Over the Rainbow The Power of Collaboration

Over the Rainbow Creativity Project-Teacher Resource LTC 8900 Artistic Thinking Jooyoung Ahn

Keith Sawyer Author of Group Genius

“Innovation is what drives today’s economy, and our hopes for the future-as individuals and organizations-lie in finding creative solutions to pressing problems. My goal is to reveal the unique power of collaboration to generate innovation. And it’s my hope that you’ll use these new insights about “group genius” to create more effective collaborations in your own life-at work, at home, and in your community.”

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZmaL2T_Dq8s

In the book, Group Genius, Keith Sawyer; professor of psychology at Washington University in St Louis makes a counter-argument against one of the commonest beliefs and myths of innovation. That is the long genius. His idea is that creativity is not essentially about flashes of individual brilliance. When thinking of the greatest innovations, many of us come up with image about the lone genius who is extremely special and brilliant like Leonardo da Vinci, Edison, Einstein or Mozart. However, it is not too hard for us to find the fact that their innovations are supported by some forms of collaborative process . It is not from simply the isolated “Aha! Moment” because even the insights that emerge when we’re completely alone might also be traced back to the results of previous collaborations. Throughout this book, what Sawyer wants to convince us is that new ideas are always the result of social interaction. This is what the power of collaboration is he emphasizes.

This book would be very inspiring to anyone in any field interested in innovation or creativity and wants to know a practical formwork for bringing innovation to their group and community even though he focuses primarily on the field of business. He doesn't just show us the genius of groups however, he explains how there is a web of people and ideas when a lone genius generates an extremely creative idea. Giving us great examples, the author also explores how collaboration sparks a trail of ideas that eventually leads to innovation, and how it positions individuals to combine these ideas in new and creative ways. Sawyer points out almost everyone in this collaborated world knows well about the power of collaboration but the problem is that many companies or communities do not truly understand and realize what makes for successful collaboration, how the combination of each person’s individual creativity could be converted into group genius.

Let’s take a closer

look at the book - Tools, Theories and Techniques

.Key characteristics of effective creative team

1. Innovation emerges over time No single actor comes up with the big picture, the whole plot. The play emerges bit by bit. Each actor, in each line of dialogue, contributes a small idea. 2. Successful collaborative teams practice deep listening Balancing act is difficult but essential to group genius. Most people spend too much time planning their own actions and not enough time listening and observing others. 3. Team members build on their collaborator’s ideas When teams practice deep listening, each new idea is an extension of the ideas that have come before. Although a single person may get credit for a specific idea, it ‘s hard to imagine that person having that idea apart from the hard work of a dedicated team.

4. The meaning of an idea becomes a clear over time In creative collaboration, each person acts without knowing what his or her action means. Participants are willing to allow other people to give their action meaning by building on it later. 5. Surprising questions emerge The most transformative creativity results when a group either thinks of a new way to frame a problem or finds a new problem that no one had noticed before. 6. Innovation is inefficient In improvised innovation makes more mistakes, and has as many misses as hits. When we look at an innovation after the fact, all we remember is that chain of good ideas that made it in to innovation. 7. Innovation emerges from the bottom up The improvisational collaboration of the entire group translates moments of individual creativity into group innovation. It’s riskier and less efficient, but when a successful innovation emerges, it’s often so surprising and imaginative.

How to Teams Collaborate

. The power of improvisation : It is an essential method to improve problem solving and innovation in collaboration. . Too many rules and too much planning tend to choke out creativity and innovative problem solving. . Brainstorming works best in an organization that enjoys a culture of innovation, an organization where brainstorm meeting are held. . While improvisation is often inefficient, it can lead to better ideas and better results in some case. . Improvising groups attain a collective state of mind that is called “Group Flow”. . “Flow” occurs when: . People are working on tasks that match their skills . There’s a clear goal . There’s constant feedback as to progress and attainment of the goal . The person is free to fully engage in the task.

The Rules of Group Flow . Don’t use groups for additive tasks- tasks that people could do separately and then sum up. Instead, use them for complex and improvisational tasks. . Keep groups to the minimum number of members required; this will reduce social loafing and production blocking. . Use a facilitator who knows the research about what brainstorming formats work the best, and who knows how to help the group avoid production blocking and social inhibition. . Because complex and unexpected innovations emerge from innovative groups as a whole, group rewards need to be in place. . Allow the group to alternate work with frequent breaks, and switch constantly between group and individual activity. . To take advantage of the increased innovation of diverse groups, compose groups with complementary skills. . Keep in mind that group members who are low in social anxiety and who enjoy group interaction will perform better.

The Collaborative Mind

. Psychologists have discovered that creative sparks are embedded in a collaborative process, with five basic stages. 1. Preparation: This involves a period of working hard, studying the problem, and talking to everyone else working on it. 2. Time off: The team member changes context and engages in other activities – often in conversation with others. 3. The spark: During the time off, a solution appears; but that solution is deeply embedded in the knowledge and social interactions of the preparation and time-off phases, and it builds on sparks that others have had. 4. Selection: an “Aha!” feeling doesn’t always mean the idea is good. Creative people are very good at selecting the best ideas for follow up, or they collaborate with others in selecting them. 5. Elaboration: Working out the idea typically requires a lot of additional ideas. Bringing them all together always requires social interaction and collaboration. . Creativity isn’t about rejecting convention and forgetting what we know. Instead, it’s based on past experience and existing concepts. The most important past experiences are in social groups filled with collaboration.

. The myth that insight emerges suddenly and unpredictably persists because most people aren’t consciously aware of the social and collaborative encounters that lead to their insights. . All great inventions emerge from a long sequence of small sparks. Collaboration brings small sparks together to generate breakthrough innovation. . Successful innovators keep having ideas. They know that most of their ideas won’t work out, and they’re quick to cut their losses and pursue those few good ideas that resonate with their collaborators. . Collaboration brings distant concepts together; it makes each individual more creative; and, most important of all, the emergent results of group genius are greater than those any one individual could think of alone.

The Collaborative Organization

. The most innovative companies do ten things that foster collaboration and innovation. 1. Keep many irons in the fire – When the business environment

changes, the best selling product might become obsolete, but one of the back-burner ideas may suddenly emerge as next new thing.

2. Create a department of surprise – Even the projects that fail result in powerful knowledge that can potentially be reused in a later project.

3. Build spaces for creative conversation – Open spaces feed into the natural flow of collaborative innovation- helping ideas to move from one area to another, allowing spontaneous conversations to emerge, and strengthening informal information-sharing networks.

4. Allow time for ideas to emerge - Low pressure situations allow for collaborative conversations to unfold, and that’s where innovation emerge.

5. Manage the Risk of Improvisation – Imprecision often causes high-level organizational conflict. To be successful, the collaborative organization must deftly manage these risks.

6. Improvise at the edge of chaos – At first, each company may need to experiment with different structures while closely watching what emerges and tuning in to the edge of chaos.

7. Manage Knowledge for Innovation – The collaborative

organization excels at transferring to other groups the ideas that emerge from good improvisations.

8. Build dense networks – In creative conversations, knowledge is represented equivocally, lending itself to multiple interpretations, new combinations, and reuse.

9. Ditch the organizational chart - Expensive and wrenching corporate reorganizations rarely resulted in increased innovation; because they were driven from the top.

10. Measure the right things – The best measure of an organization’s innovation potential is how successfully it has created a collaborative organization.

The five key features of Collaborative Webs 1. Each innovation builds incrementally on a long history of prior

innovation. 2. A successful innovation is a combination of many small sparks. 3. In collaborative webs, there is frequent interaction among

teams. 4. In collaborative webs, multiple discovery is common. 5. No one company can own the web.

How could this resource be implemented

for classroom use? -classroom implications & application

Suggestion 1. Over the Rainbow Target Level : K- 12 grade Why Diversity Works? “Diversity makes teams more creative because the friction that results from multiple options drives the team to more original and more complex work.” (Keith Sawyer) I completely agree with Sawyer. Creativity originally comes from the process to think differently and variously and the more diverse experiences or connections we have, the more creative ideas we come up. In terms of that, I believe to foster students’ creativity, we as teachers should not only encourage students’ collaboration but also respect and develop diversity in classroom. This idea reminds me of a rainbow. Rainbow is made up of many different colors and the harmonious combination of colors makes its distinct beauty. Like rainbow, in collaborative process, students need to express their ideas and opinions without any fear. For this, we need to create positive and supporting classroom environment.

Including Diverse Ideas Collaboration works best if everyone is included and everyone has a chance to contribute ideas. The group's task may seem overwhelming to some students, and they may have no idea how to go about accomplishing it. To others, the direction the project should take may seem obvious. The job of the collaboration is to break down the work into chunks, and to allow every student to contribute. In any case, this collaborative process will surely be improved as a result of some creative modification. Encouraging Diverse Ideas The goal of collaboration is to produce as many ideas as possible in a short time without evaluating them. All ideas are carefully listened to but not commented on and are usually written on the board or large sheets of paper so everyone can see them, and so they don't get forgotten or lost. It is also a good idea for them to take turns speaking their ideas in front of class.

Suggestion 2. VTS Discussion Target Level : K- 12 grade

While reading the text, Group Genius, I couldn’t help but keep thinking about VTS (Visual Thinking Strategies) discussion. That is because VTS discussion is an educational instruction which pursues surprisingly similar values to what Sawyer emphasizes about productive group collaboration in this book. For over a year until now, I have encountered many surprising findings while I have studied VTS and had VTS classes with my students. One of the conclusions the findings brought to me is that VTS’s well-planned collaborative process enables students to think much more creatively. At first when students start the discussion, they usually focus on simple observation which is neither profound nor creative. However, as the discussion went by, students started to interact with others and develop their ideas. The latter ideas and interpretation tend to be surprisingly profound and creative. Without this group interaction and collaboration, students rarely come up with the creative ideas; therefore I believe the one of the strongest advantages of VTS is group collaboration. This has many things in common with Sawyer’s idea that creativity is not essentially about flashes of individual brilliance.

Visual Thinking Strategies uses art to foster students' capacities to observe, think, listen and communicate. In VTS discussions teachers support student growth by facilitating discussions of carefully selected works of visual art.

Teachers are asked to use three open-ended questions: •What's going on in this picture? •What do you see that makes you say that? •What more can we find?

3 Facilitation Techniques: •Paraphrase comments neutrally. •Point at the area being discussed. •Link contrasting and complementary comments.

Students are asked to: •Look carefully at works of art. •Talk about what they observe. •Back up their ideas with evidence. •Listen to and consider the views of others. •Discuss many possible interpretations