Concept

How can a group of jazz musicians who have never worked together before play music as a collective and deliver a series of unique and great sounding performances on the spot? How do they improvise and innovate while adapting to changes in their environment? Why do they value “big ears” so highly? Why are commitment, passion, trust and respect so important when working with others? How do awareness, momentum, and leading on demand help ensure their success? And what does any of this have to do with the world of business or software development let alone a unit of commandos or a basketball team?

The musical art form of jazz can serve as inspiration and example for anyone seeking to improve their skills of leadership, teamwork, innovation and communication in today’s knowledge-based economy. Jazz musicians are constantly innovating and improvising as a collective. They must deliver on-time, high-quality performances that will attract and retain customers and do it all in real time under continuous scrutiny. As a multi-disciplined team, they do this by integrating strong individual contributions from passionate and committed practitioners and ensuring success by applying best principles such as: committing passionately to each task, employing just enough rules to afford autonomy while ensuring that the music doesn’t simply degenerate into chaotic noise, listening and communicating persistently, acting supportively and transparently so as to engender trust and respect, and taking measured risks.

Jazz musician and technology manager, Adrian Cho, researched high-performance teams in arts, sports, business and military operations and distilled the common practices they employed into a framework comprised of a method for execution and fourteen best principles that act on that method.

While successful teams, an in particular great jazz ensembles, inspired this work, the Jazz Process applies laws of sociology, psychology, physics, biology, and systems theory, resulting in a method that is easily understood and applied.