Free Creative People Must Be Stopped by David A Owens Page B

recording was to begin, Anish, who was the ShowArts artists’ representative on the board, told the team that he had gotten a concerned call from one of the artists. This prompted him to do a little research that quickly confirmed a fear he had been harboring all along. Recording and posting a digital video was a violation not only of the ShowArts labor contracts with artists and with stagehands but also of the licensing agreement with the creators of the production.

    The story of ShowArts is a composite of tales I’ve been told scores of time by members of actual groups in businesses, nonprofits, and other organizations. The story brings to mind several questions about the difficulties of working in teams focused on innovation, even in a creativity-focused organization. For example, why does Heinz, who seems to know what’s going on, just sit back and watch the team struggle? Why doesn’t Anish do the critical research, or at least voice his suspicions, earlier? Why do Mark and Sonya not get along, and what effect do their behaviors have on the group? Why does the team fail at this relatively simple project despite succeeding at putting on hundreds of complex productions each year? And then there’s the most important question of all: Why didn’t Josephine see this coming?
    Two Brains Are Better Than One—Except When They Aren’t
    Understanding the individual constraints discussed in Chapter Two can get you quite far in overcoming common innovation killers within individuals. But this story illustrates a different order of difficulty. Here the problem isn’t that people aren’t able to gather data, process the data, or express their ideas to others. In the ShowArts story, when the creative process stops, it’s for reasons other than a lack of vocabulary or an inability to grasp the concept. It happens because the group members are afraid, in conflict, unsure of what they are doing, or just in a hurry to get things done, all of which can defeat the purpose of forming a group in the first place.
    Before considering in detail the constraints that operate in groups, it may be worthwhile to remind ourselves of the advantages of group work, those that we want to maximize in the context of innovation. When a group is formed to address an innovation problem, the group members can be expected to perform the following activities: analyze the problem, generate a set of potential solutions to the problem, test those potential solutions against the constraints of the situation, and then execute the most optimal of the solutions. These tasks imply a “more is better” information processing function of the group.
    Of course, one person can do all these things, including generating and testing a variety of ideas. But a group, by definition, can produce a larger number of perspectives on the problem, thus increasing the potential accuracy and scope of the diagnosis. And after the problem has been framed, the diversity of perspectives means that groups can produce a wider range of potential solutions than any one individual is likely to come up with. This divergent activity is what we call “brainstorming.” Apart from increasing the number of ideas—and hence the likelihood of generating a really good one—using a group to tackle an innovation challenge provides access to a wider diversity of problem-solving strategies and a wider base of experiences to draw upon. This access increases the chance of devising a realistic and implementable solution to the challenge at hand.
    Finally, a group provides access to a wider range of those skills and capabilities that might be needed during the implementation phase of the innovation project. All of these considerations, by the way, argue not only for the advantages of groups but for the particular advantages of diverse groups, such as cross-functional teams and groups that include people with different levels of experience and