The Myth of the Lone Creator & The Power of Collaborative Creativity

The Myth of the Lone Creator & The Power of Collaborative Creativity

By Ben Millstein

Ben Millstein is a writer and creative communications designer living in Brooklyn, NY. He serves as Marketing Director for award-winning experience design firm Local Projects, and is a lead creative mentor at Prolog.

It’s time to dispel the myth of the lone creator - that it takes a lone genius like Pablo Picasso or Steve Jobs to see the world in a fresh way, and to create weird and beautiful inventions through their unique lens.

We spend less time talking about collaborative creativity, and we’re not referring to Lennon and McCartney here. Some of the most exciting creative work happens when hundreds or even thousands of people work together to explore outer space, build autonomous cars, or just make a really great iPhone app.

In other words, creativity is broader and more common than we're led to believe, and almost all creativity in the workplace involves collaboration. But collaboration is hard. That’s why we created Prolog, an assessment and training program to help you learn and grow your creative strengths.

PRIDE OR PREJUDICE

Most teams, especially those in large organizations, have their share of obstacles to facilitating and encouraging creativity. Either they don’t make creativity a priority, or they are too prideful about existing systems and don’t know how to step back and see the blindspots.

Our shared vision and language for different forms of creativity can help by embracing the many aspects of creativity and the many personalities that embody them.

CREATIVITY IS A FOCUSED WAY OF LOOKING AT PERSONALITY TYPES

Measuring how people behave while creating in a group scenario is a good way to gain insight into how they'll perform in the future. The heightened emotions, close emotional ties, and general intensity of creative collaboration are how teams should be motivated to understand and improve.

UNDERSTAND WHEN TO PUSH AND WHEN TO PULL

Think about who you rely on to get your job done. When do you lean on your coworker to help?

By building a vocabulary around your own creative strengths, you can build the self-awareness and confidence to know how to work with others, when to lean on their strengths, and when to push them outside their comfort zones. It can also help you react more objectively to the strengths and weaknesses of a creative product.

COMMUNICATION & RESPECT ARE CURES TO OUR CONFLICTS

People generally have difficulty communicating effectively and respectfully, and the pandemic has exacerbated that problem thanks to the need to work remotely. What we often fail to realize is the degree to which respect needs to be taught and contextualized.

That’s why we’ve framed different creative personalities as strengths - to signal that differing personalities are most often complementary.

We envision a more collaborative future. A future where more people get to be creative more often, and collaborate more effectively to solve the many daunting challenges and exciting opportunities. Want that future too? Get in touch at hello@prolognyc.com.

Back to blog