"Yes to the Mess: Surprising Leadership Lessons from Jazz" is written by jazz pianist and management professor Frank Barrett. It is published by the Harvard Business Review Press.
According to the author, when faced with complexity and change, the world's best leaders and teams improvise. They come up with new ideas, even if the outcome is uncertain and they take calculated risks. They don't dwell on mistakes, and let each person shine.
The author's premise is that jazz musicians do the same thing. They experiment, they take turns soloing and then supporting each other. This improvisational “jazz mind-set” and the skills that go along with it, he says, are essential for effective leadership today.
What's inside this book? You'll find stories about jazz greats such as Miles Davis and Sonny Rollins, as well as the author's own learnings from being a jazz musician. It's distilled into 7 principles for leading in a time of change and complexity, and each principle has its own chapter.
