Innovation & Improvisation

Sung Joo Bae

Assistant ProfessorOperations and Technology Management

School of BusinessYonsei University

Realms of Individual & Collective Action in Organizations

Temporal Separation of Conception and Execution

Improvisation(Jazz improv.)

Composition(Classic concert)

Algorithmic Execution

(Operators in nuclear power plant)

Algorithmic Planning

(SOP Generation for NPP)

HighLow

Low

HighNovelty(Divergence from prior

experience)

Source: Fisher & Amabile

A Model of Improvisational Creativity

Preparation

ExternalProblem

Presentation

Conception

-Provocative competence

(Interrupting habit patterns)

Execution

Improvisation(Simultaneous/Synchronous Processes)

Improvisedcreative outcome

- Can feed into the idea generation stage of

compositional creativity

- RetrospectiveSensemaking

Expertise

-Well learned facts & routines

Creativity-relevantProcesses

- Distributed Task- Soloing & supporting

- Continual negotiation - Risk orientation- Hanging out: CoP

Intrinsic Motivation

Focus on problem/opportunity

Work Environment

- Embracing errors- Experimental culture

- Real-time info flow- Minimal structures

Source: Fisher & Amabile + Barrett

Seven Characteristics of Improvisation Related to the Creative Organization

• Provocative competence – Interrupting habit patterns– The difficulty of trying new things

Consequences!!!

– Remember “Kodak”?

• Embracing errors as source of learning– Errors often lead to a great invention, but it has

to be embraced and nurtured by other members in the organization

Seven Characteristics of Improvisation Related to the Creative Organization

• Minimal structures that allow maximum flexibility– Music: patterns of melodies, chord changes,

sections and phrases

– Organization: stories, myths, visions, slogans, mission statements, trademarks

Seven Characteristics

• Distributed task – Continual negotiation toward dynamic synchronization

• Innovation is an ongoing social accomplishment

You don’t know what the other player is going to play, but on listening to the playback, you hear that you related your part very quickly to what the other player played just before you. It’s like a message that you relay back and forth… You want to achieve that kind of communication when you play. When you do, your playing seems to be making sense. It’s like conversation - Tommy Flanagan (Jazz Pianist), 1994

Seven Characteristics of Improvisation Related to the Creative Organization

• Reliance on retrospective sense-making– The improviser may be unable to look ahead at

what is going to play, but he can look behind at what he has just played; thus each new musical phrase can be shaped with relation to what has gone before. He creates his form retrospectively.

– Those junk boxes at IDEO

– Samsung’s efforts to understand what they have done recently

Seven Characteristics of Improvisation Related to the Creative Organization

• Hanging out – Membership in communities of practice (Informal educational system with rich context)– Organizations must see beyond conventional

job descriptions and recognize the rich aspects of practices

• Alternating between soloing and supporting– Rotating leadership

The Processual ‘Flow’ of Different Models

Sequential model Compression model

Flexible model Improvisational model

Kind of Blue (1959) Album by Miles Davis

• Musicians– Miles Davis (trumpet), Bill Evans (piano), John Coltrane, Julian

Adderley (saxophone), Jimmy Cobb (drum), Paul Chambers (bass)

• Davis had only given the band sketches of scales and melody lines on which to improvise (modal jazz)– In traditional jazz improvisation (hard bop style), a chord

progression or series of harmonies are given to the musicians

Davis elaborated on this form of composition in contrast to the chord progression predominant in bebop, stating

"No chords ... gives you a lot more freedom and space to hear things. When you go this way, you can go on forever. You don't have to worry about changes and you can do more with the [melody] line. It becomes a challenge to see how melodically innovative you can be. When you're based on chords, you know at the end of 32 bars that the chords have run out and there's nothing to do but repeat what you've just done—with variations. I think a movement in jazz is beginning away from the conventional string of chords... there will be fewer chords but infinite possibilities as to what to do with them.“

- In a 1958 interview with Nat Hentoff of The Jazz Review

Review of Kind of Blue (1959)

• Producer Quincy Jones, one of Davis' longtime friends, wrote: "That [Kind of Blue] will always be my music, man. I play Kind of Blue every day—it's my orange juice. It still sounds like it was made yesterday".

• Pianist Chick Corea, one of Miles' acolytes, was also struck by its majesty, later stating "It's one thing to just play a tune, or play a program of music, but it's another thing to practically create a new language of music, which is what Kind of Blue did."