Episode Details

Welcome to Revise and Resubmit, your weekend escape into ideas with our Weekend Book Review! Today, we’re diving into a book that takes something as spontaneous as jazz improvisation and applies it to the unpredictable rhythms of the business world. We’re talking about "The Routledge Companion to Improvisation in Organizations", edited by an impressive quartet: Miguel Pina e Cunha, Dusya Vera, António Cunha Meneses Abrantes, and Anne Miner.

The editors bring a wealth of global expertise—Cunha teaches at Nova School of Business in Portugal, Vera leads as the Ian O. Ihnatowycz Chair in Leadership at Ivey Business School in Canada, Abrantes sharpens team performance insights at TBS Business School in France, and Miner, now Professor Emerita at Wisconsin, has long championed research on innovation and strategy. Together, they offer a fresh take on how improvisation—long admired in music and theatre—becomes a critical skill for organizations navigating uncertainty.

The book explores how firms across industries have turned to improvisation to thrive through the pandemic, adapting quickly in the face of unexpected challenges. It introduces frameworks like the 12P model to structure improvisational actions, making the case that agility, leadership, and strategic planning must all dance together to create resilient organizations.

A big thank you to the editors and Routledge, Taylor & Francis for publishing this important work. But here’s the real question: What if the key to long-term business success lies not in planning every move—but in mastering the art of making it up as you go?

Reference

e Cunha, M. P., Vera, D., Abrantes, A. C. M., & Miner, A. (Eds.). (2023). The Routledge Companion to Improvisation in Organizations. Taylor & Francis. https://doi.org/10.4324/9781003171768