Dave C. Logan

What Business Leaders Can Learn from Jazz Musicians About Emergent Processes

Using the jazz metaphor, conventional wisdom suggests that managers (jazz band leaders) should lead knowledge workers engaged in emergent work processes (jazz band members), using plans as guides, becoming experts in the work they’re managing, hiding the emergent nature of the work from their customers, and leading charismatically in the face of uncertainty. The authors’ research and experience, with both jazz and management, indicates that this conventional wisdom does not capture the essence of what either successful managers or jazz leaders do, since it separates learning from doing the business of emergent work. Instead, successful managers of emergent work focus on conversations, not plans; they rely on and constantly build mental maps of the expertise in their ‘bands’; they engage rather than hide from the public, as knowledge about the work emerges, and they lead through making connections, not through charismatic showmanship.

A Leader’s Guide to the Phases

The big message of this book is to get to know yourself, learn the phases, and find the best fit. Move toward that ideal phase by completing all the work in the earlier phases, one at a time. Even if a certain phase seems ideal for you, leave open the possibility that you will go further. Many of the people we interviewed at Phase III and higher said that they had never guessed they would run something so large and intricate.

Phase IV: Team President

Taking a Phase-IV leadership role represents a fundamental shift in duties. For one, your constituency is almost certain to contain professionals with distinctly different experiences and expertise from your own core competencies. Your initial selection may be based in part on your past achievements, but assessments of your efficacy will be based almost entirely on the success of others and the reputation of your institution. Your job is to further its broader mission by recruiting and retaining talent (human capital) and marshalling the resources they need.

Phases of Physician Leadership

Physicians have the raw materials for great leadership: high intelligence, drive, and a generalized idealism toward the profession of medicine. The challenge for physicians who aspire to outstanding leadership is to continue to “own” what makes them star performers as individuals, while shifting their focus to others.

Phase V: Sports Commissioner/League Founders

Phase V is all about reinvention and occurs when an extraordinary leader at Phase IV decides to change the nature of the field from which he or she emerged. Very few leaders ever get to Phase V. Those who do become household names: Steve Jobs (technology), Richard Branson (travel), Warren Buffet (value investing), and Elon Musk (travel and innovation-based investing). In each case, transformational leaders end up affecting the lives of millions of people.

Phase I: Team Player

Phase I is a time of extraordinary excitement and satisfaction. You have completed a period of arduous training, and you are anxious to test and demonstrate your skills (to yourself as well as others). Indeed, you may have some degree of insecurity, as you are now effectively unsupervised on a day-to-day basis. Without question, you are personally responsible to a greater level than when in a training program.

Leadership as Personal Capital

Perhaps, you are reading this book because you are beginning a new administrative or leadership post, or you are merely contemplating one. While we believe the material will benefit you in those pursuits, we also believe that the insights and behaviors that contribute to successful executive leadership are, in fact, the same as those that ensure a productive work life and personal life in general. Your leadership capabilities could be viewed as personal capital, the increase of which can enrich all pursuits.

Phase II: Team Captain

In Phase II, your day-to-day activities—clinical care, research , administration—may not substantially change from Phase I. You are already established as an independent professional. You have enjoyed some success and gained recognition, perhaps even nationally. The key motivation of Phase II is the appreciation that sustaining this high level of performance as your professional work matures will require a larger platform with more resources.

Phase III: Coach

Based on your strong performance, you are now being approached to move up to more influential leadership positions, in your organization or outside it. Phase III jobs give you a chance to recruit and develop talented personnel and to provide a greater level of strategic leadership within a larger organization. While you have been able to pick your closest associates in Phase II, now you have the opportunity to actually create a working environment for others consonant with your ideals. While these opportunities are clearly a validation of your professional work to date, it is equally likely that the interest reflects your personal reputation as someone who interacts well with others. In your career to date, you have matured in your ability to relate productively to others, while establishing yourself as an authority in your field. To achieve success in this next phase, the elements collectively called “emotional intelligence” will require the same serious attention that you mustered to refine your laboratory or clinical skills .

Was Führungskräfte von Jazzmusikern über emergente Prozesse lernen können

Vergleicht man Unternehmen mit einer Jazzband, so ist die herkommliche Auffassung, dass Manager (die Leiter der Jazzband) ihre Fachspezialisten, die sich mit aufkommenden Arbeitsprozessen beschaftigen (Bandmitglieder), fuhren sollen, indem sie Plane verwenden, Experten in ihren Fachgebieten werden, den Entwicklungscharakter ihrer Arbeit vor ihren Kunden verbergen und trotz aller Unsicherheit charismatisch fuhren. Die Analyse und die Erfahrung der Autoren in den Bereichen Jazz und Management zeigen, dass dies keineswegs die typische Vorgehensweise erfolgreicher Manager oder Jazzleader darstellt, da sie den Lernprozess von der eigentlichen Umsetzung trennt. Vielmehr konzentrieren sich erfolgreiche Manager auf Gesprache statt auf Plane; sie verlassen sich auf das Knowhow in ihrer „Band“ und bilden dieses standig in mentalen Landkarten ab; sie wenden sich der Offentlichkeit zu, statt sich vor ihr zu verstecken, sobald sich das Wissen uber die Arbeit weiterentwickelt. Und sie fuhren, indem sie Verbindungen herstellen, und nicht durch charismatische Selbstdarstellung.