As creatives, we are wired to take new ground. We love the thrill of the chase, pursuing objectives and tackling goals that seem just beyond our reach. We are fundamentally wired to be a part of the leviathan force, or we would never have chosen jobs that require so much self-definition. Much of our time as organizational creatives, however, is spent occupying the ground that we’ve already taken. We must deal with systems, processes, and protocol in executing our ideas. We have to deal with they everyday demands of communicating and creating interdependently. While we certainly gain new opportunities when we organize around the creative process, we must also deal with the inherent limitations and side effects of collaborative creative work.
The Pros and Cons of Team Creating
Organizations organize. It’s their reason for being. And organization is good, because it allows groups of people to leverage assets more efficiently and scale in ways that aren’t possible for individuals. Many people have brilliant ideas, but unless they are capable of organizing around those ideas, it will be impossible for them to get much of any significance done. As much as we may venerate the ideal of the lone innovator, slaving away in the garage or studio to bring a vision to life, the reality is that most of the time brilliant creations are the result of teams of people stumbling awkwardly into the unknown.
In most work, a well-organized team of creatives—even if they are not highly skilled—will produce exponentially more and better results than a lone genius. Strong organization is critical for teams of people who want to accomplish great things in the world, and a critical element of that organization is the ability to lead by establishing a culture obsessed with execution.
While important, effective organization alone is not sufficient to ensure the success of a creative team. An environment must be established that offers sufficient resources, fosters the right organizational mind-set, and allows for the natural ebb and flow of the creative process—because creative productivity is naturally rhythmic, and there will be periods of incredible productivity followed by periods when it seems like we can’t think our way out of a paper bag. For those of us who work primarily on our own, this is not much of a challenge because we have the flexibility to adjust our work life as needed, but for those of us who work in a team context this can be a lot more challenging. We don’t have the luxury of having an “off day,” and when we do have one the entire team suffers. None of us are machines, and there will always be an element of unpredictability about our work.
There are a few creativity-draining tensions that result from any attempt to organize creative work. Some of these tensions have become so engrained in our workplace experience that they just seem like the natural order of things, but once we learn to spot them, we can establish practices to counteract them.
* Source: The Accidental Creative by Todd Henry