Yes to the Mess, Leadership Lessons from Jazz: Session Recap

In March 2013, Bonnie Cain-Wood attended a session on improvisation and leadership. Her notes, takeaways and follow up questions are below.

Session Brief: An improvisational mindset is important to a musician. If they listen carefully they can change their notes, invent something new, and adapt to changing rhythms and melodies. That same mindset is important in business.

Frank J. Barrett, jazz pianist and management scholar, says this improvisational “jazz mindset” – and the skills and competencies that go along with it—is crucial for effective leadership. Like skilled jazz musicians, organizations must take this inventive approach to successfully deal with issues that range from crisis management to spontaneous decision making to unforeseen new realities.

Hashtags: http://twitter.com/#yesjazz

Takeaways:

·         Learn-then-execute model doesn't work for everything. Radical receptivity. Take it, learn and do all in real time. 

·         When you're lost, any map will do. Belief and hope give you confidence. A strategic plan isn't accurate; it is valuable because it gives you confidence in a common ground and that allows you all to move forward and learn as you go. 

·         To live in the moment, unlearn your patterns, interrupt habits and question routines. Throw yourself into the terror and go. 

·         Provocative confidence-throw people in over their head, provoke them to act. They will not like you at the time.

Library Applications:

·         Are we developing a plan that gives confidence to act?

·         We embrace a learn as we do mentality in our training phase. Do we force/encourage a learn as we do mentality in the innovation phase? 

Suggested Readings: “Yes to the Mess: Surprising Leadership Lessons from Jazz”

If you would like to share your notes on conference sessions relevant to the Library Future Series contact lib-pub@okstate.edu.