peace loving integrators

Working with natural scents in perfumery is sometimes like working in corporate management, having the vision to bring a new product to the market and managing a team to reach this ultimate goal. You have the leaders of the different sub projects, alpha by nature, dominant and hard to control. The challenge: Bring those alphas together and have them join their forces to move on together towards progress. Like in perfumery, these leaders are key, and if they do not blend well, if you do not manage to tie them together for the sake of a common vision, your project will fail. In a world of growing complexity and distributed competencies this is very much true for all business endeavours. There is little room left for the super hero fighting his/her way through corporate jungles all by him- and herself.
On your way to success you will also make sure that you have all competencies needed on board. This is critical as one missing key competence will ultimately lead to failure. And again: All of them have to fit and start working together. You will need to leave room for creativity, for dispute and you must motivate each one to give his/her best without being visible and becoming a star. This is a tricky one. The world is full of failed projects where there was no dispute allowed, and the endeavours failed with everybody knowing it is going to fail and nobody was allowed to say so. Here I come back to a favourite of mine: Creativity being a flowing process and the need for balance.

In perfumery this means: Allow your notes to dispute and argue. You want the different lines to be seen. Bring in the right tones and tonalities, not more than needed not less then essential, and make sure they will support each other without loosing their individuality.

And then, finally, you have in every project team the integrators. Mother figures that stand on neutral ground, peace bringer who love all their children, balance the different interests, and hold the family together. In perfumery these are: Bergamot, jasmine and rose. Add bergamot to your head note assembly and it will open up, hard edges will become smooth, shaky lines become radiant clear. A little bit of rose will bring notes together that dispute too loud, weaving a soft fabric that covers the sharp tips within a composition, without diminishing individuality. And there are perfumers saying that every perfume needs a little bit of jasmine. At least in mine, there almost always is….
The bottom line of this post: The rose seems to work in my leather composition, too. A painful waiting time is ahead until I will have a definite answer.