4.1. Collective creativity competences

How can you raise interest in your radically creative idea so you can get support and involve other stakeholders to develop it further?

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Have you ever watched improvisational theatre or done it yourself? A group of actors performs together—with no script or director—following principles of shared leadership, responsibility, and mutual support and care (Nisula & Kianto, 2018). Here, improvisation refers to a series of spontaneous and intuition-guided behaviors with the goal of telling a story and entertaining the audience (Vera & Crossan, 2004). Improv theatre is a very good illustration of collective and group creativity.

Collective and group creativity both refer to exploring problems and brainstorming solutions in a group. However, the relationship between the individuals involved differs between the two. People taking part in collective creativity are not part of the same team. In some cases, they may not even work for the same organization. By contrast, people involved in group creativity have the desire to achieve a specific goal within a specific organization.

Collective creativity consists of moments of interaction and knowledge-sharing that improve an idea or lead to a change of perspective or entirely new ideas, approaches and discoveries (Parjanen, 2012). In improv theatre, collective creativity happens when the actors invite the audience to give prompts. This make the story take a course that the actors can’t foresee.

By contrast, when the actors spontaneously develop the story together, we have an instance of group creativity. The actors have a common goal—to start, continue and complete a show that receives entertains the audience.

Although trust and psychological safety are needed in both contexts, the participants in group creativity are directly responsible for implementing the creative work. For improv theatre to succeed, the actors have to create and deliver the story. The audience contributes with ideas occasionally—when the actors solicit their involvement—but they can choose to leave before the show ends. But the actors can’t leave the stage until the performance is over.

Let’s say you have an unusual idea which feels exciting and scary at the same time. To turn it into reality, you want to ask others to collaborate and give their perspective. Who are the people you’re going to collaborate with? Whose perspectives are you seeking? And what do you do next?

In such a thought exercise, as the initiator, you are the metaphorical first actor who steps onto the stage and faces the audience before the rest of your team shows up to play their roles.

In real-life contexts, the key players involved in the collective creativity of discussing the feasibility and development of a novel idea are:

• The initiator of the idea.
• The team members with complementary skills.
• The stakeholders—the other participants in the conversation—in your network who you trust, whose expertise you value and whose validation you need.

Three factors must be in place to enable a constructive moment or an experience of collective creativity:

1. You are genuinely seeking help and feedback on developing your idea.
2. You believe that your initial idea can be improved through communication and collaboration with others.
3. The other participants are genuinely willing to share their knowledge and help.

When there’s a strong social connection between the participants, the exchange can generate valuable knowledge by bringing together diverse viewpoints.

In this sub-chapter, we discuss the three crucial competencies that you need when you’re involved in collective creativity:

1. Building your social network at every step of the creative process.
2. Empathetic communication.
3. Open-mindedness.

Building your social network

Creativity is a social process as much as a personal mission.

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‘I strongly believe that creativity comes when communicating with other people, because other people are challenging you,’ says Tapani Vuorinen, a professor at Aalto’s Department of Bioproducts and Biosystems. ‘So many times when I meet other people and just discuss, it leads to something that might spark new creative solutions.’

Vuorinen co-founded CHEMARTS together with Pirjo Kääriäinen, an associate professor at the Department of Design. CHEMARTS is a strategic collaboration between two of Aalto’s schools, the School of Chemical Engineering and the School of Arts, Design and Architecture. The goal is to inspire students and researchers from different disciplines to explore biomaterials together and create new concepts for using cellulose and other biomaterials.

How did this initiative come into being? ‘First by chance, and then through contagious enthusiasm,’ says Vuorinen. ‘I had an opportunity to give a talk to people who were in fashion. That’s very different from my field. And then, to my great surprise, the design people got excited about what I had been doing, and they wanted to collaborate, maybe without knowing exactly what would come out. And then the same excitement appeared in our school, and this excitement from others led us to start to collaborate.’

From Vuorinen’s anecdote, we can see that accepting an unusual invitation from people in your professional network can lead to unexpected ideas.

The social bond among people involved in collective creativity can stimulate creative discussions of new ideas (McDonald et al., 2018, Parjanen & Hyypiä, 2019). When you have an idea that you think is daring, radically creative or disruptive, your personal connections can help you develop it—and that can make all the difference. At different phases of the creative process, you’ll need to talk with different people for different reasons (Ohly et al., 2010).

For example, during the idea exploration phase, it might be a good to show willingness to say yes and contribute to other people’s projects in other disciplines. Saying yes to multidisciplinary collaborations can have a snowball effect that spurs unanticipated and creative ideas in your community.

During an idea generation phase, where you’ve identified the challenge you’re tackling but are only beginning to roll up your sleeves, you might benefit from some support and validation. Are you going to work alone or invite other experts to form a team? Which stakeholders might see the potential of your idea? How about inviting these people to a constructive dialogue?

In the experimentation phase, when you’ve made some progress and experienced setbacks, it might help to seek out other perspectives to help figure out your next steps. What could you try? How might you continue the project? What could be done differently? Who can help you envision new implementation strategies?

And then comes the moment of truth, the outcome, when people first encounter the new process, product or service. You’ll want their feedback so you can learn what could be improved. You’ll also want some testimonials to validate your product for other possible users.

All in all, to advance your radically creative idea, you may want to pay attention to the following three questions:

• When do you need input?
• What kind of input and what for?
• Who in your network is best suited?

Madjar (2008) found out that people can affect your creative thinking in two ways: emotional support and information richness. Emotional support—for example, from colleagues inside and outside your unit or team—can have a positive effect on your creative performance. Ed Catmull, one of the co-founders of Pixar, understood this and created Braintrust, an environment where everyone could share ideas and provide constructive criticism without making others feel belittled or defensive (Catmull & Wallace, 2023, Catmull, 2008). Catmull also made sure to keep Steve Jobs, the co-founder, away from Braintrust. He noticed that other group members wouldn’t criticize Jobs’ ideas or share their own when he was around. It’s important for participants to feel emotional support when they discuss creative, wild and scary ideas.

In summary, social interactions can help provide the input needed to improve creative thinking by providing a greater variety of ideas and information at a different stages of the process.

Empathetic communication

In this section, we talk about how you can foster empathy in your daily conversations.

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When asked how it feels for a chemist to talk with people working in arts or business, Vuorinen said:

‘Maybe they open my eyes, showing how things can be done in a different way. In the beginning it might be a bit difficult to understand. That can be a challenge, because different fields have different practices. The way of thinking is different, even the terms can be quite different.’

When talking with people from different fields, it’s useful to remember a core principle of effective communication: empathy. Empathy, in this context, is about putting yourself in someone else’s shoes to see the product or process from their perspective, which can guide the generation of new concepts. You want your conversation partner to see the relevance of your new idea, and you also want to be able to understand their views.

People experience two different kinds of empathy, affective empathy and cognitive empathy (Cox et al., 2012). The former is about feeling what someone else feels. The latter is about understanding cognitively, at the level of facts, someone’s context. Where do they come from? What are their current life circumstances? Knowing more about a person’s context increases your chances of understanding what they mean.

You can use your empathy both before and during a collaborative creativity conversation. For example, cognitive empathy can help you rehearse how you’ll introduce your idea and project. What words and what examples would help give your interlocutor easy access to your world?

As the conversation unfolds, following the feelings that arise can guide you in new directions. You might sense excitement from the other participants, which is a sign that you can get into deeper issues related to your new idea. or there may be confusion, which could motivate you to look for a way to clarify your arguments or to stop and ask exploratory questions.

You should also lead the conversation with empathy. Whatever emotions you bring in the collective creativity interaction, they can become contagious. It helps to make sure that you maintain a curious and positive state.

Open-mindedness

When you are willing to accept that others know something you don’t and to do things in ways that never crossed your mind, you are open to unexpected opportunities to develop your ideas.

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‘You need to be willing to learn from others,’ says Vuorinen. ‘It’s important to accept that there are different ways of working.’

‘For example, I’ve been surprised in CHEMARTS to see that design people, without having the scientific way of working, make findings that I would not have made because of my way of thinking. I might consider something the best way to go to find something new, and I think an invention is interesting, based on the theories that I have in my mind. But if my model isn’t perfect, I’ll miss other things that are interesting. The design students don’t have the same models, and they are free to work anywhere. So they can make findings that we scientists don’t. That shows the use of bringing together different ways of working because they complement each other.’

Open-mindedness is giving value to the views and knowledge of others in a group. Being open-minded means that you’re aware of alternative views and perspectives and appreciate others’ knowledge (Herman & Mitchell, 2010). An individual’s readiness to learn mediates between being open-minded and having innovative ideas (Al Abrrow et al., 2023).

The way you identify with your profession can be an inhibitor or enabler of open-mindedness (Mitchell et al., 2012). When you emphasise the differences between professional groups, it hinders the exchange of diverse ideas and perspectives. But when the focus is on the richness and variety of expertise in the group, people become more receptive.

In improvisational theatre, openness to others’ ideas is one of the fundamental rules. It’s enshrined in the ‘yes, and…’ rule (Koppett, 2013), which reminds the actors that they need to accept what’s offered by their partners and the environment and then build on it.

References

Al-Abrrow, H., Fayez, A. S., Abdullah, H., Khaw, K. W., Alnoor, A., & Rexhepi, G. (2023). Effect of open-mindedness and humble behavior on innovation: mediator role of learning. International Journal of Emerging Markets, 18(9), 3065-3084.

Catmull, E., 2008, How Pixar Fosters Collective Creativity

https://www.homeworkempire.com/wp-content/uploads/edd/2017/03/Reading-Material-5.pdf

Catmull, E., & Wallace, A. (2023), Creativity Inc. (The Expanded Edition): Overcoming the Unseen Forces that Stand in the Way of True Inspiration. Random House.

Cox, C. L., Uddin, L. Q., Di Martino, A., Castellanos, F. X., Milham, M. P., & Kelly, C. (2012). The balance between feeling and knowing: affective and cognitive empathy are reflected in the brain’s intrinsic functional dynamics. Social cognitive and affective neuroscience, 7(6), 727-737.

Herman, H. M., & Mitchell, R. J. (2010). A theoretical model of transformational leadership and knowledge creation: The role of open-mindedness norms and leader–member exchange. Journal of Management & Organization, 16(1), 83-99.

Koppett, K., (2013). Training to Imagine. Stylus. Second Edition.

Madjar, N. (2008). Emotional and informational support from different sources and employee creativity. Journal of Occupational and Organizational Psychology, 81(1), 83-100.

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Nisula, A.M. & Kianto, A. (2018). Stimulating organizational creativity with theatrical improvisation. Journal of Business Research, 85, 484-493.

Ohly, S., Kase, R., & Škerlavaj, M. (2010). Networks for generating and for validating ideas: The social side of creativity. Innovation, 12(1), 41-52.

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Vera, D., & Crossan, M. (2004). Theatrical improvisation: Lessons for organizations. Organization Studies, 25(5), 727-749.