“When we collaborate creativity unfolds across people; the sparks fly faster and the whole is greater than the sum of its parts. Collaboration drives creativity because innovation always emerges from a series of sparks – never a single flash of insight.”
- Sawyer
Overview
As designers strive to become more innovative, working in groups is at the root of harvesting a larger breadth of creativity. Collaboration is a tool for reaching greater innovation and creativity in the design field. In this episode we will offer 10 tips to creating a collaborative culture.
Collaboration is at the root of creativity. Did you know some of our greatest artist of all time sought collaboration. Such as: Andy Warhol with Jean-Michel Basquiat, Salvador Dalí and Elsa Schiaparelli, and Christo and Jeanne Claude.
Why do we collaborate?
The practice of interior design is a collaborative field that usually requires you work with others to evolve and develop the project. Perhaps you are working among colleagues, that might have similar backgrounds in interior design or architecture. Perhaps you are working with a multidisciplinary team that has graphic designers, landscape architects and or engineers. At the beginning of a project you are probably developing a relationship with your client. You might be working directly with stakeholders or end users to complete a programming document. During the development of a project you might need to engage with consultants to develop the various facets of the project. You are most likely engaging with manufacturing reps to assure product availability, installation methods and specification writing. Towards the end of a project you are ideally forming a relationship with a general contractor to assure the design intent is met throughout construction. As you can probably figure out the list of people you engage with throughout a project can be expansive. The field of interior design requires designers to engage with other professionals and collaboratively move the project through the design phases.
“When we collaborate creativity unfolds across people; the sparks fly faster and the whole is greater than the sum of its parts. Collaboration drives creativity because innovation always emerges from a series of sparks – never a single flash of insight.” - Sawyer
10 Key Conditions to Creating Collaboration
1. Find the Balancing Act to create a equilibrium between task and process during a project. Task meaning the focus of getting the tangible deadlines done. Process meaning how designers work to achieve the tasks at hand. Especially right before a deadline the process of working in a team can break down. I find it important to slow down and remember to check in with my team members. It can be a short how was your weekend conversation or a longer conversation about what is working. By slowing down and prioritizing the process of working with your team you will find the tasks come together much easier at the end. I like to say go slow to go fast.
2. Amplify Differences. “We value adaptation and change seeing “trouble makers” as those who move the organization to its creative edge, where innovations are most likely to occur.” -Olson & Eoyang
Designers are often times taught in our society to fit into the group norms, to try not to be the deviating factor that slows the design process down. This is what society calls ‘trouble makers’ on the design team, those that always see a situation from a different perspective and are treated as a thorn in everyone’s side. This perception, though it will appear to be taking everyone off task, is exactly the type of thinking that needs to be embraced on design teams. In all the hustle of trying to meet deadlines, groups mitigate group members that appear to be deviating factors. When in all actuality the design team is better served to have the deviating factor pushing the design approach to consider new alternatives.
3. Discover Brainstorming Methods. A commonly used brainstorming method in the design field is a design charrette, where a group convenes to draft a solution to a design problem. The structure may entail a one-day event or a series of breakout session where groups divide into subgroups to explore a problem and then reconvene to present their findings. The idea behind a design charrette is to quickly generate a design solution while integrating a diverse group of people. However, what I find most interesting is the origin of the word ‘charrette,’
“from the French for "cart" or "chariot". It was not unusual for student architects to continue working furiously in teams at the end of the allotted term, up until a deadline, when a charrette would be wheeled among the students to pick up their work for review while they, each working furiously to apply the finishing touches, were said to be working en charrette. Term metamorphosed into the current design-related usage in conjunction with working right up until a deadline.” - Wikipedia
The irony is our society has shaped humans to want to quickly solve a problem by forgoing or lessening the importance of the process of how one arrived at a design solution. Though I believe design charrettes are beneficial to cultivate an array of ideas I believe that the design field could benefit from furthering and clarifying their intentions for how charrettes are approached. A common downfall of a charrette is that the group may not have fully investigated critical information ahead of time; or that a key decision-maker is absent from the charrette.
4. Build Consensus. “Too often, seeking consensus suppresses differences and generates solutions that lose creativity.” - Olson & Eoyang
Consensus building is one of the most challenging moments in a group process of working together. As groups work towards being expansive during the brainstorming phase teams at some point have to take those expansive ideas and come to a consensus about the direction of their project. This is often times where tension and frustration prevail and the group’s dynamics break down. An element that is important to be aware of is the 5 ways we come to consensus: denial, smoothing over, power, compromise and problem solving. Imagine if we slowed down and avoided denial or power to come to consensus, image what we could create.
5. Practice Active Listening.
“There are four communication skills: (1) reading, (2) writing, (3) speaking, and (4) listening. The list presents the four skills in a rank order based upon the amount of time the average person spends in training to develop the skill. Unfortunately, this list is an inverse ranking of the degree to which adults need to use the skills in the business world” -Glenn Parker
By actively listening we are ‘truly listening’ to what one actually saying by using such techniques as paraphrasing, asking clarifying questions, and reserving judgement before interjecting one’s own opinion.
6. Practice Reflective Practice. When I first heard of reflective practice I envisioned a monk sitting in a Zen garden, which is just one form of reflection. However, I quickly learned that a personal reflective practice is not the only form of reflection and in the case of working in groups it serve the purpose of enriching the groups understanding. A reflective practice is most powerful when it is shared with others.
7. Understand Emotional Intelligences. “Emotional intelligences is the capacity to know and manage our own feelings and also to read and effectively deal with others’ feeling” -Lebaron
One of the most powerful tools in understanding group dynamics and working with others collaboratively begins with knowing how one personally shows up and what they bring to the group. This is not something that can be taught or found externally as it requires the will of each individual to want to look internally to understand their own emotional intelligences and characteristics. Once one has a better understanding of their own internal dynamics they are able to look externally at the group’s relationships to see how they fit into and contribute to the collective group as an entity.
Check out Episode 3 Navigating Office Culture for a deeper dive into emotional intelligence.
8. Establish Group Norms. Creating a set of operational rules helps the team form a commitment and accountability on how to work together. Try asking each team member to write down 3 adjectives to describe a positive and less then positive group experience. From those adjectives the group can form 5-10 rules to operate within. Throughout the process of working with your team make sure to checkback in on those group norms. How is the team upholding them? Do they need to be adjusted?
9. Create Shared Leadership. “People will be accountable and committed to what they have a hand in creating” -Block.
The art of working within teams is knowing the paradox that exits between the I and We.
“The word collaboration shares two Latin roots: co-labor (to work together) and co-lapsis (to fall apart). Paradox are an essential part of collaboration. The creativity of a collaborative relationship depended on the strong, assertive, and unique contributions of the individuals involved. Yet those same individuals needed to be able and willing to subordinate themselves to the relationship.” -Smith & Berg
This is what is called the balancing act of the ‘I and we’ in group engagement. In order for designers to effectively work together they must maintain an equal balance between their own personal identities on a project while contributing to the greater whole of the group.
“The art of balancing opposites in such a way that they do not cancel each other out but shoot sparks of light across their points of polarity” -Smith & Berg
When the paradox of ‘I and we’ is out of balance there is often times a disengagement of one or all members of the group.
As many of us have seen, there will always be obvious leaders that rise up in a group however; the domination of those characteristics can be stifling to a group’s success if the other members of the group aren’t engaged at the same level. As the facilitator of groups, it is important to be aware of these tendencies and create an environment that fosters a shared leadership role. In doing so, the team members will be more likely to feel engaged, self-motivated and responsible for their own portion of the work.
10. It’s All About Relationships. “Life needs to link with other life, to form systems of relationship where all individuals are better supported by the system they have created” -Wheatley
Having an established relationship with someone can significantly influence and create a condition to collaborate. If the relationship is weak and there is tension then there will probably be little trust and willingness to share and construct new ideas through a collaborative process. If a relationship has built a network of trust then a group is more likely to have faith in each other’s contributions, and one is more willing to accept others ideas and build off them. Without a strong established relationship there will most likely be little to no collaboration until the relationship is built. Therefore, I believe building relationships to be a powerful point to bring up when trying to understand what creates the key conditions for successful collaboration. Try getting to know new team members and have faith that over time the relationship will build.
In summary
“If we want to change a result, we must first change the process that leads to the result. The biggest single change that could be made in the building profession is not the invention of a new technology but a change in the mind set of all the designers and engineers who select technologies to begin with” (McLennan, 2004, P. 86-88).
As the design field continues to develop to be more innovative on design projects, collaboration becomes an entry point that propels the designer and the design field forward.
Keep designing y’all
Credit
Branding & Graphic Design work by Andrea Schwoebel https://www.andreaschwoebel.com/
Cover Artwork Photo by NESA by Makers on Unsplash
Photo by who?du!nelson on Unsplash
Photo by Matthew T Rader on Unsplash
Photo by Rachel Bradley on Unsplash