Rachel: The best-selling solo jazz album in history, a recording that sold 3.5 million copies, was played on a piano that was literally broken. The artist called it 'unplayable.' Justine: Hold on, what? Unplayable? That sounds like the setup for a disaster, not a masterpiece. Rachel: Exactly. And that single, messy fact is what we’re exploring today: the hidden power of complete and utter disorder. It’s the core idea in the book Messy: The Power of Disorder to Transform Our Lives by Tim Harford. Justine: Tim Harford, I know that name. Isn't he the "Undercover Economist" from the Financial Times? The guy who’s brilliant at finding the hidden economic logic in everyday things? Rachel: That's the one. And in Messy, he applies that same lens to challenge one of our most deeply held beliefs: that tidy is always better. The book was widely acclaimed for this, but it also sparked some debate, which we’ll get into. But first, you have to hear this story. Justine: I’m all ears. Unplayable. What does that even mean? Tell me everything.

Rachel: Okay, so picture this: Cologne, Germany, 1975. A 17-year-old girl named Vera Brandes, the youngest concert promoter in the country, has staked her entire reputation on a late-night jazz concert with the legendary pianist, Keith Jarrett. It's a sellout, 1,400 people are coming. Justine: A seventeen-year-old? The pressure must have been immense. Rachel: You have no idea. Jarrett arrives, exhausted and in pain from a bad back, and walks over to the piano he’s supposed to play. He hits a few keys and immediately stops. He tells Vera, "It's unplayable." Justine: What was actually wrong with it? Was he just being a diva? Rachel: Not at all. The opera house staff had brought out the wrong piano. It wasn't the grand concert piano he requested; it was a tiny, beat-up rehearsal piano. The black keys were sticky, the pedals didn't work properly, and the felt was so worn down that the high notes sounded tinny and harsh, while the bass notes were barely audible. It was a wreck. Justine: Oh, that’s a nightmare. So they just wheeled in a better one, right? Rachel: They couldn't. It was late, raining, and there was no other piano available. Vera was in tears, begging him to play. Jarrett refused, got in his car, and was about to leave. But seeing this teenage girl, soaked from the rain, completely devastated, he took pity on her. He got out of the car and said, "Never forget. Only for you." Justine: Wow. So he agrees to play on this piece of junk. What happens when he gets on stage? Does the audience notice? Rachel: The audience knows something is up, but then he starts to play. And this is where the magic of mess kicks in. Because the piano was so flawed, Jarrett couldn't play his usual, complex, virtuosic pieces. He was forced to adapt. Justine: How? What did he do? Rachel: He avoided the tinny upper keys entirely. To make the weak bass notes heard, he started hammering these powerful, rumbling, repetitive bass figures with his left hand, creating a sound that was almost like a trance. He had to invent a whole new style of playing, right there on the spot, simply to compensate for the instrument's failures. Justine: So the very thing that was supposed to ruin the concert is what made it legendary? Rachel: Precisely. The recording of that night, The Köln Concert, became his most celebrated work. Harford calls this an "arbitrary shock." It's a disruption that forces you out of your comfortable habits and makes you improvise. Your brain has to find a new path. Justine: That makes me think of that other story in the book, about the London Underground strike. Commuters were furious that their normal routes were closed, but after the strike, one in twenty of them stuck with their new route because they’d accidentally discovered it was faster or cheaper. They only found the better way because their tidy, predictable routine was disrupted. Rachel: Exactly. We get stuck in what works, even if it’s not optimal. We need that mess, that jolt, to force us to explore. Jarrett was at the peak of his powers, but this broken piano pushed him to an even higher, more wonderful peak he never would have found on his own. Justine: Okay, so constraints can make a lone genius brilliant. But what about teams? My experience is that teams need less mess, not more. They need clear goals and no distractions. Throwing a broken piano into a team project sounds like a recipe for chaos.

Rachel: That is the perfect question, because Harford argues that team dynamics are a fascinating paradox of mess. He presents two completely opposite models for success. On one hand, you have what he calls "bonding." Justine: Bonding. Like a super-tight, focused group? Rachel: Exactly. Think of the British men's 8+ rowing team before the 2000 Sydney Olympics. They were a bunch of underdogs, not the star athletes. So they made a pact. They completely isolated themselves. They skipped the Olympic opening ceremony, they were forbidden from talking about their performance with anyone outside the boat. They bonded so tightly that their commitment to each other became their superpower. Justine: And it worked? Rachel: They won the gold medal, Britain's first in that event since 1912. They succeeded by shutting out the messy outside world and creating a perfectly ordered, committed internal unit. Justine: See! That proves my point. Less mess, more focus. Rachel: But wait. Harford immediately contrasts this with the complete opposite approach, which he calls "bridging." And his prime example is the mathematician Paul Erdős. Justine: I’ve never heard of him. Rachel: He was one of the most prolific mathematicians in history, and he was a nomad. He had no home, no job. He just traveled the world, showing up on the doorsteps of other mathematicians, and announcing, "My brain is open!" Justine: He would just show up and start doing math with strangers? Rachel: Yes! He was a human bridge. He would work with someone on a problem in one field, then travel to another country and realize that a concept from his last collaboration could solve a totally different problem for his new collaborator. He was a messy, chaotic, walking network of ideas. He connected thousands of people who would have otherwise never interacted. Justine: So which is it? Do you lock your team in a room like the rowers, or do you send them out to wander the earth like Paul Erdős? It feels like you can't do both. Rachel: Harford’s insight is that the most innovative groups are often networks of bonded teams. He uses the example of the video game industry. The most successful, groundbreaking games aren't made by one big, happy family. They're made when two or three separate, tightly-bonded teams—say, a team of artists and a team of programmers who have very different ways of working—are forced to collaborate. Justine: So it’s the creative friction, the messiness between the tidy groups, that creates the spark. Rachel: Exactly. It’s not about team harmony; it’s about goal harmony. The discomfort and arguments that come from bridging different perspectives are what lead to breakthroughs. This is where some of the criticism of the book comes in, though. Some readers have pointed out that celebrating this kind of "creative tension" is easier for high-stakes, creative fields. In a regular office, that just sounds like a stressful meeting. Justine: Yeah, I can see that. It’s one thing for David Bowie to use Brian Eno’s weird "Oblique Strategy" cards to make an album, but if my boss told me to "Think like a gardener" when I’m trying to finish a report, I’d be confused, not inspired. Rachel: That's a fair point, and it brings us to the most relatable kind of mess: the physical mess of our workplaces.

Justine: Okay, let's talk about this. The messy desk. Is it a sign of genius or just a sign of a slob? I feel like our culture is obsessed with tidiness—minimalism, clean-desk policies, everything perfectly organized. Rachel: Harford argues that this obsession is deeply counterproductive. And his star exhibit is a legendary building at MIT called Building 20. Justine: Building 20? Sounds official. Rachel: It was the opposite. It was built hastily during World War II as a "temporary" structure. It was an ugly, plywood firetrap. The walls were thin, the layout was a confusing maze, and it was never meant to last. Justine: Sounds awful. Rachel: It was a dump. But it became one ofthe most creative places on the planet. Nine Nobel laureates did their work there. The first video game was invented there. Noam Chomsky revolutionized linguistics there. Why? Because it was a mess that nobody cared about. Justine: What do you mean, "nobody cared about it"? Rachel: The building was so cheap and ugly that the administration didn't enforce any rules. Researchers had total autonomy. If a team needed more space, they just took a sledgehammer and knocked down a wall. If they needed to run a cable for an experiment, they just punched a hole in the ceiling. It was endlessly adaptable. Physicists would bump into linguists in the hallway, sparking conversations that would never happen in a formal, siloed building. The mess facilitated serendipity. Justine: So all these sleek, minimalist, open-plan offices are actually hurting creativity? My mind is kind of blown. I'm a "piler," I have stacks of paper on my desk, and I've always felt a little guilty about it. Rachel: You shouldn't! Harford cites research showing that messy desks often function as sophisticated, real-time filing systems. The things on top are the most urgent. The things in the middle are for later. The people with perfectly clean desks—the "filers"—often spend huge amounts of time organizing things they never look at again. The most important factor isn't tidiness; it's autonomy. Studies show that workers who are empowered to arrange their own space, even with just a couple of plants and pictures, are up to 30% more productive than those in a lean, pre-designed space. Justine: That’s incredible. It’s not about the mess itself, it’s about the control. It’s about being able to shape your environment to fit your workflow, not the other way around. Rachel: Exactly. The mess is a sign of life, of engagement, of work in progress. A perfectly tidy space can often be a sign of stagnation.

Justine: So what's the big takeaway here? Should we all just stop cleaning our desks and start picking fights with our colleagues to foster "creative tension"? Rachel: I think the deeper insight is that we need to re-evaluate our relationship with control. It's not about seeking out mess for its own sake, but about embracing productive disorder. It’s about recognizing that the optimal path isn't always the tidiest or most direct one. The real enemy is sterile rigidity, whether it’s in our creative process, our teams, or our physical spaces. Justine: It comes back to that piano, doesn't it? Keith Jarrett didn't choose to play on a broken instrument. The mess was forced upon him. The genius was in his response to it. Rachel: That's the heart of it. Life is inherently messy. It will throw broken pianos and transport strikes and chaotic projects at you. The question isn't how to avoid the mess, but how to dance with it. How do you find the unexpected opportunity within the disruption? Justine: I love that. It feels much more realistic than striving for some impossible ideal of perfect order. It’s about building resilience. Rachel: It is. So here’s a small, concrete action for our listeners. The next time you face a small disruption—a blocked road, a cancelled meeting, a technical glitch—don't just get frustrated. Take a breath and ask yourself: what new path could this open up? What am I being forced to see that I would have otherwise missed? Justine: That’s a great challenge. And we'd love to hear from our listeners. What's a 'messy' situation—a project, a trip, a moment—that surprisingly worked out for the better? Let us know. It’s a reminder that sometimes the best-laid plans are the ones that fall apart. Rachel: This is Aibrary, signing off.