Rockstars and Innovation: Stairway to Heaven

A friend recently posted a link to an article^[1] by Francois Marchand of The Vancouver Sun that covered a portion of the Kennedy Center Honors - specifically the tribute concert for Led Zepplin^[2]. Being a big fan of the Kennedy Center Honors, I watched this particular celebration when it aired on my local CBS affiliate, but the article brought something back to mind that I had temporarily forgotten - a question I had nearly every year when I watched the program - do stars realize they are creating something epic when they are creating it?

We know a lot about stars (divo or diva, if you will), especially in the US where we're constantly fed minutiae, from what they wear and eat to the foibles of their children and the sins that will be visited upon them - we even know about their demanding, uncompromising fits of rage and a little about how their attitude might be handled^[3]. It would be dishonest to imply that all the stars are thespians and musicians, after all, we in the technology industry have our share of stars (some of which, Steve Jobs for instance, have notable rants). However, we might say that all the stars consider themselves artists. It's with this area bordering aesthetics^[4] that I'm particularly interested.

First, I would posit that people, stars in particular, never realize the true nature of their creation - they may have visions of a possible future, but never fully grasp the import. Even some of the (arguably) most brilliant of minds do not realize the most minor consequences of their actions until they see the first glimpse of their creation come to life^[5]. One reason for this is that we simply cannot foresee the future. We cannot anticipate the many ways in which our creation will be re-arranged, re-interpreted, or re-worked.

A more important reason for this disconnect between the recognition of the impact a creation has and the birth of the creation, however, is in the very act of creation itself. The two events - the birth and the post-birth impact are bound to different understandings of time. Where the birth is held by kairos^[6], the impact - whether or not something is epic - is held in chronos^[7].

Some artists are entirely comfortable with this difference, willingly surrendering the telling of the story or the composing of the song to the moment and leaving the remainder to time and even going so far to say that they are driven only to create - storytellers have stories that they feel must be told, or in some cases, tell themselves, and musicians have songs they feel must be sung. It is the purity of this brief moment - a brief moment in which things are possible - that births what is epic, and even though we strive for perfection, we cannot intentionally create anything truly epic, for all of our planning and working - logos - is bound to chronos.

What does this say about pleas for organizational leadership for 'innovation' then? As we've begun to see, innovative has suddenly come to mean not only 'changed' but also carries the connotation of the change being epic as well. Innovative is revolutionary, evolutionary is passe.

There are only two directions in which we can move from this false understanding of innovation - recognize that striving for 'innovation' is irrational and therefore counterproductive, or move to the original understanding of 'innovation'.

Given that epic creations are rare and cannot be crafted through striving, strive instead to innovate in the true sense - change things, especially through small, non-fundamental (evolutionary) changes - changes like adding a choir to your arrangement of an iconic song. Not only does this approach involve less risk than major or fundamental changes, it can just as easily give birth to something epic - something that even the creator didn't imagine^[8].

Notes:

1. Heart plays Led Zeppelin’s Stairway To Heaven, makes Robert Plant cry, The Vancouver Sun, 27 December 2012.
2. Heart - Stairway to Heaven Led Zeppelin - Kennedy Center Honors
3. Robert's Rule #6: when working with rock stars, get your M&Ms ready
4. The branch of philosophy dealing with the creation, appreciation, and nature of art, beauty, and taste.
5. Oppenheimer, in recalling reaction to the first test of the creation produced by the Manhattan Project, said that he, and his fellow scientists realized the world would never be the same, and called to memory a line from the Bhagavad Gita, "now I am become death". [Video]
6. In mythology, Kairos (opportunity), was the youngest son of Zeus. He is described as running swiftly, balancing on the razor's edge, unclothed and with only a forelock - so that if you grasp him from the front, you might be able to hold him, but once he has moved on not even Zeus himself can pull him back. Because of this tie to mythology, kairos is the brief moment in which things are possible, and is a qualitative measure of time.
7. In mythology, Chronos is the personification of time and the serpentine consort of Ananke (inevitability) who co-creates the cosmos. He is not unending time (represented by Aion), but is the one turning the wheel of time and is, therefore, not a brief moment, but a quantitative measure of time.
8. Make note of the reaction of both Plant and Page throughout the video of Heart's rendition (see note 2).