Add another consultant to the list of those advising Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton: John Kao, a corporate communications consultant who is based in San Francisco and advocates using the techniques of musical improvisation to get the creative juices flowing and leave competitors in the dust.
Senator Clinton paid Mr. Kao $70,000 to advise her during her Senate re-election campaign in 2006, but the payment did not appear in her financial filings until the end of the first quarter of this year. Howard Wolfson, a Clinton spokesman, said that Mr. Kao was continuing to advise Mrs. Clinton, without pay, in her presidential bid, on issues of innovation and how America competes in the 21st century market.
The two met in 2004 as part of a Defense Department advisory group to help the military think creatively about “transformation,” leadership and other issues.
Mr. Kao, who has taught at Harvard Business School, is the author of “Jamming: The Art and Discipline of Corporate Creativity,” in which he explains how members of a work team can adapt the principles of improvisational music to collaborate at a higher, more creative level, a process he calls “getting to cool.”
In his “transformation manifesto,” Mr. Kao suggests hiring a “chief destruction officer” instead of a “chief innovation officer.” Organizations, he says, “must ruthlessly trash outmoded obstructions to creativity,” including “a confining brand image” and “revered memories of old successes.”
Mr. Wolfson called Mr. Kao brilliant, adding: “He provides an out-of-the-box thinking that is also very grounded in the everyday world.”
http://thecaucus.blogs.nytimes.com/