The imagination is like a muscle: it strengthens through use. — John Kao Imagination Copy Share Image
Creativity is the crucial variable in the process of turning knowledge into value — John Kao Creativity Copy Share Image
If you come up with a new product, you can very easily track its contribution to the bottom line. But often the… — John Kao Bottom Copy Share Image
Tunes have notes and tempos and rules. If the tune is "All the Things You Are," you have to adhere to its… — John Kao Behinds Copy Share Image
If you are at Coca-Cola, the creative challenge is one of maintaining - rather than creating - a tremendous level of consumption… — John Kao Challenges Copy Share Image
The capacity to creatively improvise is an important factor that differentiates successful companies - or teams - from those that are not… — John Kao Business Copy Share Image
The manager's job - the impresario's job - is to preside over the company's efforts to jam so the business runs really… — John Kao Business Copy Share Image
Creativity is not like the weather: You can do something about it. And you can measure it well enough to determine its… — John Kao Can do Copy Share Image
Coca-Cola can get really fresh output because it is getting people who are outside the traditional model and they are combining ideas… — John Kao Coca cola Copy Share Image
Instead of command and control, managing the creative process is about facilitating and permitting. — John Kao Command Copy Share Image
A large part of the impresario's job has to do with maintaining and communicating standards of performance. Knowing how to set those… — John Kao Communicate Copy Share Image
Jamming - which follows rules but not individual notes - gives you a different result each time, depending upon the players and… — John Kao Adaptable Copy Share Image
The head of a record label sets up structures, but he also defines the sound of the label, which is to describe… — John Kao Desirable Copy Share Image
Rather than managing by clarifying events, the creative process may require raising the level of uncertainty. Sometimes this can be done by… — John Kao Activity Copy Share Image
I would argue that the management of creativity requires a skill set that's relatively different from the traditional management skill set that… — John Kao Appropriate Copy Share Image
The impresario functions as a bridge and a translator. He or she is a bridge between the creative point of view -… — John Kao Allocation Copy Share Image
You need judgment, you need to utilize conventional resource-allocation analysis, you have to work backward from estimations of the market to the… — John Kao Allocation Copy Share Image
Performers may play in the studio, but they need to go out and tour every once in a while to keep their… — John Kao Edges Copy Share Image
The impresario function is about intervening with the company's more administrative management structure. It is about trying to establish a sense of… — John Kao Administrative Copy Share Image
In a large pharmaceutical company, where it's a big bet, you're going to need finance people to be involved in the decision-making… — John Kao Agreement Copy Share Image
There's real "right brain" creativity that goes into all of the organizational processes that a company utilizes and must continually reinvent in… — John Kao Accounting Copy Share Image
In a corporate context, companies have to try very hard to oppose the enticements of conventional wisdom. They must aim for the… — John Kao Aim Copy Share Image
The management of creativity is more intimate. By that I mean that it deals with an individual's personal, psychological landscape. It deals… — John Kao Atmosphere Copy Share Image
There are some pretty obvious ways of benchmarking creativity. One way is to perform what I call a creativity audit, which is… — John Kao Accounting Copy Share Image
The traditional model for a company like Coca-Cola is to hire one big advertising agency and essentially outsource all of its creativity… — John Kao Adept Copy Share Image
Companies have to take risks to get new knowledge, in a manner similar to how jazz musicians take risks when they go… — John Kao Approach Copy Share Image
All of these creative ideas and decisions about new ways to reach the consumer can be tracked with regard to how well… — John Kao Awareness Copy Share Image
Communication is the essential medium of a creative culture: the communal sea in which we all swim. A company that can't communicate… — John Kao Band Copy Share Image
Managing the creative process means selecting the best people and then letting them do their work. That means nurturing. It also means,… — John Kao Creating Copy Share Image
When you come into a creativity-driven environment, things are very different and there is the danger that a traditional managerial mind-set could… — John Kao Creative Copy Share Image
The conventional asset-allocation method is like sheet music. It is prescribed, it has right answers and wrong answers and it sounds about… — John Kao Allocation Copy Share Image
Obviously businesses do not operate like an artists' commune. Business involves deploying finite resources to achieve goals in a competitive environment to… — John Kao Achieve Copy Share Image
In the end it is the musician who actually plays the notes. The impresario - or the project leader - is only… — John Kao Different Copy Share Image
Organizations are about putting ideas through one or more types of gating procedures. In this way, ideas go from being a whim… — John Kao Becoming Copy Share Image
You would not let your kids do whatever they want. So the challenge is to create accountability in a non-mechanistic way. You… — John Kao Accountability Copy Share Image
Creativity, my students learn, is as natural a function of the mind as breathing or digestion are natural functions of the body. — John Kao Body Copy Share Image
The C.E.O.'s job in a creativity-driven company is to be an impresario, not a manager. — John Kao Business Copy Share Image
The creative process is different from the traditional production and work-flow process. It is not so linear. — John Kao Creative Copy Share Image
The traditional managerial mind-set is an analytical mind-set. It is about creating accountability and defining responsibilities. — John Kao Accountability Copy Share Image
