Jazz is the collaborative practice of knowledge transfer- making explicit the tacit knowledge of each individual in order to transform the organization as a whole. When we improvise together our goal is to surface new ideas- to transfer knowledge from the imagination of the individual into knowledge that can be shared by the group. We’re all working off of an underlying strategy- a shared understanding and appreciation of the beauty and architecture of a tune. The process of improvisation is like research and development because it involves the rigorous exploration of possibilities inherent in that tune. There is risk involved because we don’t know what we will play until the exact moment we express our ideas. Much of what is improvised is repetition of old knowledge and capability- what worked well in the past that we know we can repeat. But the essence of improvisation is that we are always pushing the envelope-trying to hear new things by playing what we already know in new ways. This process will always yield incremental breakthroughs in insight. Insight rarely emerges any other way. Often these insights begin to emerge not through a specific idea by one individual but through a collective shift in the feeling of the groups rhythm – the groove. Sometimes it’s hard to know exactly what is surfacing. It may come as a result of something the bass player does or an energy shift created by the drummer, or even the fact that the pianist stops playing altogether leaving space where none had been. And even though the focus may be on the leadership of the sax player as he/she furiously mines the possibilities of the tune (as it is with John Coltrane’s historic rendition of Giant Steps) the process of surfacing breakthrough insights cannot be separated from the actions of the others in the band. The value of knowledge in jazz (and in organizations) becomes transformational only when it is shared. How do the structures of our organization support this essential truth about the nature of human interaction? Perhaps a more important question would be ”what aspects of organizational design inhibit the transfer of knowledge?”