Recently on a flight I heard a remarkable story about creativity and change. Those things we tend to rant and rage against for disrupting our way of thinking and leading. The story is about a disruptive occurrence in 1975 in Cologne, Germany where a young lady with ambitions greater than her skills enmeshed her with the legendary jazz pianist Keith Jarrett.

I think of this story from the point of view of serendipity when we unimaginably chime for things they have always been. But change management is that way. A relentless fight against the peons of “This is the way we have always done things around here.”

Vera Brandes was a 17-year-old and part-time promoter with little experience who somehow had persuaded highly successful Keith Jarrett to come to Cologne to play. She also managed to persuade the Cologne Opera house with 1400 seats to host Jarrett.

She is just a kid.

Her skills and experience did not match up. There was some miscommunication for when she and Jarrett stepped onto the stage to rehearse the piano had certainly been well used. Not only was it the wrong piano it was dilapidated.  They were both aghast. It happened to be a rehearsal model retrieved from some little corner.

It wasn’t the grand piano they had requested.

It is worth noting that when Keith was given the news there was no time to get a replacement piano, he threatened to cancel the show. In fact, he did. Incredibly Keith Jarrett was not in fine shape. He had insufferable back pain that led to a series of sleepless nights. To make matters worse he had suffered through an exhaustive “five-hour, 350-mile drive he made to Cologne from a concert he’d given in Zurich.” Given that situation, it was no wonder that the pianist was ready to call it a day.

“It was half a piano” Vera would say. The keys were sticking. The pedals didn’t work. The felt was worn. The sound harsh and tangy. Since it was not a grand piano it wasn’t loud enough.

There were many reasons why this was a bad piano. Even more why this wasn’t going to work.

Now, Keith Jarret was quite successful and noted for his tremendous perfectionism. He was a free-thinking artist who flows in his play. His reputation was insisting everything be perfect. The concert was sold out. It was raining. At the outset Keith had said he would play. But, to be frank, he really didn’t want to play.

Vera with limited skills found herself well over her head. She went out to find his car. There she found Keith waiting for his driver to return to his hotel. She stood next to his car in a deluge of rain tapping on his window.

She taps on the window. Keith sees this 17-year-old girl drenched who won’t go away. She begs him to play. She pled with him.

In that moment he felt sorry for her. Then it occurs to him that she was just a kid and 1400 people are about to attend this concert. And there is going to be no concert.

Humbled, he says, never forget. Only for you.

He agrees to play.

This is man known for handing out cough drops to the audience, so they do not disturb the audience.

He sits down wearing a cumbersome back brace. He had waited hours for the technicians to “repair” the piano. Only to a virtuoso would the tone of the piano be unsettling. On that point there was little else to do. Then he begins to play leaning over the keyboard. Within moments it was apparent this was an astounding performance. The audience is enthralled.

He doesn’t cope or get through the performance. He produces a masterful performance. The audience was spellbound.

The music from that evening was recorded as a cautionary tale of what a disaster sounds like. It was never expected this would be a commercial success. Instead, it became a bestselling album. His magnum opus.

We might think this doesn’t apply to me

Something to remember is just because we don’t like a new change doesn’t mean it isn’t good for us. Every day, we think such stories don’t matter to us. But we must find new creative ways of doing things that no longer work.

We must find a new way.

Several years ago, the London underground suffered a partial shutdown during a labor dispute that lasted two days. That meant everyone had to find new ways to getting around to get to work.

Three economists reviewed the data and looked at what the people did to get around during those two days. They found a very large group of people commuted to work the same way every day. During the strike, they changed. They found a different way. When the 48-hour strike ended a substantial minority of them never changed back. They realized they had been doing it wrong their entire lives. It was only when the disruption comes in saying you can’t do it that way do some of us change. You must find new ways of thinking and doing. Tens of thousands of people agreed the new way is better. How many things do we do in our lives that if we were forced to do it differently, we would never go back?

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About Jim Woods

Jim Woods is President of Woods Kovalova Group. A leadership and human resources training and development company located in Denver, Colorado. He has been an adjunct professor of business and organizational development at Dickinson College, Villanova, and Colorado Technical University.

He has a master’s degree in human resources and organizational development from Capella University. The company has a global reach with clients on every continent. We’re a leading corporate learning consultancy that helps some of the most ambitious organizations redefine their future. Our work entails working with our clients as a team with a single objective: to help them achieve the results that matter most to them.

Jim’s main area of expertise is in the improvement of leadership and management of multinational corporations, and on such specific issues as corporate leadership, innovation, unconscious bias, knowledge management, and global customer management. Follow Jim: Twitter Facebook LinkedIn