A speech I’ve been writing for a new client has the “benefits of collaboration” as a major theme, so I’ve been researching the topic. In doing so, I was delighted to come across Keith Sawyer’s, Group Genius: The Creative Power of Collaboration.
I was doubly delighted to learn that even we solo practitioners – we lonely freelance speechwriters – can “collaborate”… with ourselves. Have faith; I’ll explain later.
Using examples as diverse as jazz ensembles, improve comedy troupes, helicopter rescue teams and his own stint at Atari developing video games, Sawyer makes a strong case that the most creative ideas come from a group of people who share both passion and purpose. They deeply care about the issue and have a vested interest in solving it.
Sawyer shares this story example, “In the early 1980’s, at my first job after college, I designed video games for Atari. Each game benefitted from constant collaboration; I talked to other game designers every day, and we held frequent brainstorming sessions to generate new game ideas. I worked with graphic designers who created the animation sequences that made the characters run, hop, and throw, and musicians who composed those memorable little beeps and bops.”
Sawyer is, of course, right about collaboration. During my career, I’ve been on staff as speechwriter with two corporations where I was part of speechwriting groups. I well remember the wonderful brainstorming we used to do over the half-walls of our cubbies. How does this sound? Do you think that’s the right word to use there? Should I use this quote? How does this paragraph work?
We’d also collaborate on images that supported each other’s speeches. How about this video clip? Can we use this music there? Does this chart enhance or detract from the talk? And on it went. The end products were invariably better than we would have produced alone.
But here I am – as are many of you – with my own speechwriting business and no one to bounce ideas off of, to brainstorm, to get the adrenaline coursing through my veins, or wherever it courses, and helping set my speeches on fire.
Fear not. Sawyer makes the case that we can, in fact, brainstorm…with ourselves.
He writes, “I hope to have convinced you of the creative power of collaboration. But you still might wonder: Isn’t the individual mind the ultimate source of creativity? Doesn’t each creative spark come from a single person? In fact, researchers have discovered that the mind itself is filled with a kind of internal collaboration, and that even those insights that emerge when you’re completely alone can be traced back to previous collaborations.”
So there you have it. I guess Sondheim was right to title one of his songs, “No one is alone.”
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Whenever I’ve had trouble writing something, after I had done my research, taken lots of notes, made an outline, or even written a draft, if I dropped it when i was no longer making progress, my subconscious mind would continue working on why the parts didin’t fit together.
I’d find when I came back to it and re-read it all a day or two later, I’d have an Aha! moment when I would realize what was missing, or what was wrong with my initial organization. Then I could I could add or subtract something , or rearrange the order to obtain the flow the article or report required.
I guess in that sense, we can collaborate with our subconscious creativity just by letting go, and letting our subconscious work on the content while our conscious mind catches up on something else.