Some interesting quotes on creativity from Keith Sawyer
Here are a few quotations from Keith Sawyer's Group genius: The creative power of collaboration along with my thoughts pertaining thereto.
Failure is an interesting concept. Not succeeding in a particular undertaking can be seen as failure, but in reality it can become a building block for success -- a lesson learned. In this view, learning can be seen as a series of failures until you succeed. The process of failure could almost be conceived of as synonymous to learning. Once you have stopped failing, you have learned.
Which thought brings to mind an image of an education system that defines success as good grades and failure as bad grades. If the grading system is inconsistent or arbitrary or based on inaccurate or problematic assessment methods, you end up with people who learn to succeed according to those problematic assessments. Success becomes arbitrary and passes outside of school to an arbitrary view of success in life -- a faulty reward system. Failure to adopt those practices means you don't learn to fit into that reward system, which translates to, for instance, less financial means.
The sad thing is that such a system has nothing to do inherently with true learning, true meaning, or true happiness in life. It makes one wonder what things one should really attempt to succeed in doing.
This was new to me, but something I agree with now that I've read it. Working with groups of people can be an inefficient way to produce good ideas. One thing I find valuable is, once ideas have been generated, to get together as a group to discuss merits and problems of ideas and work through them in that way. I always need some alone time to cogitate ideas, but I find a brief discussion about the ideas to expand their possible breadth and depth.
Learning is inherently social. Like Andy Gibbons says, it's a conversation. Even if one party is asynchronously or anonymously involved. It is interesting, though, to conceive of the learning process of a person who reads a book and feels they have learned something. It has certainly happened. Then, to discuss the book with someone else, it expands the learning immensely -- either to broaden or deepen it.
Another thought: How do you decide what are the right ways and good ways of thinking? What are the good things to know? (If you can really know anything.) When you have competing viewpoints, what is the deciding factor for this socialized learning?
Ideas that are novel and don't fit into some social context are likely easily rejected, but not uncreative. I think some of Sawyer's illustrations focussed too much on the eventual financial success of the innovation as its sole merit. (Although, I think his meaning was that those innovators who had an open mind-set, where they felt free to collaborate with a broader context of people, rather than being possessive of their ideas, tended to become part of a broader quilt of innovation that allowed their ideas to progress, rather than to stagnate with little further development.) I guess it seems to me that, in the end, two equally innovative individuals, one of whom is open to collaboration and one who is possessive, will not be able to produce the same quantity of lasting innovation. The possessive individual will find their efforts falling flat as the other progresses.
This is in reference to the finding that people in groups tend to not remember where a specific idea came from. For instance, an individual might claim responsibility for a creative idea, when it might have been suggested to him or her by a comment from the group. That's probably the source of the Dilbertian pointy-haired boss character -- one who stifles creativity by taking credit for group successes while passing blame for group failures.
"There's no creativity without failure. Since group flow is often what produces the most significant innovations, these two common research findings go hand in hand." p. 55
Failure is an interesting concept. Not succeeding in a particular undertaking can be seen as failure, but in reality it can become a building block for success -- a lesson learned. In this view, learning can be seen as a series of failures until you succeed. The process of failure could almost be conceived of as synonymous to learning. Once you have stopped failing, you have learned.
Which thought brings to mind an image of an education system that defines success as good grades and failure as bad grades. If the grading system is inconsistent or arbitrary or based on inaccurate or problematic assessment methods, you end up with people who learn to succeed according to those problematic assessments. Success becomes arbitrary and passes outside of school to an arbitrary view of success in life -- a faulty reward system. Failure to adopt those practices means you don't learn to fit into that reward system, which translates to, for instance, less financial means.
The sad thing is that such a system has nothing to do inherently with true learning, true meaning, or true happiness in life. It makes one wonder what things one should really attempt to succeed in doing.
"Decades of research have consistently shown that brainstorming groups think of far fewer ideas than the same number of people who work alone and later pool their ideas" p. 60.
This was new to me, but something I agree with now that I've read it. Working with groups of people can be an inefficient way to produce good ideas. One thing I find valuable is, once ideas have been generated, to get together as a group to discuss merits and problems of ideas and work through them in that way. I always need some alone time to cogitate ideas, but I find a brief discussion about the ideas to expand their possible breadth and depth.
"... you always learn how to think in social interactions with teachers and peers" p. 89.
Learning is inherently social. Like Andy Gibbons says, it's a conversation. Even if one party is asynchronously or anonymously involved. It is interesting, though, to conceive of the learning process of a person who reads a book and feels they have learned something. It has certainly happened. Then, to discuss the book with someone else, it expands the learning immensely -- either to broaden or deepen it.
Another thought: How do you decide what are the right ways and good ways of thinking? What are the good things to know? (If you can really know anything.) When you have competing viewpoints, what is the deciding factor for this socialized learning?
"Creativity isn't about rejecting convention and forgetting what we know. Instead, it's based on past experience and existing concepts. And the most important past experiences are in social groups filled with collaboration" p. 90.
Ideas that are novel and don't fit into some social context are likely easily rejected, but not uncreative. I think some of Sawyer's illustrations focussed too much on the eventual financial success of the innovation as its sole merit. (Although, I think his meaning was that those innovators who had an open mind-set, where they felt free to collaborate with a broader context of people, rather than being possessive of their ideas, tended to become part of a broader quilt of innovation that allowed their ideas to progress, rather than to stagnate with little further development.) I guess it seems to me that, in the end, two equally innovative individuals, one of whom is open to collaboration and one who is possessive, will not be able to produce the same quantity of lasting innovation. The possessive individual will find their efforts falling flat as the other progresses.
"Confabulation: People have no trouble coming up with explanations for their behavior after the fact" p. 93.
This is in reference to the finding that people in groups tend to not remember where a specific idea came from. For instance, an individual might claim responsibility for a creative idea, when it might have been suggested to him or her by a comment from the group. That's probably the source of the Dilbertian pointy-haired boss character -- one who stifles creativity by taking credit for group successes while passing blame for group failures.
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