A reflection on the creative process and collaboration

This week in CJ479, Dr. Mary Worley asked us to think about collaboration in the creative process. To establish our understanding, we watched Linda Hill’s TEDtalk “How to manage for collective creativity”, read Grant McLaughlin’s article “Collaborating Vs. Cooperating: To Achieve Results, Integrate People and Technology”, and read Corey Moseley’s article “Collaboration vs cooperation: Is there really a difference?”. I enjoyed diving into this subject this week, as I think it is really important to understand how to work with your team.

Creative process

After watching Hill’s TEDtalk, I am intrigued by three terms she brings up: creative abrasion, creative agility, and creative resolution. First, creative abrasion refers to being an advocate for your own perspective and engaging in constructive arguments that create “a portfolio of alternatives”. This could look like an initial meeting with your team, using every individual’s own perspective to come up with a list of potential outputs. Next, creative agility. This step focuses on design thinking. For example, running an experiment in order to see what is successful and what isn’t working. Finally, creative resolution means combining past ideas, and learned information, to reconfigure the project in a way that is new and useful.

She explains that by utilizing these actions, a group will be able to both (1) reach a better outcome and (2) participate in a more meaningful way. One example she gave during her speech was regarding this process in action at Google. She explained when Google was first introducing Gmail and YouTube, the team developing the project reached two different conclusions for how they wanted the launch to look in initial meetings. The first group thought they should build from the platform they currently had and the other group thought they should start from scratch. By acknowledging their different viewpoints, the group was engaging in creative abrasion.

Next, the two groups were told to go out and run their projects separately. This way, they were able to use the passion they had for their development ideas and actually attempt to produce their desired output, without cooperating. This series of actively working on an output to test their ideas is creative agility.

Finally, after a span of time the groups reconnected, and their outputs were discussed. While they ultimately decided that they were going to continue building from what they already had, they were able to take what they learned from both projects and apply it to the ultimate output that they would launch together. This conveys their creative resolution.

I appreciate this example because I believe it easily illustrates each part of this creative process and how a team is able to challenge each other in order to learn and make something that is stronger.

I think this process is especially important to consider when working with a team because it allows individuals to share their own ideas, sort out what works and what doesn’t, and create something that is better than before because everyone is actively invested.

Cooperation versus collaboration

McLaughlin writes, “but even being informed doesn’t necessarily mean you’re involved in the process. And being cooperative doesn’t always mean you’re invested in the outcome. To cooperate, the only technology you need is automation to move data from one group to the next. To truly collaborate, however, you need to connect."

I think the distinction between cooperation and collaboration is an important one to make. From the past, I now recognize this disconnect and how it affected our final output. For example, I had a class project where the group accepted a single individual’s vision for the output. This cultivated an environment where one person was passionate about the project, and everyone else was working to achieve that individual’s goals.

One strategy, from Moseley, I believe we could’ve used to combat this is “encouraging open communication”. By utilizing this step, perhaps our group would have been more open to sharing ideas and perspectives and could have reached a place to begin practicing creative abrasion and creative resolution.

A second strategy, also from Moseley, explains it is important to define clear goals and roles. By doing so, our group would all equally understand what we are supposed to do and what objective we are trying to meet.

Using technology in collaboration

Additionally, an important part of collaboration with a team, referenced in McLaughlin’s article, is using technology in order to work with others more effectively. For example, designating what platform the team will use to video call, team chat, and share files. One platform I am dedicated to learning more about is Monday.com. I’ve heard a lot about this platform from various professionals both in the United States and the United Kingdom. Furthermore, there are several useful tools within the program I could see being beneficial in managing future projects with teams such as places to organize data and track progress.