AMMAN — In an era when commerce is characterised by rapid change and a great number of variables, one expert believes that the improvisational tradition of jazz music can serve as a new model for businesses.
“The world is getting faster and everything is becoming more connected,” Carl Størmer, a Norwegian business consultant and jazz drummer, said, adding that within “this turbulence, the unexpected could happen”, forcing one to improvise and make quick decisions.
Similarly, Størmer pointed out, improvisation is the essence of jazz.
“Improvisation is something everybody is good at, because it is a skill to survive,” he explained at a presentation organised by the Norwegian embassy and the Scandinavian Business Club in Amman on Wednesday.
Størmer, who has a master’s degree in both jazz and business, argued that modern-day businesses must adopt a flexible model to operate successfully in the context of constant change: Specifically, he recommended a small group of specialists who use their skills to make rapid, independent decisions.
“A lot of rules change, and you cannot call your boss. You need to make decisions on the spot,” he said, stressing that “doing the right thing” is often more important than “doing things right”.
For the team of specialists to work well together, they, like jazz musicians, need to have a shared “pool of references”, and each should have a specific area of expertise to avoid an overlap in skills.
In the same vein, jazz groups tend to be small, mostly quartets, and each member plays a specific instrument. Their shared pool of references is the music they all know: the chord progressions and melodies from which they improvise their own unique riffs and embellishments.
In contrast, he compared orchestras, in which most players remain in the background and the music is rigidly set on the page, to mass-production factories.
“In quartets, the music is robust, because you have a lot of different combinations and one conversation,” he said, adding that in both music and business, every member of a tight improvisational group “gets to play solos and to be seen”.
“This also creates accountability: Everything falls apart if you don’t do your part,” Størmer added.
“Improvisation requires a shared language like conversation and works best in small teams,” Størmer indicated in a slideshow during the presentation, stressing that “interactions are based on active listening”.
“In improvisation, you learn new things,” the jazz musician added.
“When you are in a good interaction, there is no future, no past, but only the moment, [in which] you don’t have the capacity to plan,” he said.
“When we normally talk about teamwork, we are actually talking about synchronisation,” he argued.
“No one takes credit in real teamwork.”
Openness, Størmer added, is another vital element required in businesses today.
“If you want others to help you, you have to help them help you, you have to share information with them.”
“Life takes a different direction from what is expected. The less time you take to focus on the untravelled road, the more opportunities you can see in the new path,” he concluded.
