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Jazz as a Metaphor for Organizing in the 21st Century

Author(s): Mary Jo HatchReviewed work(s):Source: Organization Science, Vol. 9, No. 5, Special Issue: Jazz Improvisation and Organizing(Sep. - Oct., 1998), pp. 556-557Published by: INFORMSStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/2640293 .

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T h e Vancouver Academy

o f Management a z z

Symposium

J a z z a s a Metaphor f o r Organizing i n

t h e 2 1 s t Century

Mary Jo HatchCranfield University, Cranfield,Bedford, MK43 OALEngland

MARY JO HATCH Good evening and welcome.We're here tonight to listen to some jazz. I'd like to in-troduce our band to you and let you know that that quietlittle tune you just heard was Sonny Side by Sonny Stittand our marvelous band this evening is comprised of anumber of very interesting folks, one of which some ofyou may alreadyknow. His name is Frank Barrettand heis my co-organizer.

Frank is on the keyboard. Renee Worst here with usfrom Vancouver is on the bass. Doug Conner for-merly from Sacramento, California and now from Co-

penhagen on the drums. And featuring, of course, onthe saxophone the man you've all been waiting to hear,Ken Peplowski. Ken will be playing claiinet lateras well.I'd like to tell you a little bit about Ken so you can ap-preciate how fortunate we are to have him with us tonight.Ken has played with a number of very famous musiciansstartingwith the Tommy Dorsey band, where Frank andKen met. He's also played with Benny Goodman's band,while Benny was still alive; Leon Redbone; RosemaryClooney; the American Jazz Orchestra;and he's presentlyworking with Mel Torme. He's under contract with Con-cord records. He has 10 albums out, the most notable of

which is called "The Natural Touch." Those of you look-ing for Christmas gifts should write this down. "The Nat-ural Touch" is very special in that it helped to promoteKen in Europe which resultedin his winning the German

equivalent of the Grammy Award (I'm not going to tryto say that in German.), but two years ago he won thataward for the best jazz record of the year. So this is nota lightweight player we've got with us tonight. I hopeyou all appreciate how wonderful it is to have him withus and we thankyou Ken.

Now to do the most importantpart;I'm going to haveto read this because there is a very long list of names.There are many, many people whom we want to thank.Not the least of which are the Academy Divisions whohave supported this project; this was an expensive prop-osition. As you already know, this symposium is jointlysponsored by OMT, MOC, OB and ODC. And we arevery, very appreciative for the support that they havegiven us. In particular,I would like to recognize AlanMeyer, Janet Dukerich, Sue Ashford, and David

Cooperrider, who were the leaders of those groups this

year. So thank you all very much.

b I z w_ - .~ I . Ed-. . _

l+liuqp- r --r -A

Reprinted with permission. Copyright ? 1998 Doug Conner

1047-7039/98/0905/0556/$05.00CopyrightC)1998, Institute or OperationsResearch

556 ORGANIZATION SCIENCE/VOl. 9, No. 5, September-October 1998 and the ManagementSciences

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MARY JO HATCH Jazz as a Metaphor for Organizing

The Copenhagen Business School has most graciouslyagreed to pick up what the other folks couldn't pay for,so we want to recognize them as well. That's my homeinstitution. And then finally, I would like to single out

three people whose efforts have really made this comeabout and I mean in the nitty-gritty sense of being here

all day today and for weeks previously making all thedetails work out. Alan Meyer has been after this all yearlong, and I thinkthat without Alan we couldn't have evenconceived of doing this project. Steve Havlovic has beenon-site arranging his for several days, if not months, andSteve handled so many headaches we lost count. BradReid from Clark Audio Visual has been extraordinarilygenerous. Brad is responsible for the sound system. Wedidn't have enough money for a sound system, and Bradhad lots of lucrative alternative possibilities, so I thinkwe should thank Brad for his tremendous generosity andsupportof our project.

Now, on to us. Our program this evening is a little

improvisational itself. We're going to try to share someideas that the group of us, including Karl Weick, BillPasmore, Frank Barrett, and myself have been thinkingabout for several years now. What we want to do is talkabout the 21st century organization in the context of thejazz metaphor for organizing. And let me begin by ex-plaining why we make this association. If you look at thelist of characteristics hatare associated with the 21 st cen-

tury organization, you find concepts like flexible, adapt-able, responsive to the environment, loose boundaries,minimal hierarchy.When you look at the list for a second,if you're interested in jazz, you recognize that all of thoseideas could as easily be associated with a jazz band as a

21st century organization. And so the idea of comparingthese two worlds seems like a sensible one; one whichwe would like to pursue with you tonight.

We believe that the use of metaphor is a very powerfulway to enhance understanding.And when we use a meta-phor, we feel that it's most responsible, necessary even,to push that metaphor to its fullest. A good metaphoranalysis assumes that if two things, like jazz and orga-nizing, are relatedin one way, they will be related in other

ways as well. Much use of metaphor n organizaiton stud-ies never gets beyond acknowledging a single aspect ofa metaphoric association. For instance, many people haveremarked on the similarities between organizing and jazzimprovisation, but have not carried the comparison muchbeyond that single association. What we'd like to do to-

night is push on that metaphor a great deal, and then ex-tend it even more beyond academic discussion into mu-sical experience, which we will do with the help of ourjazz musicians. We hope that we can entertainyou, helpyou learn something new about jazz, and inspire you tothink about organizations and organizing processes in adifferent way. So we're going to work this metaphorin

two directions. We're going to work on learning aboutjazz, and we're going to work on inspiring organizationtheory and organizational practice.

So that's what we're about this evening. First, Frankwill provide some brief comments to give you a feel forwhat jazz music is all about in a structuralsense; we'llhave about a five minute primeron that. Then Karl willbe playing the head, shall we say, followed by Bill. Bill's

going to talk about research and development firms andinnovation. Ken's going to talk to us about what it feelslike to do improvisation and what he thinks about whilehe's improvising. And then, if there's any time left, I'llfollow up with a few ideas linking postmodernism and

jazz and try to make an ending. So that's our programforthis evening, and now I'll turn it over to Frank. Thanksvery much for joining us tonight.

I r J l t ' w , !' ;2 I i !AlT

Reprinted with permission. Copyright ? 1998 Doug Conner

ORGANIZATIONCIENCE/VO1.9, No. 5, September-October 1998 557