Creative Collaboration

In this lecture we'll consider the power of creative collaboration, by looking

into three ways that it can benefit your work. From increasing your
productivity, to helping you to think differently, to giving you a leg up to get
over creative roadblocks -- finding collaborators is extremely important for
all creative people who want to remain inspired, focused, and productive.

So first, Part 1: Collaboration can Kickstart Your Productivity

Engaging in creatively productive conversations is one of the key benefits of

collaboration. It's pleasurable, it's fun, it's reassuring, it renews your spirit
and can reignite your passion for a project, and it can help drive your work
in new, exciting directions. When collaborating with others, being able to
share and bounce ideas off each other is invaluable. As entrepreneur
Caroline Ghosn said, "collaboration is like carbonation for fresh ideas.
Working together bubbles up ideas you would not have come up with solo,
which gets you further faster."

But here's a really important point: be sure to convert all conversations,

brainstorming sessions, and debates into tangible next steps. For you, for
your team. "Talk must get translated into action," writes author and
entrepreneur Scott Mautz, "otherwise, it's just talk."

This is critical because, as Tomas Chamorro-Premuzic writes in Harvard

Business Review, "There’s a difference between generating ideas and
implementing ideas. ... [And while] divergent thinking, openness to
experience, and mind wandering are needed to produce a large number of
original ideas, unless they are followed by convergent thinking, expertise,
and effective project management, those ideas will never become actual
innovations."

In other words, walk your talk. Do as you say. Translate your beliefs into
behaviors. Use creative conversations to keep your forward momentum
going.

Next… Part 2: Diverse Collaborations Can Boost Creativity

To quote author Bill Bryson: “To my mind, the greatest reward of travel is to
be able to experience everyday things as if for the first time, to be in a
position in which almost nothing is so familiar it is taken for granted.”
Research shows that multicultural experiences enhance creativity. Thus the
oft-repeated advice to travel, live, or study abroad if you want to enhance
your creative thinking. "There are quite a few examples of creative
individuals who did their best work while they were living abroad,"
comments Tendayi Viki in Forbes Magazine, "Picasso, Handel, Hemingway
and Stravinsky all created their most well-regarded work while living in
foreign countries," he notes.

It's a short leap from here to consider the importance of collaborating with
people who have life experience and think differently than you do. The
research literature on the importance of diversity to team productivity,
creativity, and innovation is vast and multi-disciplinary. Here's just one
recent example.

In 2017 and 2018, when researchers at The Technical University of Munich

in Germany reviewed innovation revenue data and workforce demographic
data from surveyed more than 1,700 companies across eight countries, they
concluded that there is a clear correlation between diverse teams and
increased innovation. In their report titled, "The Mix That Matters:
Innovation Through Diversity" this research team demonstrated via a big
data analysis that diversity drives financial performance. As team members
Rocio Lorenzo and Martin Reeves write in Harvard Business Review, diverse
companies have greater innovation impact, create fresher product portfolios,
and generate more profit than their less diverse competitors.

These researchers used a very wide definition of diversity. That was

intentional. By diversity these researchers meant many factors such as age,
gender, sexual orientation, religion, socioeconomic status, region of origin,
education level, as well as work and life experience. Studies show that even
mixing diverse personalities is demonstrably beneficial to collaborative
creative output.

So… rather than moving forward with an innovation team where all members
have very similar backgrounds, or seeking out collaborators who have the
same life experience as you do, it's much more strategic and productive to
connect and think and work with different people.

As Jeffrey Baumgartner reminds us, "to generate more creative ideas to

solve a problem, the best thing you can do is to diversify your thinking"so it
makes sense to do the legwork and seek out collaborators who have
different frames of reference -- and can help you to think differently about
the project at hand. As professor, doctor, and published poet Oliver Wendell
Holmes once said, "Many ideas grow better when transplanted into another
mind than the one where they sprang up."

This brings us to PART 3: Collaboration can help you navigate creative

roadblocks.

When you're working on a creative project and you hit a wall it can be
enormously frustrating and frightening. Even more so if you're facing a tight
deadline and just don't have time to waste spinning your wheels. In
moments like this, which all creative people experience, having a
collaborator willing to sit and listen, and help you sort out a way forward is
invaluable. “Clearly verbalizing the problem can shake loose assumptions,
and [even] if it doesn’t, [by speaking it aloud] your mind now has a
well-formed challenge to gnaw on subconsciously,” advises Chad Thornton,
who is an interaction designer at Uber.

Having a social and creative support network comprised of mentors and

advisors, partners and peers, friends and family, will encourage and
motivate you, boost your optimism, boost your resilience, change your
perspective, and remind you of your purpose -- of why you're working so
hard, of why it matters in the first place -- of the bigger picture.

As actress, stand up comedian, TV director and producer Amy Poehler

advises us: "Find a group of people who challenge and inspire you, spend a
lot of time with them, and it will change your life." Of course the flipside is
also true, avoid critics and cynics and toxic people of all types, especially
when you're feeling stuck. To quote Mark Twain, "Keep away from people
who try to belittle your ambitions. Small people always do that, but the
really great make you feel that you, too, can become great."

//end
Selected references:

Interview with Chad Thornton: "A Look Inside Design at Airbnb" InVision. By
Andy Orsow. 2012.
https://www.invisionapp.com/inside-design/designspace-airbnb-chad-thornt
on/

"Why Diversity is the Mother of Creativity" By Jeffrey Baumgartner. 2016.

http://www.innovationmanagement.se/imtool-articles/why-diversity-is-the-
mother-of-creativity/

Scott Mautz "The Creative Geniuses Behind 'Hamilton' Just Shared The
Secrets to World-Class Team Collaboration"
https://www.inc.com/scott-mautz/the-creative-geniuses-behind-hamilton-ju
st-shared-secrets-to-world-class-team-collaboration.html?cid=search

"How and Where Diversity Drives Financial Performance" in Harvard

Business Review. By Rocio Lorenzo and Martin Reeves. 2018.
https://hbr.org/2018/01/how-and-where-diversity-drives-financial-performa
nce

Report: "The Mix That Matters." By Researchers from The Boston Consulting
Group (BCG) and The Technical University of Munich.
https://www.bcg.com/en-ca/publications/2017/people-organization-leadersh
ip-talent-innovation-through-diversity-mix-that-matters.aspx

"Does Diversity Actually Increase Creativity?" in Harvard Business Review.

By Tomas Chamorro-Premuzic. 2017.
https://hbr.org/2017/06/does-diversity-actually-increase-creativity