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Critics Corner: Critical Resistance to the Jazz Metaphor
Author(s): Mary Jo Hatch and Karl E. Weick
Source:
Organization Science,
Vol. 9, No. 5, Special Issue: Jazz Improvisation and Organizing
(Sep. - Oct., 1998), pp. 600-604
Published by: INFORMS
Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/2640302
Accessed: 30/11/2010 15:25
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Critics'
Corner
Critical
Resistance
to
the
Jazz
Metaphor
Mary Jo Hatch * Karl E. Weick
Cranfield University, Cranfield, Bedford, MK43 OAL
England
School of Business Administration, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, Michigan 48109
M ary Jo Hatch received a surprising
set of reactions when she began talking
about
jazz on the
colloquium circuit soon after the Vancouver
concert. She agonized over these
reactions in a brief
note she sent to the three co-editors.
(A revised
version
appears below.)
Upon reading
the note, Weick had a quick, reasonably
intense "'counterpoint"
reaction. Hatch's
comment
appears
below. Following that, unedited-just as was the case for Bemiker's spontaneous
reaction
to the symposium-we reproduce
Weick's comments to the other two editors
upon reading
Hatch's note. Alan
Meyer
To: Alan Meyer, Peter Frost, Karl Weick
From: Mary Jo Hatch
Subject: Critical Resistance to the Jazz Metaphor
Since helping to organize and participating in the Jazz
Symposium at the Academy of Management in 1995, I have had
several opportunities to present my ideas about the jazz
metaphor for organizing to colleagues in academic institutions
in Europe and New Zealand. I have experienced considerable
resistance to the use of the jazz metaphor and I believe that it
is important to acknowledge this in the special issue--if only as
ballast to the enthusiasms being expressed here. As I am partly
responsible for sharing and promoting these enthusiasms,
perhaps I am the last person who should be allowed to raise these
issues. Nonetheless, for the sake of having them raised, albeit
through the dusty lens of my own interpretive biases, I offer
here my understanding of some points of resistance to the jazz
metaphor and the limits of its application to organizing that
these imply.
It is, of course, widely accepted that all metaphors have their
limits. In the case of the jazz metaphor, the most obvious of
these would likely be the long list of ways that organizing is not
like jazz. For instance, a counter-argument might invoke images
such as bureaucracy or conservatism. However, as I have argued
above, these elements are not foreign to jazz as a field of
endeavor, so I think these obvious limits to the analogy are less
critical than the ones I want to present below. (I should point
out, for the sake of theoretical and historical context, that
those who raised the criticisms I am about to relate to you linked
1
047-7039/98/0905/0600/$05.OO
Copyright
?O
1998, Institute for Operations
Research
600 ORGANIZATION SCIENCE/VOl. 9, NO. 5. September-October 1998 and the Management
Sciences
MARY JO HATCH AND KARL WEICK Critical Resistance to the Jazz Metaphor
them with the positions adopted in recent years by advocates of
feminist, neo-Marxist, and critical theory perspectives.)
I will focus here on two critiques that I have encountered
repeatedly. One critique centers on the charge of elitism and the
other on the charge of sexism, both of which were raised against
jazz and then generalized to the jazz metaphor for organizing. I
can argue back that these criticisms may relate to the historical
development of jazz, or to its current practice, and are not
necessary conditions for its future practice. But at the same
time, my own experiences developing the jazz metaphor do not
entirely invalidate either charge. For this reason I feel
strongly that these views must be given consideration alongside
our development of the metaphor in this special issue.
At a presentation to a group of faculty and students in New
Zealand, a young master's student and budding critical theorist
bluntly raised a challenge that captures, if a bit naively, the
essence of the Marxist position. He said something like,
''Aren't you worried that this will be used as a tool of
domination by management?'' His critique has been echoing in my
ears even since, as it has been repeated in various forms by
others who explore the paths of critical theory.
Ultimately, any metaphor, any idea, any knowledge can be and is
used to dominate, whether through influence or oppression. This
point was driven home by Foucault and is used by some as an excuse
for dismantling and discarding all products of human intellect.
But more subtle, less radical, readings of Foucault suggest
another alternative: to increase consciousness of the ways in
which knowledge is linked to power so that whenever we use our
knowledge, we do so with awareness of its political and
ideological implications. It is this latter consideration,
rather than the former strong argument (based, it seems to me, on
a value-laden assumption that all domination is bad and
avoidable), that drives my appreciation of the criticisms of
elitism and sexism that were offered in resistance to the jazz
metaphor. (Note: the criticism of racism is largely absent in the
organizational discourse surrounding this metaphor, though it
is a major critique raisedwithin the jazz community, one which
rests on the inescapable irony that jazz was originally
developed by blacks in the southern U.S. as a countercultural
form of expression by an oppressed minority, and has since been
appropriated over and over again by white music producers,
musicians, and audiences all over the world who sometimes forget
or ignore its history and racial roots.)
There are probably many ways to examine the charge of elitism
in jazz. In my view, the charge seems to stick most tenaciously to
the widely held perception that jazz musicians perform for
themselves. That is, jazz musicians develop their music onstage
through a set of musical interactions targeted toward one
another rather than toward the audience. In talking with a number
of jazz musicians and reading Berliner's carefully documented
and informative ethnography of jazz performers and performance,
it would appear that the charge is mostly accurate. When playing
jazz, musicians are constantly challenging themselves to listen
to all of what the other musicians are playing, though quite
often they admit to falling short of this ideal. Those magical
moments in jazz associated with ''finding the groove'' and
''becoming one'' with the music, require total absorption in
listening and responding to one another. The limits of
musicians' ability, in the face of the need to listen to everyone
and everything at once, translate into a nearly exclusive focus
ORGANIZATION SCIENCE/VOl. 9, NO. 5, September-October 1998 601
MARY JO HATCH
AND KARL WEICK Critical Resistance to the Jazz Metaphor
on each other. This aspect of the practice of jazz performance
may lie at the heart of the charge that jazz is performed for the
jazz musicians themselves. But it extends beyond this when the
musicians feel they know better than anyone else whether they
have achieved their goal or failed to do so. While some audience
members may understand what is going on onstage and appreciate
both successes and failures, many show undiscriminating
appreciation of both good and bad performance. Some jazz artists
generalize the undiscriminating responses and use this as a
reason to pour disdain on their audiences. (This reaction is
probably not unrelated to the differences in earning potential--
another indicator of appreciation--between jazz musicians and
the majority of people who come to listen to them.) Both these
elements of jazz (the need to listen and the resentment of
undiscriminating tastes) contribute to the charge of elitism, as
do certain artists' displays of egotism (e.g., being extremely
late for performances and other expressions of rudeness).
What is important about this from the standpoint of the jazz
metaphor for organizing is that we would obviously not want to
transfer insularity, exclusion or egotism onto our notions of
organizing (e.g., jazz organizing is when managers only listen
to each other). I do not consider this is a likely danger in
postindustrial organizations where I feel the jazz metaphor has
the most to contribute, as the predictions are that
postindustrial managers will play a much less central and
authoritarian role than they have in traditional, hierarchical
organizations. But this is an assumption in need of
verification, and a certain amount of nervousness seems
justified. The point a critic might make is that elitism itself
should be resisted and if the jazz metaphor is a symbol of elitism
(justly or unjustly) then that alone is reason to resist it.
Let me now switch to the second criticism of the jazz metaphor
that I encountered in my wanderings: the charge of sexism. One
seemingly unavoidable observation is that jazz music has been
overwhelmingly the province of men. While there are notable
exceptions, women are relatively rare on stage. Vocalists are
the main exception. Ella Fitzgerald, Billie Holiday and Sarah
Vaughan are among the many fine Black female vocalists making
significant contributions that continue to influence jazz. Of
course, these artists' personal stories reveal the hardships of
both racism and sexism. Women are also underrepresented in
audiences at jazz performances. This is often put down to the
aggressiveness of the music which is claimed to have a stronger
appeal for men than for woman. So another point of criticism is
that the jazz metaphor is potentially sexist. Counter-argument
might focus on the interpretation of potentiality. Women can and
do play and enjoy this music, so jazz is not necessarilymale. In
fact a large proportion of the male population has no taste for
jazz.
Nonetheless, the criticism is nagging. I have heard jazz
musicians claim that women have the same opportunities as men in
the competitive world of jazz, but isn't it the men, by and large,
who define the forms this competition takes? No one will deny
that women can be enormously competitive, or that maleness is not
the same for all men, or that jazz is as collaborative as it is
competitive. Fair enough. There are many ways to repel the charge
of sexism, but the demographics still stand. Where are the women?
The critical point is: If we apply the jazz metaphor to
organizing, will we reproduce the very gender relations we claim
we are trying to alter as we move toward the diversity-based
organizations we envision as our future?
602 ORGANIZATION
SCIENCE/VOl. 9, NO. 5, September-October 1998
MARY JO HATCH
AND KARL WEICK Critical Resistance to the Jazz Metaphor
There are many issues to be untangled and this is not the place
and I am not the person to carry that proj ect forward from here. I
think the concern about sexism, however, needs to be registered
alongside the advocacy of the jazz metaphor. Jazz is often
represented as an aggressive musical form and the mode of
competitiveness it has historically engendered (sic) repeats
many patterns associated with the exclusion of feminine
perspectives (acknowledging that there are notable dimensions
of male experience that are also excluded).
Finally I would like to relate a third comment that was quite
common in response to my presentations but that does not at first
appear to carry the same critical weight as the sexist and
elitist charges. I bring it up here because, in the end, it may be
related to both of the other critiques. This comment took the
general form: ''I don't like jazz and therefore I don't like [and
will resist participating in the use of] the jazz metaphor.''
This may not be a criticism so much as a matter of emotional
response and/or aesthetic judgment, nonetheless it represents
another important limitation to the application of the jazz
metaphor in organizational settings. Those who do not like jazz
may reject and refuse to participate in applications of the
metaphor. Insofar as women are less likely than men to appreciate
jazz, their exclusion from activities arising from its
metaphorical application deserves serious consideration. It is
in this sense that the jazz metaphor is not only elitist (only
those who like jazz are permitted into the inner circle of its
application as a metaphor), but sexist as well, or potentially
so. Herein lies a more general criticism of all uses of metaphor
in management: all metaphors imply some form of exclusion
because not everyone will resonate with or agree with their
implied comparisons. This implication of the critique is not, in
my view, that metaphor should be avoided (that would be a
crippling outcome), but that it is imperative for those who use
metaphors as management tools to become conscious of their power
to exclude.
Let me conclude by repeating that I do not raise these
criticisms and points of resistance in order to undermine the
jazz metaphor. I find over and over again that the jazz metaphor
offers vision for new organizational forms and inspiration to
the problems of collaborative organizational change,
inspiration that I am now using in the face of my own managerial
responsibilities as an administrator at my university. My
purpose in raising these counter-claims is to more fully
investigate and more thoroughly understand the jazz metaphor and
its practical implications and I believe that this requires
consideration of its limits and the critical responses and
interpretations that are made in its wake.
The points of criticism and resistance I mention here are by no
means new; elitism and sexism are long-standing critiques of
managerialism. But they bear repeating in the context of
developing the jazz metaphor. If jazz simply resonates with and
reinforces elitism or reproduces unexamined assumptions that
justify exclusion of women or feminine points of view, then jazz
as a metaphor of organizing will not be likely to promote the
organizational changes we claim in support of its use. Our
development of the jazz metaphor was intended to overcome these
problems by more rigorously exploring the ways in which jazz
musicians create jazz, but it assumes that these messages, once
sent, will be received as they were intended. Such an assumption
has taken a battering of late. It does not take much
ORGANIZATION
SCIENCE/VOl. 9, NO. 5, September-October 1998 603
MARY JO HATCH
AND KARL WEICK Critical Resistance to the Jazz Metaphor
observational sophistication to recognize how little of the work
we do to complicate understanding actually achieves our
objectives. We need to acknowledge that there will be some who
take a literal approach to this metaphor: whatever jazz is for
them (elitism, male domination, aggression, playfulness or
improvisation) will be transferred directly to the organization
as a product of our advocacy of the metaphor. I do not feel that we
can hold the developers of knowledge accountable for its uses.
However, ignoring those negative results that we can easily
foresee seems naive. Hearing these criticisms has motivated me
to take greater care in presenting the jazz metaphor, and
particularly in answering the variety of responses that it
provokes. To follow up the special issue's presentation with a
critical consideration of the jazz metaphor's multiple
consequences strikes me as a way to encourage its more
responsible use.
To: Alan Meyer, Peter Frost
From: Karl Weick
Subject: Mary Jo's Critique
I guess there is nothing lost in publishing the Hatch note as
''other voices'', but I think Jo perpetuates a misunderstanding
we might not intend. We're not touting jazz. We're touting
improvisation and resilience as an alternative to planning and
anticipating. Jazz is a convenient illustration of how it works,
but so are improv theater (Crossan), production scheduling that
has to be reconfigured in real time (Barry Turner), non-routine
work (Reuben McDaniel), and emergent strategies (Henry
Mintzberg) . Musicians listen to one another to make it work and
to shut out distractions and to build something mutually, all of
which would be just fine if managers did more of it. It's the very
fact that managers want to please everyone that makes their
interventions so pedestrian and non-visionary. Elitism is a red-
herring and draws attention away from the point that acting
thinkingly is what we need to understand better.
As for women in jazz, Maiden Voyage is one of the hottest LA
jazz orchestras right now and it is 19 women strong. Some of the
best work currently comes from the orchestras of Maria
Schneider, Carla Bley, Nancie Banks, Kit McClure, Sherrie
Maricle, and Toshiko Akiyoshi, and from small groups led by Jane
Ira Bloom, Barbara Dennerlein, Jane Bunnett, Eliane Elias,
Jessica Williams and the late Emily Remmler. I know, so what?
I'd bet I hate 60%-80% of the jazz I hear, but so what too? That
doesn't lead me to dismiss my wonder regarding what they (jazz
performers) do or how they do it or how I could incorporate some
of that into the ways I cope with turbulence using minimal
structures.
I know what you're thinking: all Weick is doing is showing how
provocative Jo is. In part, yes. In part, no--the no being--this
special issue is about jazz as a means to larger insights into
collective action, not jazz as an end to be embraced or
jettisoned. We're, or at least I'm, not pushing jazz as much as
I'm pushing improvisation, which is visible and easy to grasp in
modern jazz.
604 ORGANIZATION
SCIENCE/Vol. 9, NO. 5, September-October 1998
