But Susan Cain, author of the forthcoming QUIET, has a different perspective, which she expresses in Sunday's New York Times:
SOLITUDE is out of fashion. Our companies, our schools and our culture are in thrall to an idea I call the New Groupthink, which holds that creativity and achievement come from an oddly gregarious place. Most of us now work in teams, in offices without walls, for managers who prize people skills above all. Lone geniuses are out. Collaboration is in.
But there’s a problem with this view. Research strongly suggests that people are more creative when they enjoy privacy and freedom from interruption. And the most spectacularly creative people in many fields are often introverted, according to studies by the psychologists Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi and Gregory Feist. They’re extroverted enough to exchange and advance ideas, but see themselves as independent and individualistic. They’re not joiners by nature.
I highly, highly recommend the whole article, called "The Rise of the New Groupthink," to you, and if you read far enough, you'll find a quote from some guy who wrote a book called Introverts in the Church.
What is your experience? Do you find that group interaction and conversation sparks creativity or kills it?
I can't think clearly when I'm with others because I'm focused more on listening and filtering others' ideas. I do my best work in silence.
ReplyDeleteI've found that it depends a great deal on what we're trying to get done. Time-delayed collaboration usually seems to work best. For instance, when I was a kid I was in a crafting club, and my absolute favorite project (which I initiated) was a kind of pass around quilt where we would each start with a square, swap, and then add to one another's projects secretly. I loved it because I had to think about what the quilt's eventual owner would like, but I could also put as much time and energy into it as I needed, since the intervals were something like two weeks.
ReplyDeleteI consider myself to be introverted, but some disciplines do work better when done in what I consider to be a more "extrovert friendly" style. For instance, in drawing class we were required to do a lot (perhaps hundreds; it's pretty much all we ever did) of timed drawings -- starting with 30 second gesture drawings, and then 1 minute, and 5, 10, 15, 30, and finally 1 hour gesture drawings. The important thing was to be *finished* by the end of that time, because the model would move and we had to re-start. I hated it, but I also learned a ton about drawing from it, which was the point.
The trick, I think, is finding some kind of balance that tips a little toward one's natural temperament, but which is in keeping with the goal. I could write quietly, by myself, all day -- but if I'm not interacting with anyone (email and blog responses count as interaction), I'll tend to start getting pretty circular. I don't do art well alone, though, or lesson planning. Simply having other people in the room, even if they're not talking to me, makes me less likely to write and more likely to draw or make something, especially if they're also doing something like that.
The problem, I think, is strict time requirements applied to situations that (unlike gesture drawing) don't need them -- and tat often ends up being necessary more often than not in classrooms, because it's too hard to organize 25-30 kids if they're not all doing the same thing at the same time.
I agree with Adrian. I think group interaction can be nice if you feel the need to bounce an idea off someone but overall it interferes with thinking.
ReplyDeleteI mostly agree. I say mostly because I have been in group situations where people's ideas bouncing around the room tend to send me off on tangents that I hadn't thought of before, that made the original idea better.
ReplyDeletehowever, I've also expereinced times when absolutely nothing gets done becuase one dominant person or idea that might not be the best becomes the product of the group think. (the too many cooks spoil the soup theory).
but overall, I guess I do my best creative thinking in quiet. Interesting post!
I find that I need an ebb-and-flow in terms of time with the group and time away, in order for a group context to help facilitate creativity in me. When I am physically with the other group members, I am much like Adrian. My brain is too full trying to sort out what everyone around me is saying. Curiously, I often find myself in the role of editor when it comes to group projects. Maybe it's the introvert in me, needing to cut out the extra words - ha! If I have some time away from the group to think through everything, I do find that the others' viewpoints help me to think more outside of my box, and my own creativity can begin to flow. But that really primarily happens to me when I have alone time to process everything, and then make my contribution.
ReplyDeleteI really like the article, but I'm not sure this has anything to do with introvert vs. extrovert. A good design process will always include some balance of solo/development time and group/critique time.
ReplyDeleteFor me, I am at my most creative when I am alone. Having to deal with other people exhausts me, and I tend to be inhibited when I have to express my ideas out loud. When I'm alone, I can scribble down various ideas without fear of censorship, use words/phrases/images that no one else would understand, and never have to speak a single word.
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