The OffBeat #46: Jazz (and Leadership) as Junk Collection

The art of bricolage

I’ve never been a great, or passionate, cook but what I do love is assembling food. Think: boiling pasta and dumping some stuff in it; building charcuterie boards or egg scrambles; piling up Buddha bowls Sweetgreen-style; and my recent favorite, what I call “trash can trail mix”: essentially a combo of sweet and salty odds and ends from the pantry.

There’s some cooking-type activity involved in all of the above, but really it’s a matter of tinkering with varied materials to create a great combo. There might be a loose “recipe,” even some equipment required, even—dare I say—technique (nailing the perfect hardboiled egg, that sort of thing); but generally it’s about collecting and coordinating. Like arranging flowers, but with food.

Or like jazz.

Frank J. Barrett’s Yes to the Mess compares jazz improv to “bricolage,” or the construction of something from a diverse range of available things:

“The anthropologist Claude Lévi-Strauss first coined the term bricolage; those who practice it are bricoleurs. They tinker with a myriad of disparate materials and put seemingly unrelated things together into some semblance of order. They are junk collectors who bring order out of chaos. Both bricoleurs and jazz musicians examine and query the raw materials available and then entice order, creating unique combinations as they work through their resources.”

In jazz, this “junk collecting” is existential; the music would not be without the creative combination of tones and sounds. (Smaller jazz bands are even known as combos!)

I believe the same is true of leadership in the workplace. Having always looked younger than my age, and often been one of the youngest at my level or around the conference table, I used to get so frustrated by the counsel that sheer years of experience was the most critical contributor to corporate success. I couldn’t make time go faster, and I was in whatever situation right then; it was of no use to know that down the road I’d be able to navigate these circumstances comfortably. Now, with the advantage, ironically, of time, I subscribe to this quote from Jacob Cass:

“It’s not about how many years of experience you have. It’s about the quality of your years of experience.” 

Two years at a startup is different from two years at a Fortune 500; five years working under a useless boss is different from five working for a transformative leader.

BUT: I also believe there is a huge benefit to the elapse of time, and it’s different than what I’d suspected (which was that age unlocked wisdom, like a perk you earn when you reach an airline’s top loyalty tier). Instead, what I see as the benefit is this: the opportunity to collect “junk”—to pick up threads of inspiration from a medley of bosses and colleagues and folks you admire in your industry, to collect coins of creativity from executing a range of programs and seeing results bear out—in service of generating your own theories and principles.

This business-world bricolage is what led me to develop each of my career “jazz standards” (my leadership philosophy, my approach to brand marketing, etc.):

The OffBeat #24: Identifying Your Career "Jazz Standards"

It’s also what drives my creative inspiration diet. I like consuming a range of sources to feed my brain with a miscellany of input.

Tom Cox

has a great quote:

“I love the abstract stew that the books I’ve read gradually combine to create with my own experiences, disappointments, hopes, human encounters, fears, passions.”

That’s how I think about not just the books I read but the newsletters I subscribe to, the sites I scan, the social accounts I follow, the WhatsApp groups I’m a part of, the conversations I have with marketers way smarter than me. It’s all a matter of accumulation of stimuli, experience, and intel, the sum of which is greater than its parts.

“Garbage” in, “garbage” out — maybe that’s a good thing?

Have a great week,

Allison