Comparing Fleetwood Mac to Picasso & Cezanne

[vivfox]

April 30, 2008

Innovation: Are you a Picasso or a Cezanne?

I just attended the Women President's Organization Annual Conference in Boston, where Malcolm was the opening keynote speaker. The focus of this year's conference was innovation.

Malcolm Gladwell is this very articulate guy, with wild hair -- just to give you a visual. He's written Tipping Point and Blink, and has another book due out soon -- and he writes a column in the New Yorker magazine. Here are some of his thoughts about innovation:

When thinking about innovation, he has read a book by David Galenson, called "Old Masters and Young Geniuses: The two life cycles of Artistic Creativity" -- and pulled some of his concepts from this book.

He asserted that innovation comes in two forms: Conceptual Innovators and Experimental Innovators. He likened the first (conceptual innovator) to Picasso, who had bold revolutionary ideas that he conceptualized, and then executed swiftly and efficiently. He likened the Experimental Innovators to Cezanne, who sort of poke around, can't really talk about what the end result will be, learns through trial and error, does lots of research, and gets better and better until becomes genius.

Picasso had moments of brilliance, while Cezanne never had moments of brilliance -- and their careers were profoundly different. Picasso produced his most famous (and now most expensive) work while in his twenties. The Cubist movement in art was accomplished within the 10 years following that. While Cezanne produced his most notable work (and most expensive) in his 50's, after toiling his entire life on his art.

Malcolm asserted that Innovation takes two forms -- as outlined by Picasso and Cezanne. He said that businesses and investors like the Conceptual Innovator because you can talk about and outline exactly what you are going to do, how it's going to turn out, etc., and then execute it. They don' like the Experimental Innovator, precisely because they have a vision of what's possible, but cannot really talk about it -- they don't really know what exactly it will look like when they get there, and they just start out experimenting and learning through trial and error.

He also said that is why some industries are in trouble today. There is value in recognizing the different forms of innovation. He spoke a little about his distaste for some of our educational methods that expect children are either good at math instantly, or they never will be as discounting and in fact not even recognizing the possibility of the "late bloomer" (i.e. Cezanne).

He brought up Fleetwood Mac -- and their most famous album, Rumours. He asked us how many albums Fleetwood Mac produced before producing Rumours (which is the top all-time selling album in history)? Most of us thought it was their second, possibly third album -- nope -- it was their 16th! Then he took us through the Fleetwood Mac history - they started in the mid-1960's, it took them 10 years, they had 16 different people come and go from that band before they got it right. They switched genre's many times. And they had someone in the industry that stood by them, who believed in them -- and that paid off BIG with Rumours. But that wouldn't happen in today's music industry -- an artist gets ONE single -- it makes it or it doesn't, and if not, they are history. Because they only reward the conceptual innovator.

Why are we so biased towards Picasso rather than Cezanne?
1. You can describe what you are doing before you start.
2. Cezanne can never tell you what they're doing -- pales to Picasso because you cannot describe beforehand.

When he related the drug research stuff, and how this approach has impacted those endeavors -- they discovered if you can understand the nature of something, you can describe the solution and then target your research efforts -- which is how the pharmaceutical industry now does it's research - and that sounds good, except most things aren't that cut and dried. There are all kinds of stuff you discover that you never can predict. The best discoveries happen by accident.

He says we need patience -- to buckle down and do the tough work. Some of the very best kind of innovation takes time. There are a certain class of problems that cannot be solved overnight, and that patience is sorely lacking in business today. While both types of innovation are necessary, you can't have a successful world when you're only following or allowing for one.

Which are you? Can you be a blend of both? Are Picasso and Cezanne two ends of the same "innovation" continuum? Which gets fostered more?

Visit Malcolm Gladwell's website at http://www.gladwell.com/ for links to his writings.

http://www.salesxmarketing.com/

[SortaSavageLike]

Ummmm....

Fleetwood Mac
Mr. Wonderful
Then Play On
Kiln House
Future Games
Bare Trees
Mystery To Me
Penguin
Heroes Are Hard To Find
Fleetwood Mac II: The Wrath of Mac
Rumours

That's 11 studio albums, unless I somehow managed to miss five of them.

[HejiraNYC]

Originally Posted by SortaSavageLike

Ummmm....

Fleetwood Mac
Mr. Wonderful
Then Play On
Kiln House
Future Games
Bare Trees
Mystery To Me
Penguin
Heroes Are Hard To Find
Fleetwood Mac II: The Wrath of Mac
Rumours

That's 11 studio albums, unless I somehow managed to miss five of them.

I think there were a couple of singles compilations in there too, such as "Pious Bird of Good Omen," "English Rose," and "Albatross" (which was half FM, half Christine Perfect). And I'm not sure if "Live in Boston" was released back then or if that was more of a recent CD-age release. I'm sure there are other compilations or live albums...

[HejiraNYC]

Originally Posted by vivfox

He asserted that innovation comes in two forms: Conceptual Innovators and Experimental Innovators. He likened the first (conceptual innovator) to Picasso, who had bold revolutionary ideas that he conceptualized, and then executed swiftly and efficiently. He likened the Experimental Innovators to Cezanne, who sort of poke around, can't really talk about what the end result will be, learns through trial and error, does lots of research, and gets better and better until becomes genius.

Picasso had moments of brilliance, while Cezanne never had moments of brilliance -- and their careers were profoundly different. Picasso produced his most famous (and now most expensive) work while in his twenties. The Cubist movement in art was accomplished within the 10 years following that. While Cezanne produced his most notable work (and most expensive) in his 50's, after toiling his entire life on his art.

http://www.salesxmarketing.com/

I think one could argue that Stevie is more of a "conceptual innovator" while Lindsey is more of the "experimental innovator." Stevie basically set the road map for her career at the get-go (witchy outfits, ornate imagery, English literature) and stayed on it whereas Lindsey has been a bit more of a "soul drifter" who tries out different things on a whim. Perhaps that is at the root of their inability to work together harmoniously.

[michelej1]

Lindsey is going to be miffed that someone compared painting to music. That's his job!

Michele