CHAPTER 13 On Creative Spirit
thinking and not inhibit anyone’s creativity. With a conductor in control
guiding the process, ideas will be flowing in no time.
Of course, your choice of conductor will influence matters immense-
ly, so how do you select the right conductor? I believe it’s important to let
go a little and explore. The conductor needn’t always be the most senior
member present, indeed, if that member is worthy of their seniority, they’ll
understand that empowering others and letting them take the baton can
have surprising and often game-changing results.
Try rotating the baton and let every member of the team conduct a
passage, for short, sharp periods of differing inputs. You’ll soon find that in
most of your team members – if you offer them encouragement – lies the
ability to stir a rousing number.
Let go, listen to the conductor, and just start playing.The wizaRD of Menlo PaRK
An inventor, businessman and school dropout, Thomas Edison (1847–1931),
is perhaps best known for his prodigious inventions, including: the pho-
nograph (a little similar to an iPod, only older and – well – different); the
motion picture camera; and, of course, the electric light bulb.
But it is Edison’s approach to team management and coordination that
remains perhaps his most interesting, if often overlooked, achievement.
Nicknamed ‘The Wizard of Menlo Park’, Edison was one of the first
businessmen to apply the principles of mass production and large-scale
teamwork to the process of invention. He is perhaps one of the first true
conductors, leading a team of scientists and researchers at his “invention
factory” at Menlo Park Laboratory, widely considered to be the world’s first
industrial research laboratory. As Edison’s long-standing assistant, Francis
Jehl, put it: “Edison is in reality a collective noun and means the work of
many men.”
By creating a laboratory that was filled with all the materials necessary
— as Edison put it: “a stock of almost every conceivable material” —