By Kevin Gecowets
Creativity is a Team Sport
While there are creative geniuses in the world, their existence is the exception rather than the rule. For most of us, creativity is a team sport. If you want to create good ideas that lead to innovation, then here are some good reasons to do it with a team.
Why do we need creative teams?
In a presentation to the Army War College Army General Maxwell Thurman described how our world is volatile, uncertain, complex, and ambiguous. This VUCA world means we cannot hope to solve our rapidly changing and complex problems with the same old technical solutions we’ve used in the past. Three decades after General Thurman’s observation and the world is getting even more complex. We need to be nimble, agile, and adaptive to survive and thrive.
The notion of a single leader who can address all issues is outdated compared to a more democratic form of leadership emerging from collective intelligence.
What makes up a creative team?
Creative teams are those that recognize and leverage the important differences in how their members engage in the creative process.
Think about how you approach a challenge.
- Do you spend time collecting information and defining what the challenge is?
- Do you generate lots of ideas about how to tackle the challenge?
- Do you take a plan and refine it until you are sure it is ready?
- Or, are you one of those people who just jumps in and tries out different solutions?
One or all of these approaches may seem familiar to you. That is because we all have preferences in how we engage in problem-solving. Those preferences correspond with the stages of the problem-solving process.
- Clarification
- Ideation
- Development, and
- Implementation
Research by Gerard Puccio, Ph.D. on this process led to the FourSight Profile which helps people understand their preference for working in each of the stages of a comprehensive creative problem-solving process. To learn more go here: https://creativefocus.net/about/do-it-yourself-in-house-facilitator-training/ and click How are you Creative?)
In addition to preference, creative teams provide a network of diverse perspectives and ideas. Creative genius is more often the result of people building on each other’s’ ideas than it is of a single person’s efforts. Combining diverse perspectives from diverse people does not just add ideas together, it has a multiplying effect on creative ideas.
Teams that function well together build trust over time. This trust allows members of the team to take risks and try new things, knowing that the team will support them. Without risk supported by trust, wild ideas that disrupt markets, invent unique approaches, and add exceptional value aren’t possible.
Creative Focus would love to help you build and train your creative team. Contact us for more information: https://creativefocus.net/contact/