu, 09 Nov 2023 [Link] +00:00
All use subject to [Link]
FRANK J. BARRETT Creativity and Improvisation in Jazz and Organizations

offsets those influential members who might control or sustain flexible actions and mindful performance when
dominate a group. A simple organizational development jobs are designed to reproduce overlapping knowledge.
tool called the nominal group technique (Delbecq et al. Overlapping knowledge creates redundant sets of infor-
1975) is structured to do just this: every individual in turn mation that permits people to identify with and take re-
"brainstorms" out loud while others listen to his or her sponsibility for whole processes rather than parts of the
ideas. No one is allowed to interrupt or re-direct; people process. Designing more interdependence into tasks in-
are encouraged to build on others' ideas they have heard. creases members' responsive capacity.
A variation of the structure is that no one speaks twice 6. Create organizational climates that value errors as
until every other person in the group speaks at least once. a source for learning.
This is an impersonal, nonnegotiable structure that moni- Good things can happen when people jump in and act
tors air time, cultivates group creativity and ensures that even when all plans are not complete and elegant. Rather
every individual has voice. This also approximates than over-rely on pre-planned strategies and canonical job
Habermas' notion of the "ideal speech situation" in which descriptions, acknowledge members' capacity for bricol-
collective learning is enhanced because individuals are oge and pragmatic reasoning, their ability to juxtapose,
free to communicate openly, completely free from com- recombine, and reinterpret past materials to fashion novel
pulsion or distortions of power, and the force of the better responses. Organizational learning, then, must be seen as
argument may prevail (Habermas 1970). a risky venture, reaching into the unknown with no guar-
4. Cultivate comping behaviors. antee of where one's explorations will lead. Since errors
Organizations must go beyond merely inviting new are indispensable in the creative process, organizational
voices, but must also create processes that suspend the leaders can create an aesthetic of imperfection and an
tendency to criticize, judge, express disbelief that might aesthetic of forgiveness that construes errors as a source
kill a nascent idea. In order for soloists to have impact, of learning that might open new lines of inquiry. Often,
there must be ongoing comping (accompaniment) from however, organizations view errors as a result of individ-
supporters. What would be the equivalent of comping in ual incompetence rather than systemically determined,
organizations? Perhaps this would suggest supportive be- leading people to suppress mistakes and deny responsi-
haviors such as mentoring, advocating, encouraging, lis- bility (Argyris 1990). This suggests that leaders need to
tening. This means rewarding people who support others' create contexts in which reporting and discussing errors
to take center stage, including such skills as blending, is not risky behavior.
helping people along the way as they transition and de- 7. Cultivate serious play: too much control inhibits
velop ideas at different rates. This might include expand- flow.
ing the stories we tell about creative achievements be- Jazz is an activity marked by paradox: musicians must
yond those that highlight autonomous action, to include balance structure and freedom, autonomy and interdepen-
the roles of those who assisted, who gave others' room, dence, surrender and control. They grapple with the con-
who encouraged fledgling, nascent gestures with subtle strictions of previous patterns and structures: they strive
nudges much like a jazz pianist comping. to listen and respond to what is happening; at the same
Such deliberate efforts to make room for peers' con- time they try to break out from these patterns to do some-
tributions is close to what jazz musicians do when they thing new with all the risks that both paths entail. If mu-
comp-agree to suspend judgement, to trust that what- sicians strive too much to hit a groove, achieve flow
ever the soloist is doing right now will lead to something, (Csikszentmihalyi 1990), or jam (Eisenberg 1990), they
to blend in to the flow and direction of the idea, rather obstruct it. Organization theorists have articulated a simi-
than to break off in an independent direction. Such dem- lar paradox: Quinn (1988) argues that having a conscious
ocratic structures enhance the likelihood that people not purpose with logical, internally consistent abstractions
only have the right to be heard, but also have opportunity sometimes creates a unidimensional mindset that is blind
to influence. to emerging cues: "When behaving with conscious pur-
5. Create organizational designs that produce redun- pose, people tend to act upon the environment, not with
dant information it" (p. 27). Quinn's discussion of masters of management
From a rational design perspective, organizations sounds very much like what master improvisers do:
should be designed to process information efficiently.
The people who come to be masters of management do not see
However, to maximize flexibility and creativity, one their work environment only in structured, analytic ways. In-
could follow the lessons of jazz bands and create designs stead, they also have the capacity to see it as a complex dynamic
that produce a redundancy of information. Following system that is constantly evolving. In order to interact effec-
Hutchins (1990) in Weick and Roberts (1993) systems tively with it, they employ a variety of different perspectives

ORGANIZATION SCIENCE/VOl. 9, No. 5, September-October 1998 619

This content downloaded from

[Link] on Thu, 09 Nov 2023 [Link] +00:00
All use subject to [Link]
FRANK J. BARRETT Creativity and Improvisation in Jazz and Organizations

and frames . . . [b]ecause of these shifts (in contradictory per- consequences of small actions can have large conse-
spectives). (Quinn 1988, pp. 3-4) quences when the structure is loosely coupled (Weick
1991). Consider the collapse of Barring Bros., one of the
Jazz musicians suggest that one way to manage this
most prestigious financial institutions in the world, due
paradox is to adopt a disciplined concentration that one
to the erroneous actions of one man.
adopts when playing a game, the way rock climbers and
By looking at the practices and structures associated
chess players experience their task (Csikszentmihalyi
with jazz playing, it is possible to see that successful jazz
1990) or the way that Bill Russell talks about playing
performances are not haphazard or accidental. Musicians
basketball (Eisenberg 1990). There is a sense of surrender
prepare themselves to be spontaneous. Jazz improvisation
in play, a willingness to suspend control and giving over
has implications that would suggest ways that managers
of oneself to the flow of the ongoing game. (Perhaps this
and executives can prepare organizations to learn while
is what organizations like Southwest Air are hoping to
in the process of acting.
encourage when they declare having fun in the workplace
Finally, jazz improvisation can be seen as a hopeful
as a core value). This suggests that we re-visit the con-
activity. It models individual actors as protean agents ca-
ventional separation between work and play: legitimate
pable of transforming the direction and flow of events. In
play as a fruitful, meaningful activity, one that enhances
that sense, jazz holds an appreciative view (Cooperrider
the sheer joy of relational activity.
and Srivastva 1987, Barrett 1995) of human potential: it
represents the belief in the human capacity to think
freshly, to generate novel solutions, to create something
Conclusion and Discussion new and interesting, reminding us of John Dewey's con-
The mechanistic, bureaucratic model for organizing-in tention that we are all natural learners. To quote the sax-
which people do routine, repetitive tasks, in which rules ophonist Ornette Colman, "Jazz is the only music in
and procedures are devised to handle contingencies, and which the same note can be played night after night but
in which managers are responsible for planning, moni- different each time."
toring and creating command and control systems to
guarantee compliance-is no longer adequate. Managers Acknowledgments
The author would like to thank Kishore Sengupta, Reuben Harris, Mark
will face more rather than less interactive complexity and
Gridley, Ken Peplowski, Karl Weick, and two anonymous reviewers for
uncertainty. This suggests that jazz improvisation is a
their helpful comments and suggestions on earlier drafts.
useful metaphor for understanding organizations inter-
ested in learning and innovation. To be innovative, man- Endnote
agers-like jazz musicians-must interpret vague cues, 'Cognitive psychologists distinguish between "automatic" and "con-
face unstructured tasks, process incomplete knowledge, trolled" information processing. Automatic modes of processing are

and yet they must take action anyway. Managers, like jazz effortless, familiar, habitual, outside of conscious awareness. "Con-

players, need to engage in dialogue and negotiation, the trolled" modes of processing are deliberate, effortful, active, strategic,
directed, and intentional (Schneider and Shiffrin 1977, Shiffrin and
creation of shared spaces for decision making based on
Schneider 1977). Jazz improvising seems to employ a combination of
expertise rather than hierarchical position.
modes of processing. When learning new phrases, or attempting chal-
Although rich in implications, there are limits to the
lenging musical ideas, players employ controlled processing. Trum-
applicability of the improvisation metaphor. The discus-
peter Benny Bailey said, "You just have to keep on doing it (practicing
sion of jazz bands has held up jazz as an "ideal type." phrases) over and over again until it comes automatically." (Berliner
Most of the points discussed so far assume a base level 1994, p. 165). Once learned, these become second nature, or learned
of competence. In reality, not all players are equally com- habits that one can rely upon. Pianist Bill Evans (1991) explains "You
petent. This is where the metaphor begins to break down take problems one by one and stay with it. . . until the process becomes
for managerial purposes. No amount of listening, support, secondary, or subconscious, then you take on the next problem until it

or "comping" can enhance a performance if the performer becomes second nature, or subconscious." Pressing (1984, p. 139) de-

is not up to the task. If an interaction with competent scribes the switch from controlled to automatic as one in which mu-
sicians "completely dispense with conscious monitoring of motor pro-
players can enhance individual performance, there might
grammes, so that the hands appear to have a life of their own, driven
also be an opposite effect: performers of lesser compe-
by the musical constraints of the situation."
tence can have a debilitating effect on the overall group
performance. Also while tolerance of errors is essential References
to enhance experimentation, there are cases where errors Abdel-Hamid, T., S. Madnick. 1990. The elusive silver lining: How
are intolerable: in high reliability organizations, for ex- we fail to learn from software development failures. Sloan Man-
ample. But even beyond high reliability organizations, the agemnent Review 32 1 Fall 39-48.

620 ORGANIZATION SCIENCE/Vol. 9, No. 5, September-October 1998

This content downloaded from

[Link] on Thu, 09 Nov 2023 [Link] +00:00
All use subject to [Link]
FRANK J. BARRETT Creativity and Improvisation in Jazz and Organizations

Arendt, H. 1958. The Human Condition. Univ. of Chicago Press, Chi- Herrigel, E. 1989. Zen in the Art ofArchery. Vintage Books, New York.
cago, IL. Hodgkinson, G. P., G. Johnson. 1994. Exploring the mental models of
Argyris, C. 1990. Overcoming Organizational Defenses. Allyn-Bacon, competitive strategists: The case for a processual approach. J.
Needham, MA. Management Studies 31 525-551.
Bailey, D. 1992. Improvisation. Da Capo Press, New York. Lave, J., E. Wenger. 1991. Situated Learning: Legitimate Peripheral
Barrett, F. J. 1995. Creating appreciative learning cultures. Organiza- Participation. Cambridge Univ. Press, Cambridge, UK.
tion Dynamics 24 1 Fall 36-49. Levi-Strauss, C. 1966. The Savage Mind. Univ. of Chicago Press, Chi-
, D. Cooperrider. 1990. Generative metaphor intervention: A new cago, IL.
approach to intergroup conflict. J. Applied Behavioral Science 26 Levitt, B., J. March. 1988. Organizational learning. Annuial Review of
2 223-244. Sociology 14 319-340.
Bastien, D., T. Hostagier. 1988. Jazz as a process of organizational Louis, M., R. Sutton. 1991. Switching cognitive gears: From habit of
innovation. J. Communication Research 15 5 October, 582-602. mind to active thinking. Human Relations 44 1 55-76.
Bell, D. 1976. The Coming of the Post-Industrial Society. Basic Books, March, J. 1991. Exploration and exploitation in organizational learning.
New York. Organization Science 2 1 71-87.
Berliner, P. 1994. Thinking in Jazz. Univ. of Chicago Press, Chicago, Marsalis, Wynton, Frank Stewart. 1995. Sweet Swing Blues. Norton
IL. and Company, New York.
Brown, J., P. Duguid. 1991. Organizational learning and communities Nasbitt, J. 1982. Megatrends. Warner Books, New York.
of practice: Toward a unified view of working, learning, and in- Novello, J. 1987. Contemporary Keyboardist. Source Productions, To-
novation. Organization Science 2 1 40-57. luea, CA.
Carr, D. 1991. Keith Jarrett. Da Capo Press, New York. Orr, J. 1990. Sharing knowledge, celebrating identity: War stories and
Cellar, D. F., G. V. Barrett. 1987. Script processing and intrinsic mo- community memory in a service culture. D. S. Middleton, D.
tivation: The cognitive sets underlying cognitive labels. Organi- Edwards, eds. Collective Remembering: Memory in Society. Sage,
zational Behavior and Human Decision Processes 40 115-135. Beverly Hills, CA.
Cohen, M. 1991. Individual learning and organizational routine: Peplowski, K. 1998. The process of improvisation. Organization Sci-
Emerging connections. Organization Science 2 1 135-139. ence 9 5 560-561.
Csikszentmihalyi, M. 1990. Flow: The Psychology of Optimal Expe- Pressing, J. 1984. Cognitive processes in improvisation. W. R. Crozier,
rience. Harper, New York. A. J. Chapman, eds. Cognitive Processes in the Perception ofArt.
DeGeus, A. 1988. Planning as learning. Harvard Business Review 66 Elsevier, Amsterdam, The Netherlands.
2 70-74. Prokesch, S. 1993. Mastering chaos at the high-tech frontier: An in-
Delbecq, A. L., A. H. Van de Ven, D. Gustafson. 1975. Group Tech- terview with Silicon Graphics's Ed McCracken. Harvard Busi-
niques for Program Planning. Scott-Foresman, Glenview, IL. ness Review November-December.
Drucker, P. 1989. The New Realities. Harper and Row, New York.
Purser, R., W. Pasmore. 1992. Organizing for learning. W. Pasmore,
Edmonson, A. 1996. Learning from mistakes is easier said than done:
R. Woodman, eds. Research in Organizational Change and De-
Group and organizational influences on the detection and correc-
velopmnent 6 37-114.
tion of human error. J. Applied Behavioral Science 32 1 March
Quinn, R. E. 1988. Beyond Rational Management: Mastering the Par-
5-28.
adoxes and Competing Demands of High Performance. Jossey-
Eisenberg, E. 1990. Jamming: Transcendence through organizing.
Bass, San Francisco, CA.
Communication Research 17 2 April, 139-164.
Schneider, W., R. M. Shiffrin. 1977. Controlled and automatic human
Evans, B. 1991. The Universal Mind of Bill Evans. Video. Rhapsody
information processing: I. Detection, search, and attention. Psy-
Films, New York.
chological Review 84 1-66.
Gioia, T. 1988. The Imperfect Art. Oxford Univ. Press, New York.
Schuler, G. 1989. The Swing Era. Oxford Univ. Press, New York.
Gridley, M. 1991. Jazz Styles. Prentice-Hall, Englewood Cliffs, N.J.
Seifert, C., E. Hutchins. 1992. Error as opportunity: Learning in a co-
Guzzo, R., ed. 1995. Team Effectiveness and Decision Making in Or-
operative task. Hluman-Computer Interaction 7 409-435.
ganizations. Jossey-Bass, San Francisco, CA.
Senge, P. 1990. The Fifth Discipline. Doubleday, New York.
Habermas, J. 1970. Toward a theory of communicative competence.
Shiffrin, R. M., W. Schneider. 1977. Controlled and automatic human
Inquiry 13 360-375.
information processing: II. Perceptual learning, automatic attend-
Hampden-Turner, C. 1990. Charting the Corporate Mind. Free Press,
New York. ing, and a general theory. Psychological Review 84 127-190.

Hargreaves, D. J., A. C. Cork, T. Setton. 1991. Cognitive strategies in Staw, B. 1980. Rationality and justification in organizational life. B.

jazz improvisation: An exploratory study. Canadian J. Research Staw, L. L. Cummings, eds. Research in Organizational Behavior

in Music Education 33 December 47-54. 2 45-80.

Hedberg, B. 1981. How organizations learn and unlearn. N. Nystrom, , J. Ross. 1987. Behavior in escalation situations: Antecedents,

W. Starbuck, eds. Handbook of Organizational Design. Oxford prototypes and solutions. Research in Organizational Behavior.
Univ. Press, Oxford, UK. JAI Press, Greenwich, CT.
P. Nystrom, W. Starbuck. 1976. Camping on seesaws: Prescrip- Takeuchi, H., I. Nonaka. 1986. The new product development game.
tions for a self-designing organization. Administrative Science Harvard Business Review January-February 137-146.
Quarterly 21 March 41-65. Toffler, A. 1981. The Third Wave. Bantam Books, New York.

ORGANIZATION SCIENCE/Vol. 9, No. 5, September-October 1998 621

This content downloaded from

[Link] on Thu, 09 Nov 2023 [Link] +00:00
All use subject to [Link]
FRANK J. BARRETT Creativity and Improvisation in Jazz and Organizations

Vygotsky, L. 1987. The Collected Works of Lev Vygotsky. Plenum . 1992. Agenda setting in organizational behavior. J. Management
Press, New York. Inquiry 1 3 Sept. 171-182.
Walsh, J. 1995. Managerial and organizational cognition: Notes from . 1993. Organizational redesign as improvisation. G. Huber, W.
a trip down memory lane. Organization Science 6 3 280-321. Glick, eds. Mastering Organizational Change. Oxford Press, New
Weick, K. 1990. Managing as improvisation: Lessons from the world
York. 346-379.
of jazz. Aubrey Fisher Memorial Lecture, Univ. of Utah, October
. 1995. Creativity and the aesthetics of imperfection. C. Ford, D.
18.
Gioia, eds. Creative Action in Organizations. Sage Press, Thou-
1 1991 a. The nontraditional quality of organizational learning. Or-
sand Lakes, CA.
ganization Science 2 1 116-124.
, K. Roberts. 1993. Collective mind in organizations: Heedful in-
1991b. The vulnerable system: An analysis of the Tenerife air
disaster. P. Frost, L. Moore, M. Louis, C. Lundberg, J. Martin, terrelating on flight decks. Administrative Science Quarterly 38

eds. Reframing Organizational Culture. Sage Press, Newbury 357-381.

Park, CA. 117-130. Zwerin, M. 1983. Close Enough for Jazz. Quartet Books, London, UK.

622 ORGANIZATION SCIENCE/Vol. 9, No. 5, September-October 1998

This content downloaded from

[Link] on Thu, 09 Nov 2023 [Link] +00:00
All use subject to [Link]