Business Strategy 499 '10

Former teacher of Mr. Mannan, Kathleen M. Eisenhardt, co-author of strategy course's core book Competing on the Edge (CoE), argues fast-paced, volatile businesses to play the improvisational edge. [Here's an article to know the technical meaning of improvisation.] She talks about adaptive innovation vs. consistent execution (see page # 320).

Recently, juniors and sophomores at FC are competing in Telenor's On-Campus Management Training competition. We don't want to bore you to death by discussing its contents. Rather i found an insight, which i shared with my team of 5 dynamic, resourceful, diverse business youth, derived from the lessons of Mr. Mannan's teacher at Stanford. Improvisation is the only solution for teams/businesses who cannot have "too much structure nor too less", with the challenge of coming up with fresh and original music/products "again and again . . . and again and again."

What happened with my team was we failed to decide how to do things (i.e., have some rules of game) and till the last day at the last hour of project # 1 two of our members still don't know each other, points to the lack of communication - in short we failed to do adaptive innovation and consistent execution. If our team want to play improvisational egde, i.e., to be ahead of everyone, to be innovative and consistent, we got to do two things, and that's the solution for "high veolcity, rapidly changing industries", like, computing etc:

1. You need intense communication and coordination in the team.

2. You have few very specific rules (on which to do many other things)

I don't want to explain the beautiful example by which Mr. Mannan's teacher explained this concept. For that, please wait for your copy and bring 3 notes of 100 Rs on Thursday, and see page # 31-33; meanwhile I and my team apply these guidelines while playing with the next project of OCMT for you.

APPENDIX:


1. SUMMARY OF IMPROVISATION RULES FROM CoE

I quote the "the respected Rules for Jazz Improvisation which accompanies case-studies":

• "At any given time in a performance, know who the leader (soloist) is and where you are in the piece.
• The soloist should listen to and build off of the work of other members of the band.
• Know the rules in order to know how and when to break them.
• Experiment as a group (e.g., by changing or eliminating structure) or as an individual (e.g., by overblowing or fiddling with your instrument).
• Expect occasional "train-wrecks." Recover and move on.
• Do not play the same solo over and over; practice new approaches and styles in familiar pieces. Incorporating the unexpected is the essence of great jazz."