Why Ask Why?

There is a concept in lean manufacturing (think Toyota and its vaunted excellence in production) called the "5 Why's". Those of us who have kids can relate to its value. They're curious about why something is the way that it is and they keep asking "why" until satisfied with the answer. By "peeling back the onion" of a problem, they (and we) can get to the "root cause" and thoroughly understand not only how things work but the underlying assumptions (facts?) and variables that, if changed, could lead to a different result.

I was in a meeting with some of Pittsburgh best and brightest nonprofit execs last week when I realized that we not only needed to ask more "why's" but that it's pretty tough to get at the root cause of anything without some credible facts. We were discussing an innovative, technology-based method of prioritizing social service needs (e.g., poverty, hunger, violence prevention, environment) in the region at an upcoming conference and the nonprofit sector's ability to "sit at the table" with corporate and government counterparts to mobilize resources to address them. It became apparent (at least to me) that the nonprofit sector has lots of statistics about various social ills (e.g., "X% of people in Allegheny County are homeless") but a lot less certainty about how we match up relative to other cities our size across the entire set of issue areas (e.g., "X% of people in Allegheny County are homeless and that is almost twice as high as the other 24 cities around the world that we compare ourselves to and compete against economically, for population / talent, and global mindshare).

It seems clear to me that, without this kind of fact-based, unbiased, holistic (even at the 30,000 foot level) view, it's not only going to be tough to sit at the table with key decisionmakers from the other two sectors on how to address key social issues (systematically able to ask enough "why's" to understand key change levers) but it will be impossible to rationally allocate the resources -- time, $$$, and energy -- necessary to make meaningful progress. In a time of significant reductions from many traditional sources of nonprofit funding, it is likely that any resources proactively increased in one social area will be at the expense of another (e.g., more resources for homelessness could mean less for the environment) with a relative change (positive and negative) in community impact. These trade-offs (I heard a famed financier on the Charlie Rose show a few weeks ago call this social arbitrage) obviously have huge implications for every single citizen in the region.

Until we can agree on some facts about the region's social condition relative to other cities our size, we'll always be using only emotional, anecdotal, qualitative arguments to allocate resources largely controlled by the private and public sectors. And, I'm afraid, we'll never get to asking enough "why's" to really make a dent in areas we need to improve on to become the "Best and Most Admired Mid-Sized City in the World."

Big Changes in Little Meetings

On the last morning of the IAJE conference, in a little conference room a few floors above the din of thousands still drinking in a myriad of formal sessions, concerts, and impromptu gatherings, leaders of the nascent National Jazz Platform met with a group of influential jazz presenters and educators (e.g., Monterrey Jazz Festival, Berklee College of Music) to elicit more support for initiatives to raise market share for jazz. In contrast to the gloomy, raw weather in the windows outside, the mood in the room was upbeat and warm. And, while there were lots of probing questions and some trepidation on the part of "veterans" who had "heard some of this before", everyone seemed genuinely interested in figuring out how to make it work.

I've been consistently struck by the commitment and urgency voiced to the industry by the likes of Nancy Wilson and Dr. Billy Taylor to innovate, not only to withstand the technological and cultural changes faced by all kinds of music but to "keep jazz alive" for generations to come. (I was delighted that Dr. Taylor warmly greeted me at his conference booth the day before after spending just a couple days at Wingspread together nearly a year earlier ... gracious and generous). Jazz has its foot in two camps -- the historical / traditional "art form" camp staked out by the likes of classical music and the contemporary / experimental camp that is firmly owned in mindshare by rap and hip-hop. Like any first year b-schooler will tell you, the "middle" is tenuous place to be in any industry because it's easy to get overwhelmed by the giants and cut off at the knees by upstarts.

The annals of business history are littered with meaningless meetings interspersed with a few watershed events, usually in or set-up by the kind of intimate session that characterized this morning's get-together. I hope that someday we can look back on a meeting held in a sterile hotel conference room on a raw New York City Saturday morning and marvel at all that followed.

In The Presence of Giants (and Midgets)

Last night at the annual conference of the International Alliance of Jazz Educators, the National Endowment for the Arts (NEA) announced its '06 class of NEA Jazz Masters. Among those honored included the likes of Tony Bennett and Chick Corea.

At the end of the evening, conductors of the two big bands that provided most of the evening's entertainment invited any NEA Jazz Master in the audience to come up on stage and play along. While hearing legends like Latin jazz king Paquito D'Rivera was a real treat and the level of excellence and creativity borne from decades of practice and performance was obvious, I thought that a 10-year old trumpet player that snuck up on stage and was given a shot at the mic stole the show. Not only did he play great but it was clear that he would have been happy to play all night long ... one of the bandleaders literally took the instrument out of his hands to give the rest of the masters some minutes!

As the two bands played with a host of masters (there were probably 40+ musicians on stage by the end of the night), I turned to Marty Ashby, Executive Producer of MCG Jazz (an Accelerator venture), and pointed out how the actions on stage represented much of what companies around the world will need more of the in the future -- creativity, improvisation, teamwork, individual mastery, respected leadership, joy, passion, enthusiasm ...

Hmm, now if you could just bottle that up and get it out to the masses ...

Legends and Luminaries

What do Nancy Wilson, Tom Scott, Clark Terry, Doc Severinsen, and Dr. Billy Taylor have in common? Besides being among a select group of living jazz legends, all were in attendance at the opening gala for the International Alliance of Jazz Educator’s annual conference, this year held in Midtown Manhattan. Why was I (can't sing, can't dance, can't play an instrument) there? As a guest of MCG Jazz, one of the leading ventures in the Accelerator's portfolio and, as a division of the acclaimed Manchester Craftsmen's Guild and Bidwell Training Center, a globally recognized social enterprise supporting youth education and adult workforce training programs with its mix of jazz concerts and album releases.

MCG Jazz, along with IAJE through its independent subsidiary Jazz Alliance International and a host of "mavens, connectors, and salesmen" (to use Tipping Point terminology) in the industry, are leading the charge to build awareness and market share for jazz while creating a sustainable business model that fulfills both social impact objectives and $$$ requirements in the long-term. The questions being confronted by the jazz industry are similar to, say, NASCAR more than a few years ago: How do we tap into an existing and rabid community of fanatics to create a bigger revenue "pie" while not ruining what attracted fans to the sport in the first place? How can we best introduce the "product" to people not familiar with the concept or who have preconceived notions about it so that a new generation of fanatics will emerge? How do we prioritize our options and opportunities in light of (at least initially) limited resources? Who are the key players to enlist in both the strategy and tactics to harness such a substantial amount of latent potential?

The artists, industry insiders, and other attendees of last night's gala couldn't have been more visibly dedicated to the music, the personalities that shaped it, or to perpetuating the genre for generations to come. All of that passion and ability to improvise will come in handy as the very entrepreneurial work of reshaping the business side of jazz unfolds in the months ahead.

Red Roads and White Roads

Sometimes getting sick can be a blessing in disguise. After being surrounded by the ill and infirmed throughout the holidays, it finally caught up with me at the start of the new year in the form of a mostly irritating (as opposed to debilitating) head cold. Taking it as an early test of my intent to slow down and do fewer things better, I stayed in bed (instead of trying, literally, to work through it) and attacked the rising stack of books beside my bed.

One book that I'd been dying to get through for a while was
Raising the Bar by Clif Bar founder Gary Erickson. As a cycling and outdoor sports fanatic, I've tried just about every bar and supplement on the market and I'm an unabashed Clif Bar loyalist. But there's always been some elusive "something else" that has always connected me to the product and, by extension, to the company. An authenticity, a simplicity, an engaging Horatio Alger story perhaps ... "something else".

The book helped to clear up the "something else" by using a map metaphor of "red roads" and "white roads" to describe the company's distinctiveness. A company on the red road:

"... believes business is about the destination ... [it's] primary reason for being, its destination, is maximizing shareholder value. When shareholder value and the bottom line become the reasons for being in business, everything else feeds that agenda."

Alternatively, on the white road, the moment -- the journey itself -- matters most. There is no set or final destination. The trip could end anywhere. As Erickson points out:

"We plan like any company does, but we center our discussion on what roads we'd like to travel and the type of business we'd like to become. The road, not the destination, drives Clif Bar."

I think that there are some fundamental societal, cultural, demographic, and global trends that portend the rise of a different kind of enterprise, one that can do well and do good. One that inspires passion in employees, is low-drag in operations, and intimately connected to, as Erickson puts it, natural demand in the marketplace, not demand generated by expensive marketing campaigns driven by guilt or inadequacy or materialism for the sake of keeping up with the Joneses. Sure, there will always be a role for red road companies in the marketplace -- after all, sharks are part of the ocean's ecosystem for a reason. But I have a feeling (and it's not much more developed than that right now) that the 21st century will demand a model for earned-income generating organizations (both nonprofit and for-profit which, after all, are mostly just a legal designations) that is radically different than what we expect one of these enterprises to look like and act like today.

I guess trying to figure out what that model looks like and putting it into practice with our ventures is my white road. The Clif Bar story is as good a place as any to start looking for some answers.

What Is "It"?

Innovation (n.): "The intersection of invention and insight, leading to the creation of social and economic value."

You can't pick up a business magazine without reading about it. Or listen to an executive interview nowadays without hearing about it. What is "it"? Innovation. Yeah, you want your organization to reflect "it". You want your products to embody "it". Heck, you hope you have "it". I know I've been talking a lot about "it" lately and hope that the Accelerator and our ventures have "it". But here's the $64,000 question (and believe me, winning $64K was a big deal a generation ago): What, exactly, is innovation? What does it look (smell, taste, feel ...) like? Can it be developed to grow in people, organizations, or even communities over time like a muscle can be trained to get stronger and more useful? Is it like air or can people/ organizations/ communities live without it for a long time?

I don't have all the answers but I do know that I've been spending some quality time trying to wrap my head around the essence of innovation. My gut tells me that our organization, our ventures, and for sure our community will need bigger and bigger doses of it and now my head is demanding that I get closer to figuring out what "innovation" means in the context of our efforts to support a more entrepreneurial, vibrant, and impactful social sector. If there's one theme that's come through loud and clear so far, its that there can't be an innovation without engagement with the real world to test if a great idea really works, that is, has a tangible impact that is readily apparent.

After all, Edison's work with the light bulb would have been an interesting science experiment if it hadn't been tested in the real world and a host of other, supporting, innovations and the development of standard practices hadn't followed. And, even though Edison was recognized as the originator of the innovation, he didn't control its on-going development. For example, his use of direct current later lost out to the alternating-current system developed by the American inventors Nikola Tesla and George Westinghouse.

Looks like I've got my work cut out for me ...