The Collective Creativity

The collective creativity has its own dynamic and flux.

Creativity is serendipitous; creativity is full of color; creativity has many faces. How many forms of creativity are there? How are they different? How are they similar? Isn't what makes them similar also what makes them creativity? Besides individual creativity, can creativity be manifested in the collective environment?

Creative thinking is connecting previously unconnected thoughts - a neurological event. Creativity is bringing the novel thoughts out into the world and expressing them in some forms such that others can experience them if they are there to do so at some point. Innovation is the process to transform creativity and achieve its commercial values. Creativity brought into the world in such a way that new value can be created. From a new strategy to a new product, it's innovation effect if the new value is created. Many companies going through a period of introspection believe that they already and implicitly understand the nature of innovation....

Necessity is one of the parents of innovation. Vision, creativity, and thinking out of the box are important tools for inspiration. This can be achieved through diversity of cultures, through the arts, diverse experiences, relationships, and surroundings. By becoming mindful, fully aware of what we are doing, we remove mental distractions, it becomes easier to not see it as incompatible with creativity. An added advantage would be that as we look at the same task with fresh eyes, without the previous underlying preconceptions, we can use it as a springboard for new ideas/innovation. If we follow this approach, however, we have to be both persistent and gentle on ourselves. We have to do it not as a chore but with joy.

Creativity can be manifested in a collective environment. While the individual contributions perhaps provide the 'building blocks,' it is the collective consensus on what to do with them that is exciting…Human interactions, emotional intelligence, transparency of management, staff engagement, recognition of effort and an optimized process flow is a start and does not require handing over the control of the company to anyone other than the existing team members. Such collective form of creativity is based on:

-the intent of the event is to develop a tangible result that did not currently exist.

-the nature of the result is deliberately expressive and improvised.

-the interactions between participants are not premeditated or contrived.

- the resulting 'product' is more than any one individual was capable of achieving.

- the result is not something that any one participant could have conceived independently.

The collective creativity has its own dynamic and flux. The collective creativity is not just a sum of creative pieces; but a more meaningful achievement for problem solving, continuous improvement or breakthrough innovation. Any communal and expressive event will be made up of all the individual creative input from the participants. Separate to this prerequisite, it is another separate and tangible result - and that result is a collective creativity. It is not just a mere cumulation of the creative inputs of those involved. It is also not only a synchronization of their individual inputs to make something that no one individual would achieve. It is more than that. It has its own dynamic which is in a state of constant flux. It builds up a momentum that draws creative contributions from the participants that they did not previously conceive or understood they were capable of.

Organizations build up the innovative culture via such collective creativity, innovation becomes the ongoing capability for organizations to thrive, in order  to delight customers or engage employees. Businesses just have to have the objectivity and humility to leverage resources and talent to learn and experiment, scale and improve towards the creativity journey.

Posted in: Creativity,Innovation