Quotes by John Kao

John Kao

Creativity, my students learn, is as natural a function of the mind as breathing or digestion are natural functions of the body.

Breathing

Creativity

Thinking

Every day, there are 770 million Cokes consumed, which means that there are 770 million purchasing decisions made each day regarding the product. To support those decisions, the company must constantly reinvest in its marketing links to its customers. As a result, a high level of creativity must go into everything the company does, from cause-related campaigns – Coca-Cola and its sponsorship of the Olympic Village in Atlanta, for example – to new catch phrases, commercials, marketing slogans, advertising campaigns and promotional tie-ins.

Atlanta

Creativity

Mean

I would argue that the management of creativity requires a skill set that’s relatively different from the traditional management skill set that is appropriate to a large, complex, industrial-era organization.

Creativity

Organization

Skills

If you are at Coca-Cola, the creative challenge is one of maintaining – rather than creating – a tremendous level of consumption for your products.

Challenges

Creating

Creative

If you come up with a new product, you can very easily track its contribution to the bottom line. But often the challenge can be both large and subtle.

Challenges

Lines

Track

Improvisation in the jazz sense – like the business sense – is not formless. It is built on a skill set. Jazz, for example, involves selecting a tune.

Example

Skills

Tunes

In a corporate context, companies have to try very hard to oppose the enticements of conventional wisdom. They must aim for the leaps, which means that companies have to do more than simply manage their knowledge, which is composed of the insights and understandings they already know. They also have to manage the knowledge-generation process. It’s not just about, “Oh, we’re going to create a data warehouse and we are going to invent a computerized filing system to get at all the stuff we know.”

Data

Mean

Understanding

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 because the investment can run into the hundreds of millions of dollars. You’re going to have to run scenarios. You might even need agreement from the C.E.O. to make that type of decision. If it’s an incremental, low-cost decision in a marketing-oriented company, it may be a very different set of stakeholders a lot further down in the organization.

Agreement

Organization

Running

In the end it is the musician who actually plays the notes. The impresario – or the project leader – is only there to make sure that happens. That is a very different type of management mind-set.

Leader

Mind

Play

Instead of command and control, managing the creative process is about facilitating and permitting.

Command And Control

Creative

Process

Follow The Behaviour University in order to get the greatest quotes from the greatest people of all time so that you can tap into your own greatness.

Able

Accountability

Agreement

Analysis

Artist

Atlanta

Axes

Breathing

Bridges

Capability

Challenges

Command And Control

Communication

Competition

Creating

Creative

Creativity

Data

Decision

Differences

Different

Drama

Driven

Effort

Enough

Example

Firsts

Flow

Giving

Goal

Ideas

Imagination

Important

Innovation

Invaluable

Jazz

Jobs

Kids

Knows

Labels

Leader

Levels

Lines

Mark

May

Mean

Mind

Muscles

Musician

Needs

The Future Blueprint

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The Home Therapist: Anti Anxiety

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The Autobiography

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Quotes by John Kao

John Kao

Creativity, my students learn, is as natural a function of the mind as breathing or digestion are natural functions of the body.

I would argue that the management of creativity requires a skill set that’s relatively different from the traditional management skill set that is appropriate to a large, complex, industrial-era organization.

If you are at Coca-Cola, the creative challenge is one of maintaining – rather than creating – a tremendous level of consumption for your products.

If you come up with a new product, you can very easily track its contribution to the bottom line. But often the challenge can be both large and subtle.

Improvisation in the jazz sense – like the business sense – is not formless. It is built on a skill set. Jazz, for example, involves selecting a tune.

In the end it is the musician who actually plays the notes. The impresario – or the project leader – is only there to make sure that happens. That is a very different type of management mind-set.

Instead of command and control, managing the creative process is about facilitating and permitting.

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Topics by John Kao

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The Future Blueprint

The Home Therapist: Anti Anxiety

The Autobiography

The Behaviour Diary

The Dating Diary

The Relationship Therapist

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