Creative Conspiracy. Leigh Thompson

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СКАЧАТЬ statement was, “Several decades of research have unambiguously found that teams are demonstrably inferior to individuals when it comes to brainstorming and idea generation.” I thought that such a statement in the presence of academics would not cause too much commotion. I was wrong. One of the scholars was a lead consultant for a major Silicon Valley company that prided itself on creative idea generation, particularly in teams. This led to a spirited debate between the two of us that lasted through the evening and the next couple of months. I eventually dug up more than fifty peer-reviewed articles and put them on his desk. Every single article indicated that teams were inferior to individuals when it came to brainstorming.

      I’d like to say I won the debate. However, companies do not want to stop brainstorming, even in the face of the evidence. Studies have included sophisticated methods for ruling out the effect of different personalities, differences in intelligence, and differences in industry experience. Further, the results have been replicated several, if not dozens of times and they show a clear causal pattern. To summarize succinctly in the words of organizational psychologist Adrian Furnham, professor of psychology at University College London, “The evidence from science suggests that business people must be insane to use brainstorming groups.” But the research evidence—as powerful as it is—is not well disseminated.

      When I work with clients, companies, and students, I find that they often operate with very specific beliefs about human creativity—some of which are correct. But many are wrong—at least according to scientific studies. In this chapter, I expose several of these key myths about creative teamwork. As you read, think about which of these myths is central to the way you work with your creative team and how you might better structure your team so as to capitalize on the strengths of the team members. Many of the messages in this chapter downright contradict common practice in organizations and even common sense. So I’ve been careful to provide data to back up these assertions.

      Once upon a Time … Creativity Mythology

      There is probably more mythology surrounding creativity than nearly any other topic in social science. Many companies have constructed fairy tales about what sparks human ideation that are completely misguided. Here are a few beliefs about creativity that have been endorsed by people in the business world. When you read these statements, think about whether you believe each is true or false.

      1 Teams are more creative than individuals.

      2 If you want to enhance creative teamwork, get rid of rules, guidelines, and norms.

      3 Striving for quality is better than striving for quantity.

      4 Active brainstorming is necessary to generate ideas.

      5 Brainstorming teams should work closely together and tear down boundaries.

      6 Team members should first brainstorm as a group to get the creative juices flowing, then work alone.

      7 People who are pro-social (team-oriented) are more creative than those who are pro-self (individually oriented, or just downright selfish!).

      8 Deactivating moods (e.g., peaceful reflection, relaxation, serenity) lead to more creativity than activating moods (e.g., anger, fear, happiness).

      When Myth Becomes Pseudo-Science

      If you are like most people, you have probably agreed with about 75 percent of the statements above. In fact, all of them are false. At this point, you may be ready to throw this book on the floor and get back to running your business. Before you do, pick the statement above that you hold closest to your heart and read the research. (I’ll point to some of this.) You can test your creativity competence by reading the rest of this chapter, where we’ll delve into each of the myths above—myths that have morphed to become pseudo-science in the business world—and which I do my best to debunk.

      Myth #1: Teams are more creative than individuals.

      As I touched on in the introduction, the assertion that groups are more creative than individuals has been scientifically tested more often than a great many claims in social science. We know that it is controversial to argue that teams are less creative than individuals. There is not a person who has ever been on a team who has not had the feeling or the experience that creative magic has indeed happened in their group. Yet, the data are painfully clear on this all-important question. So, why are so many teams and their companies under the powerful illusion that they are more creative? Well, for most of us, it just feels good to be part of a team, and so we think that magical things like creativity must be present when we are working with our team.

      This myth of team creativity all began when an enterprising businessman named Alex Osborn published a book, Applied Imagination, in which he coined the term brainstorming. Osborn was a staunch believer in the power of teams. He was convinced that if teams did four simple things—express ideas openly, not criticize others, focus on quantity, and build on the ideas of others—they would easily outperform individuals. Apparently, this sage advice was enough for most organizations to adopt his belief and institute it into their best practices.

      Sometime later, the academics asked for proof. Since Osborn did not have data, much less conduct controlled experiments, a flurry of research programs were launched on the question of whether teams or individuals were more creative. As I noted in the introduction, hundreds of studies were conducted that compared intact, face-to-face brainstorming teams with the same number of people—nominal groups—working completely independently. Nominal groups outperformed real groups in terms of quantity as well as quality.

      Many executives and managers reject these ideas outright. But as previously observed, this is akin to dismissing the surgeon general’s report that smoking causes cancer. In one recent simulation my colleagues and I conducted, the nominal groups generated over 20 percent more ideas and more than 42 percent more original ideas! It is nearly impossible to not get this effect.

      The reason people think teams are more creative is that they believe in synergy. They believe that the whole is greater than the sum of the parts. But this does not appear to be the case—at least under typical conditions. It is certainly possible that synergy can take place in teams, but more often than not, it does not. For example, teams that build on each other’s ideas don’t create more ideas, and the ideas are not better.

      What are the implications? Well, on nearly a daily basis, leaders and their companies make decisions as to whether to assign group projects or individual projects. This raises the question of whether we are efficiently using the talents of people in companies or whether we are falling far short of our potential by insisting that people work in groups when they might be well advised to work individually on a problem—at least for some period of time.

      The solution, however, is not to dismantle teams, which are essential to reach organizational objectives. Rather, we need to rethink and restructure how teams work creatively. Left to their own devices, teams are usually poorly structured for the creative process. However, with a few key insights and simple best practices, teams can dramatically improve their performance and generate a creative conspiracy.

      Myth #2: If you want to enhance creative teamwork, get rid of rules, guidelines, and norms.

      Let’s face it. Most adults don’t like rules. We got fed up with them in grade school and looked forward to the day when no one would tell us what to do or when to do it. We embraced the idea that no rules freed our minds. Well, unfortunately, we were probably better off in grade school—or at least more creative in grade school. The data in this case are unambiguous. Groups that don’t have rules or guidelines are distinctly less creative than those that have rules and guidelines.

      How do we know? Paul Paulus and his team at University of Texas, СКАЧАТЬ