Sawyer's Group Genius

Hot Book review by Rachel Wiatrowski:

Sawyer, R. K. (2007) Group genius: the creative power of collaboration. Basic Books: New York.

The heart of this book is Sawyer’s proposal that “collaboration is the secret to breakthrough creativity” (Sawyer, p. ix). In the introduction, with his background in psychology, Sawyer expresses his contradictions in the traditional focus on the individual, and through his research, he has found that true creativity and innovation only comes through the open sharing of information between groups of individuals. Sawyer’s background influenced his research of jazz musicians (where creation is based on improvisation) and business (including his work in game development at Atari), whereby he concluded, “the psychology of the individual couldn’t explain (his concept) of group genius” (Sawyer, p. x). Even stories of innovation that have traditionally been associated with a single individual or team, Sawyer discovered, truly emerged from “small sparks gathering together over time, multiple dead ends, and the reinterpretation of previous ideas” (Sawyer, p. xi).

The book is separated into three parts. Part I looks at various examples of collaboration, improvisation and creativity. By providing various examples, the author hopes to demonstrate the power of collaborative work. In Part 2, Sawyer provides the results of current research in creativity and collaboration, as well as some examples of the confusion between individual “Aha” moments and the steps of collaboration that lead up to the “Aha.” Then, in Part 3, the author takes on the concept of the “lone genius,” explaining away the individual’s rights to historical inventions, and how today’s successfully innovative companies are embracing the idea of creating an organization of collaboration.

There are a number of concepts presented by the author in this book that really sparked both insights and conversation with colleagues. The first of these is the seven characteristics that Sawyer identifies as key to the effectiveness of creative teams:
• Innovation emerges over time
• Successful collaborative teams practice deep listening
• Team members build on their collaborators’ ideas
• Only afterwards does the meaning of each idea become clear
• Surprising questions emerge
• Innovation is inefficient
• Innovation emerges from the bottom up
It is challenging to apply these characteristics to a business environment, where time is always short, and competition for resources between teams is high. True organizational collaboration means that both management and the individual must let go of preconceived notions for how to attain success. When true sharing of ideas is fostered, then real innovation (and for me, fulfilling creative work) can occur.

A second interesting concept presented by Sawyer is that of “group flow.” Building on Csikszentmihalyi’s work of flow, the idea of group flow means that instead of just an individual, a group of people working together is performing to the best of their collective ability. By looking at such varied groups as pick-up basketball teams, jazz musicians, and improv theater actors, the author presents ten conditions under which group flow can be attained:
• The group’s goal – it should provide focus, while being open enough for problem-solving
• Close listening – where group participants are able to focus on what is being said rather than formulating an appropriate response
• Complete concentration
• Being in control
• Blending egos
• Equal participation
• Familiarity – where each group member has an amount of shared knowledge or background to draw on
• Communication
• Moving it forward – knowing when to see opportunities in ideas and when to let them go
• The potential for failure

In Part 2, Sawyer presents the idea of small sparks, which are small moments of creativity that, when added together, can provide the larger picture for the “Aha” moment. This “collaboration over time” suggests that “great inventions emerge from a long sequence of small sparks; the first idea often isn’t all that good, but thanks to collaboration it later sparks another idea, or it’s reinterpreted in an unexpected way. Collaboration brings small sparks together to generate breakthrough innovation.” (Sawyer, p. 102)

I can see this when looking at my own product development experience, where employees who have been around longer in the industry often say, “every product comes back.” The ways that children like to play may evolve, but many of the themes remain the same.

In Part 3, the author looks at the innovation labs and successfully innovative companies today, and identifies ten secrets of collaborative organizations:
• Keep many irons in the fire – because not all of them will be good ones, so when there is lots more going on, there is more likely to be a good idea
• Create a department of surprise – that searches out the good ideas
• Build spaces for collaboration
• Allow time for ideas to emerge – work under pressure makes people work harder, but less creatively
• Manage the risks of improvisation
• Improvise at the edge of chaos – but avoid complete chaos, where productivity sharply decreases
• Manage knowledge for innovation – this is more than a database, but instead are procedures for good ideas to be spread successfully across an organization
• Build dense networks
• Ditch the organizational chart
• Measure the right things – not just R&D spending and the number of individual patents

Finally, Sawyer ends with a challenge beyond collaborative organizations to the idea of a “collaborative economy,” where he suggests modifications to the laws that effect the ability for people to be successfully creative through collaboration, including changes to copyright and patent laws, releasing employees from non-compete clauses, and “encouraging industry-wide standards” that enable a focus on innovation of a system rather than the creation of a new one.
In applying his ideas to not only the organization, but also to our society and how we interact and share ideas, the author proposes that we are thereby enable to become even more creative, and realize the potential growth and change for our world.

Everyday Creativity

Hot Book Review by Aryna Ryan

Everyday Creativity and New Views of Human Nature:

Psychological, Social and Spiritual Perspectives

Edited by Ruth Richards


Originally I wanted to read this book because I thought Csikszentmihalyi wrote it. Turns out he supplied only the foreword! As I got into the reading, however, I was very glad I’d ordered this book since I’ve learned an enormous amount about what seem to be very current issues, at least as they pertain to everyday creativity.

Background and Organization of the Book

When Richards was planning a symposium on creativity, she met many researchers who felt that everyday creativity had not been examined enough. The idea to contribute chapters for a book seemed a natural.

The book is divided into a lengthy introduction and three sections:

Creativity and Individuals, with six research articles that explore:

· The definition of everyday creativity (originality which is meaningful) and its potential. “Our creativity may increasingly become a primary driver for much that happens in our world, and with us.” (Richards, p. 11)
· Schuldberg’s argument that chaos theory contributes to our living creatively. He focuses on Somewhat Complicated Systems (SCS), strange attractors and how “we do not give away life’s power, order or beauty when we embrace its inexactness.” (p. 63)
· Zausner’s examination of everyday creativity primarily by looking at how Henri Matisse, Albert Pinkham Ryder, and Maud Lewis creatively coped with illness.
· Runco’s perspective that personal creativity requires discretion and intentions, and “the capacity to construct original interpretations of experience.” (p. 92) He also looked at ego strength as a support for personal expressions of creativity.
· How Pritzker, a writer from The Mary Tyler Moore Show, establishes that creativity does exist on television. He explores passive vs. active viewing, and the therapeutic value of active viewing, which he labels “teletheraphy.”
Combs & Krippner exploration of the historical structures of consciousness and how higher levels open doors of perception and lead to more creativity.
Creativity and Society, with another six research articles that explore:
Another chapter in the story of Darwin’s theory and its implications for creativity. (See further details in “the most interesting part of this book.”)
Our being upright and how this “unsteady platform” (Arons, p. 177) has influenced our development of and capacity for creativity.
Sundararajan & Averill observe how our authentic emotions promote or hinder creativity. Through varying standards of differentiation and involvement, they investigate how cultures differ in their emotional creativity.
Goerner delves into how integral science supports “knowledge ecologies” and “large-scale learning” to achieve a new level of creative development.
How our real world is changing through virtual worlds, especially our “take” on sexuality. “The gap between science fiction and reality seems to be shrinking due to advances in technology.” (Abraham, p. 246)
Eisler’s outline for rethinking human nature in order to build a sustainable future. She looks extensively at the evolution of love. “The evolution of caring, culminating in love, was a prerequisite for our species’ unique capacity for intelligence, symbolic thinking, learning, communication, consciousness, caring, planning, choice, and creativity.” (p. 267)

Integration and Conclusions

This section contains only one article by Richards, “Twelve Potential Benefits of Living More Creatively.” These benefits include:
Dynamic, which describes open systems of complex interacting processes.
Conscious, the opposite of automatic. Work at breaking through filters and be in the state that Csikszentmihalyi calls “flow.”
Healthy, partly by alleviating stress by writing about emotional problems. “Our T cells now endorse this creativity.”
Non-defensive, which is more than simply being positive? It means looking within and facing truth; also looking outside and seeing what society needs.
Open means being receptive to new experiences; in fact, actively seeking them out. It helps us to heal, observe creatively, and appreciate paradoxes.
Integrating begins with humility. It involves all kinds of learning and knowing. We’re facing a paradigm shift brought about by web-based systems and a knowledge ecology model.
Observing actively is possible by being in “flow” (active involvement, challenge, absorption and full engagement).
Caring means learning to connect to the hopeful parts of Darwin’s evolutionary message.
Collaborative means thinking in more systems, ultimately leading to a “society of mind.”
Androgynous is getting to overlap between gendered groups, struggling to be fully ourselves, unencumbered by cultural “dos and don’ts.”
Developing is the unfolding and training of mind and body for health, abstract thinking, problem solving and emotional maturity.
Brave, which is much more than risk-taking. Bravery includes attitude, lifestyle, and commitment. We must have “creative courage.” (p. 311)

The most interesting part of this book: No contest, the part that nearly had me jumping off the bed was from David Loye’s article in the section Creativity and Society. In Telling the New Story: Darwin, Evolution, and Creativity versus Conformity in Science, Loye told how Darwin wrote The Descent of Man after Origin of the Species. In this book (I call it “Darwin—the Sequel”), Darwin outlined the next steps in the evolution of humankind. He explained that we needed to go beyond competition and “survival of the fittest” (a phrase Darwin wished he never used!) towards a moral and cooperative society. Rather than “natural selection, Darwin spoke of making “organic selection,” which means we must choose who and what we will be.
Loye presented many details regarding Darwin’s full evolutionary message was both pre-empted and suppressed by science and society. Loye’s tale simply shows how much of human nature has not evolved!

Book’s relevance to me:

It is incredibly relevant, because everyday creativity is one of the main topics I introduce and encourage in my students. I can use much of the research in this book in my classes, particularly the rest of Darwin’s theory. In fact, I am so excited about this “new” knowledge that in the very near future I plan to offer at least one seminar on the subject.
Further information:
www.thedarwinproject.com

Reference

Richards, R. (Ed.). (2007). Everyday creativity and new views of human nature: psychological, social, and spiritual perspectives. Washington, D.C.: American Psychological Association.

The Ten Faces of Innovation

This is a summary of the Ten Faces of Innovation which was prepared for the Current Issues in Creativity class, held in the summer of 2008.

Tom Kelley is the general manager of IDEO, which is, at this point in history, a highly successful and well-known design/innovation firm that works around the world. His book, The Ten Faces of Innovation, articulates his ideas about the types of roles people in organizations need to play in order to bring new products and services to market.

The book is predicated on a key observation: that the role of “Devil’s Advocate” is one of the most frequently played roles in business (and other organizations) today; in fact it is often played with a mantle of pride. When ideas are being presented, often a participant in the project will proudly say, “I’d like to play devil’s advocate for a moment”, at which point most people smile enthusiastically and play ready to listen and respond.

Kelley presents us with a variety of other roles he feels, from his experience at IDEO, need to be played in order to bring new ideas to market. He presents us with ten roles, or personas, that he sees as critical. He groups these 10 roles into three categories. Essentially the categories and roles are these (Kelley et al, 8 – 11).

1. Learning Personas:
1. The Anthropologist: observes human behavior and delivers new insights.
2. The Experimenter: prototypes ideas quickly and continuously
3. The Cross-Pollinator: explores cultures and metaphors outside of the business’ purview and makes new connections which are valuable to the enterprise.
2. The Organizing Personas:
1. The Hurdler: overcomes obstacles and roadblocks along the path
2. The Collaborator: knows how to bring together different people and groups; often “leads” from the middle of the pack.
3. The Director: knows how to gather a talented crew and help them be their best
3. The Building Personas
1. The Experience Architect: builds experiences that connect with consumers on a deep level
2. The Set Designer: creates environments that facilitate success
3. The Caregiver: anticipates consumer/customer needs and meets them.
4. The StoryTeller: builds awareness, morale, interest via compelling narratives.
5. 
   

Kelley has credibility in the business world and his book is highly readably. I was struck by how his ideas link with many of the concepts we read about in the study of applied creative thinking, yet he has re-arranged these ideas in a new way – one that uses personas that become the de facto archetypes needed for innovation.

For example, he talks about playing these roles like deBono talks about his six hats. The six hats represent a thinking style and encourage people to play different roles in the process by thinking in different ways. Similarly Kelley’s personas ask people to play different roles – at different times – or to invite different role-players onto innovation teams.

Similarly, Kelley’s book addresses the different types of thinking that are explored in the FourSight model that defines different thinking style preferences. The Building Personas are “implementers”, the Experimenters and Cross-Pollinators are similar to Ideators. The Anthropologist is a clarifier; and the Director can be compared to a facilitator of creative problem solving. While the models are not tightly aligned, the overlap is noticeable.

On another level, Kelley’s personas provide a new way to bring alive the principles of creativity. Certainly, he builds these personas as a way to illustrate the need - and technique – for deferring judgment. He encourages seeing with new eyes via roles like the Anthropologist and Cross-Pollinator. The Hurdler uses his/her guiles to identify and overcome obstacles. The Collaborator and Director focus on bringing together – and facilitating – diverse teams. The storyteller “makes meaning” of new ideas and builds the emotional/values-level connections.

In fact, without necessarily meaning to, Kelley takes on – and reframes – the 4P model of creativity. He links people and process in the form of a persona; together, the personas address, challenge and re-order the “press” in order to create and bring to life a new “product”. And he accomplishes this without ever (or rarely) using the word “creativity” or “creative thinking”.

In summary, while Kelley’s book is clearly commercial, and has provided him with a brilliant platform from which to deliver his message through multiple media, its message resonates with much of the academic thinking and research that we encounter in the study of creativity. He treads a fine line with a fair amount of ease and grace.

Book Review: Explaining Creativity: The Science of Human Innovation. Prepared by: Mark Hylton, CRS 625, Current Issues Class, Summer 2008

Sawyer, R. K. (2006). Explaining Creativity: The Science of Human Innovation. New York: Oxford University Press.

Background and context
R. Keith Sawyer is Associate Professor of Education at Washington University. He is the author of many books on creativity, including Pretend Play as Improvisation (1997) & Creating Conversations (2001). His latest book, Group Genius: The creative power of collaboration (2007) extends some on the ideas of collaboration that are first explored in this book. His topics of research include business innovation, organizational dynamics in work teams, children's play and preschool, artistic and scientific creativity and language and conversation research.
It is fair to say that Sawyer’s perspectives on creativity builds on the sociocultural work of Amabile and Csikszentmihaly. This view requires not only understanding individual inspiration but also social factors like collaboration, networks of support, education and cultural background.

Organisation of the book
Sawyer breaks down the book into five main sections. He begins by exploring conceptions of creativity, including a whole set of culturally based creativity myths.

Part II examines individualist approaches to creativity starting with Guilford’s APA address in 1950 and moving on to the second wave of cognitive psychology. The contributions of biology, neuroscience and then computational approaches to the study of creativity are also explored.

Part III takes a contextualist approach which beings to introduce the sociocultural model of creativity. Essentially it is moving up from the individual to look at social factors and collaboration. This approach includes culture and history.

Part IV explores types of artistic creativity, ranging from painting to music and theatre performance, while Part V explores everyday forms of creativity, including science and business. Sawyer considers not only the psychological processes that lead individuals to be creative but also the social and cultural properties of groups that lead the group to be collectively creative.

Each chapter takes an interdisciplinary approach using both individualist and contextual evidence with the aim of moving beyond psychology to incorporate sociology, anthropology and history. The final chapter attempts to bring all this discussion together into advice on how to be more creative.

Distinctive features of the book
Sawyer is quite clear that he considers performance creativity to be one of the most important examples of human innovation. Unlike products, such as books, devices, paintings etc, that can be reproduced and sold, performance creativity is ephemeral; there is no product that remains. The audience participates during the creation and watches the creative process in action; when the performance is over, it’s gone, remaining only in the memory of the participants. Another feature of this book is that Sawyer claims it is based on solid scientific research.

What’s most interesting about this book?
I think there’s a very important viewpoint expressed in this book which is about viewing creativity as it happens, in real time. This is an important distinction to previous research on creativity, which was mostly post-hoc rationalisation about the process. Sawyer focuses more on experience in real time as a basis to understand creativity without relying solely on raw anecdotal evidence from famous creators. Sawyer builds on Csikszentmihalyi’s flow theory by examining how emergence occurs by studying improvisation. Since there is not a final creative product to focus on in improv (e.g. theatre, jazz), the process is the product, he studied what was happening as it happened. He concluded that all creative process is emergent from complex social interactions.

Sociocultural View of Creativity
In addition to psychological studies of creativity the book includes research by anthropologists on creativity in non-Western cultures, and research by sociologists about the situation, contexts, and networks of creative activity.

It brings these approaches together within the sociocultural approach to creativity pioneered by Howard Becker, Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi, and Howard Gardner. The sociocultural approach moves beyond the individual to consider the social and cultural contexts of creativity, emphasizing the role of collaboration and context in the creative process.

How is this book relevant to you? Sociocultural advice for creativity
A good book needs to make a connection with you as the reader. I found a lot of connections; my favourite is the view that creativity requires improvisation, collaboration and communication. The advice of the book supports this view and provides a way of increasing your own everyday creativity. This advice does go against the more common creativity myths but does have some similarities with Torrance’s (2006) manifesto for a creative career (e.g. do what you love and can do well).

Choose a domain that’s right for you
Turn your gaze outward instead of inward
Market yourself
Don’t try to become creative in general; focus on one domain
Be intrinsically motivated
Don’t get comfortable
Balance out your personality
Look for the most pressing problems facing the domain
Collaborate
Don’t worry about who gets the credit
Use creative work habits
Be confident and take risks

You might notice then that this advice concentrates is aimed at the individual – how to make yourself as the individual more creative, which surely was not the aim of the book? There’s much less advice on how to access group genius, or how to encourage improvisation, communication and collaboration. Although Sawyer does go into more detail in this subsequent book on Group Genius.

Further readings and connections
This book is part of a recent growth in sociocultural approaches to creativity and the belief in the creative power of groups or teams. If this area interests you then I would recommend looking at the following books:

Sawyer, R. K. (2007). Group Genius: The Creative Power of Collaboration. Cambridge, MA: Basic Books.

Duggan, W. (2007). Strategic Intuition: the creative spark in human achievement. New York: Columbia Business School Press.

Surowieki, J. (2004). The Wisdom of Crowds: Why the Many Are Smarter Than the Few. New York: Doubleday.

Johansson, F. (2006). The Medici effect: breakthrough insights at the intersection of ideas, concepts, and cultures. Boston, Mass: Harvard Business School Press.

Rheingold, H. (2002) Smart Mobs: The next social revolution. Cambridge, MA: Basic Books