So previously, we talked about barriers to team creativity,

like fear and silence and overconfidence.

So, I thought maybe we should circle back and revisit some of those,

and maybe talk about how,

what we've discussed can address each of those challenges.

Yes, so we started with the idea that people are fearful in teams.

Yeah.

And they tend to conform,

and they're worried about not being liked,

being rejected all these things.

So, we talked a lot about different things we could do to address that.

One is building a culture of individualism

in which people rather than their motive being around,

getting people to like you,

or not avoiding conflict.

But what it does instead is emboldens people to stand out, to be different,

to be unique, to engage in

conflict if it means that it's going to move the discussion forward.

And so, in that culture then,

there is less of a tendency to conform in more of a willingness to say,

"Look the majority has it wrong and here's why".

So, the primary concern around fear is that I will be socially rejected.

And so, if we can lessen that fear of being socially rejected,

if we allow you to be your own way,

that's the individualism argument.

Yeah and there's actually even evidence that even

when people experience social rejection,

the groups, I don't want you here,

the individual is actually re-frame that as,

"That just means I'm different and they don't get me",

and they're even more creative after being rejected.

So, there's really a sense of individualism being a buffer against all of

these concerns that will make ordinary people silent.

If you have that frame of mind in which the goal here is really to be different.

When I express something creative and I'm rejected,

it means I'm on to something,

it doesn't necessarily mean that.

It's not something to be afraid of.

Yeah, not a point of fear.

Right.

Silence.

Yeah, well, pause.

Pause. Well, I mean so silence is another issue we talked about.

So, people don't want to speak up,

they are afraid of breaking norms,

they're afraid of standing out and you don't want to rock the boat.

And part of it that is that they think they're the only one who

disagrees and everyone else is on board.

So, I don't want to open my mouth and make things awkward.

So, we talked about dissent?

Right. And so, when you have somebody who confidently says,

"I think you people have it wrong and I have it right",

it can actually embolden other people to join and say,

"I'm not the only one who thinks that this is a terrible idea".

And just having a partner in

that dissent against the majority can really make people more bolds,

more independent minded, yeah. And so

So, we can minimize that concern over silence by enabling

people to disagree by fostering that tolerance for disagreement.

Yeah, and another way Dude is we talked about personnel rotation.

When you bring in a new person

Membership change.

And they're poorly socialized so they don't really know what's expected of them.

And they break rules and they question things

and then it can signal to the rest of the group that maybe

Why do we do it that way?

Exactly. We've fallen into these habits and nobody thinks they're good.

But this naive newcomer stumbles around and questions things.

The emperor has no clothes,

says the kid right the newcomer.

So, after we change membership or things like that,

people speak up but there's another issue we talked about which is overconfidence.

So, we all think all right,

what you said is okay and I said it too and therefore we think we must be right,

and he said it and I said. So, we're good.

It could be rooted in nothing too as just we form a team and we think we're great,

and we go from there.

And a lot of the things we talked about are really aimed at breaking that overconfidence.

So, dissent, it's hard to be overconfident when you have

somebody consistently and confidently saying you're absolutely wrong.

It's like, "Well, I'm curious why do you think that?

Maybe I missed something, maybe I should go back and rethink things."

"Or if nothing else, I at least have to now figure out the explanation for my position,

and defend it against the dissenter."

So, it encourages reflection and understanding why I think what I do.

And so, all of these things are helpful and yeah.

So, conflict sharpens thought, and we talked about

And focus on complexities and explanation.

And I think that's more than anything what conflict will do productively.

"Why do you think that?

What is the explanation there?

And that's different than what I thought".

And so, that's going to drop that confidence based on nothing and hopefully,

replace you with confidence based on something.

So, at the end of the day we'll know why we think things and

we'll be clearer about the information that led us there.

And so, we've made a sound decision that we can actually be confident about,

not one that was rooted in just a superficial agreement and thoughtlessness and silence.

Can we go now?

Can we go?

So, what's the big picture here?

I think the really the big picture is that we exist in this world that

encourages in many ways the opposite of what we need for team creativity.

The things like being a team player,

getting everyone to like you, being cooperative,

maintaining harmony at the cost of thought and rejecting people who are difficult,

the creative types, the narcissists,

things that people that shake things up.

And so, really offering is a vision of teams that is in some ways,

at odds with the typical advice you would get about how to run a team.

Let's focus on the social niceties,

and let's focus on coordination.

It's less focused on how can we all get in line,

divided up and get going and oversee a smooth process.

It's much more about how can we put our different viewpoints

together and push each other to generate

the different viewpoint to come out with something that we didn't have previously.

And so, what you really need on your team are the people that are normally filtered out,

the rebels, the deviants,

the rejects, the defiant people.

The people who would otherwise slow your team down.

But you want to slow down?

Yes, exactly.

That's the problem that seems too quick and superficial.

It's actually similar to what we saw at the individual level.

If you're thinking about changing your perspective,

you have to stop using the perspective

and just trying to advance the task and you have to say,

wait a minute there's another way to look at it.

And I think we're seeing the same thing here.

If you have that nice team that all gets along and just wants to take action,

that's great but you got to stop that to figure out a different way of doing it.

And teams need a lot of help to do

that because all the norms push you towards being nice,

getting along, coordinating, moving ahead,

and here we're seeing no, no, no, let's fight a little.

And the people who force you to pause,

we don't like them and they hold us up but they're really necessary.

Yeah, but the holding up is the point.

Yeah exactly.

It is the point.

And so, it's a different recipe for team performance.

And one I think will be

useful as you think about how to manage creativity in your own teams.

2-6.1 Breaking Barriers and Being Creative in Teams

Creativity Toolkit II: Creative Collaboration

Meet the Instructors