Creativity and Open Systems
I’ve been reflecting lately about the creative process.
My brother, Rom, and I have an incredibly productive relationship that looks completely intense from an outside perspective. My wife describes it best. Rom and I sit upstairs in the office, and for an hour all she hears is arguing in Hebrew. She does her impersonation: “Yachshat mazal. Nu Kvar!!! Lo. Tch. Tov. Tov. Beseder.” It continues, she says, until there’s silence. And then rapid typing. The process repeats itself. And repeats itself again. I don’t think she’s that far off.
What’s not so obvious, though, is that this process is all about finding the “muse.” I find that it’s tempting to write what you think people want to hear. This is supposed to be business writin’, I tell myself. But then again, the reason business books can be, um, dull is because we assume that business = proper, which makes business text = boring.
In any case, I recently read a manuscript by Keith Sawyer called “Group Genius: The Creative Power of Collaboration.” Keith’s book is a great read. My favorite part is his analysis of decision-making within improv troupes. There’s a certain magic that happens, a jazz, that I always thought was impossible to capture.
But after reading Keith’s book and reflecting on it, I’m playing with the hypothesis that open systems rely much more on the muse, while hierarchical systems are more dependent on just grinding through.
I know which one works for me…
March 11th, 2007 at 8:38 am
Here, here!
I was advised by my editor to keep my words “businessy.” I half took it seriously and kept away from cliches like “via” and “synergize”. Perhaps it helped.
Keep me posted on Keiths book (when it’s out). His link did not work; but I think based on my writings, he and I are like minds.
thanks and keep up the inspiring work. It’s great to inject analogy into the non poetic world of business. Science writers have done a great job at it and their forum has reached more lay people because of it.