[MUSIC]

So when you form a team and you interact together for a while,

you get to start developing norms, right?

>> Right, whether you like it or not, these norms form, right?

And you can kind of think of them as basically habits that groups develop

over time, these shared understandings that tell people what's expected and

what's appropriate for in terms of how to behave on a team.

So an example would be, some teams like to start late.

And everyone knows that you're going to start late.

Everyone shows up late and everyone's fine.

Other teams, you start right on time and so everyone knows that and you show up.

So norms are important for controlling behavior.

>> Coordinating.

>> Right, and so you have a norm and

it means that everybody understands what's appropriate.

And there are also sanctions to punish people for

not complying with those things.

So if I'm in a team that starts on time, and I show up late,

people will give me dirty looks.

>> [LAUGH] >> They're not going to want to

work with me again, they're not going to, so there are social sanctions.

And so a lot of times we think about norms as being sort of constraining of

creativity because they sort of shape behavior and narrow it, right, and

make everyone behave similarly.

But there are particular norms that when they're in place can actually

foster creativity in groups.

And we're going to tell you about one particular norm that

actually facilitates ID expression which is a norm that encourages individualism.

>> We've been talking a little bit about individualism and collectivism, so

we should define it.

It often gets discussed in the context of culture.

So the origin of thinking about individualism and collectivism is

a discussion of about how countries tend to differ in the kinds of people

that are in them and the ways in which things operate in different countries.

So for example, the US is known for being an individualistic culture on average,

while China tends to be known as being collectivistic.

But what does that mean?

Well, we think of individualism and collectivism as a dimension, and

there's a set of norms that shape behavior in groups on both ends of that continuum.

So on the individualistic side, individualistic norms permit and

usually encourage people to express uniqueness, to pursue their

own personal goals, even if they're at odds with the goals of the team, and

to express their own personal point of view, even if it might lead to conflict.

In contrast, collectivistic norms encourage people to focus on what they

have in common rather than what sets them apart, to pursue the goals of the group

even if that means setting aside their own personal interests and

maintaining harmony rather than engaging in conflict.

So conflict typically gets supressed.

So much of the management literature has focused on the virtues of collectivism.

Collectivistic groups experience less conflict.

They're more efficient.

They're less likely to have free writers.

But that's not the whole story.

The danger with collectivism is that it can stamp out some of the behavior in

teams necessary for creativity.

>> So does individualism stimulate team creativity?

What's the evidence for that?

We actually tested this prediction in the study in which we manipulated or

primed people to think of themselves as either individualistic or

collectivistic prior to working on a brainstorming task.

How does that prime work?

That's a good question.

We actually used a questionnaire that was designed not to learn about how people saw

themselves, but to shift their thinking in a particular direction.

So for example, we asked the individualist to think of things that make them unique,

to describe themselves, and

to talk about why it might be beneficial to stand out from the group.

Conversely we asked the collectivist to think of things they have in

common with other people, to describe the groups to which they belong and

to explain why it might be advantageous to blend in.

The act of thinking through the answers to these questions

shifted their thinking one way or the other.

And then once they were primed into that particular mindset, we then asked them to

consider a scenario in which their campus restaurant had been shut down and

there was an empty space where the restaurant used to be.

And we asked him to think of as many ideas for

what could go into that space as possible.

We then measured their creative output.

And the results showed that the individualistic groups were more creative

on several different measures.

First of all, they came up with more ideas, so

the individualists were better at getting more ideas out on the table.

So silence was not a big problem in those kinds of teams, but

those ideas also diverged in more directions.

So for example, the collectivistic groups were boxed in by the example of

the restaurant and they spent a big chunk of their time just

sharing different kinds of restaurant ideas.

So this is narrow, it's convergent, but it's not creative.

And rather than switch perspectives to consider different possibilities, they

were locked into one point of view, which is really antithetical to creativity.

You want people to consider alternative perspectives,

not be narrowly focused on only one point of view.

So the evidence across all of these different ways of looking at it,

it was clear that the individualistic groups or

people who were made to think of themselves as individualists

were clearly more creative no matter how you measured it.

So all right,

I see the idea about individualism and generating creative ideas, but then what?

How do you get people to agree on which one to pick?

>> Right, everyone's a skeptic.

>> [LAUGH] >> Yeah, so

they get a lot of stuff on the table but at some point,

you've got to choose an idea and move forward.

And maybe it'll all break down once we get to that stage because they can't agree.

>> Yeah, I want my idea.

Yeah, I mean, that's a legitimate concern and

we actually looked at that by asking them to pick an idea and

then we looked to see what kinds of ideas they picked and whether there was more

creativity coming from the individualistic groups or the collectivistic groups.

And we found something that was really interesting.

What we found is that the collectivists, because they're operating from this

mindset of we want to like each other, we want to avoid conflict,

they ended up converging quickly on the least controversial idea,

which also happened to be less clever or similar to what was already there,

just more mundane because that way they could just move on, right?

This was an awkward period when they had to actually

read each other's ideas in a sense which leads to uncomfortable comparisons.

The individualists are a little bit different.

What they did is each individual in the group wanted some of their ideas

in the final product, right?

They wanted to stand out, and

so they wanted the final idea to reflect their efforts as well.

So they were actually more likely to argue and try and integrate ideas, and try and

make sure that everyone had something represented in the final product.

And what ended up happening was that they ended up with more intriguing

ideas, more unusual and good creative ideas because they combined

rather than just sort of quickly converging on one.

>> So that individualism promoted an entire second round of creativity.

Right, yeah, in the idea selection process.

>> Right, which the other group didn't even experience.

>> Right, and so we ended up with very interesting ideas about

a museum of communist history with a cafe and a library.

>> [LAUGH] >> One of these interesting combinations,

like wow, I haven't seen that, but yeah, it might actually work.

>> That's interesting, yeah.

>> And so with the collectivist, you'd get more like, well,

there was a restaurant there, let's just go with another restaurant.

>> Yeah. >> See what happens.

Not particularly creative, but really good for avoiding conflict and controversy and

making sure that since everybody suggested at least one restaurant idea,

no one's feelings were hurt.

You could just kind of move on quickly.

So even at the idea selection stage the final product is more creative.

>> So wait, why does the individualist have an advantage?

What was happening?

>> Yeah, so what was the actual process?

>> Right. >> And how did the conversation differ?

>> Did you tape the conversations?

>> We absolutely did.

And we actually looked and it was striking.

>> [LAUGH] >> You could see the difference,

even when you didn't know which condition they were in.

But it was a very different process.

And the individualists were more likely to say well, that's a good idea, but

I have one even better than that, right?

>> [LAUGH] Sure.

>> And there was this constant, and we'll get to competition but

this constant sort of effort to one up each other and to be more outlandish and

to take more risks and to stand out more.

Sure, and

what that ended up doing was breaking them off this sort of common thread, right?

And getting them onto a different set of considerations or

a different line of thinking, right, which was really important.

The collectivists had real trouble breaking out of

that initial sort of narrow focus on the previous solution.

So they knew that there was a restaurant in the empty space.

It failed, but they were, they spent way too much time converging on that

restaurant idea, because the conversation was more like, that's a great idea.

I have one just like it.

I was thinking restaurant, too.

>> [LAUGH] >> We have so much in common.

I like you, let's work together, right?

And that kind of team player sort of cooperative felt good, right?

>> Yeah, convergence.

>> Yeah, convergence actually feels like a happy team, right?

And if you ask, and we did ask them, do you want to work together again,

did you enjoy the process, the collectivists were more likely to say yes.

The individualists not so much.

So again, this is sort of an emerging theme that the process that leads to

creativity may not feel pleasant, and

they may not feel like what you would expect out of a team, but it might be

necessary to get that sort of shift in perspectives that we need to be creative.

[MUSIC]

>> To the world,

values team players it would seem collectivism is a perfect fit, but no.

>> Yeah, well, not for creativity, right?

So we've come to the extent that collectivism encourages people to

maintain harmony and fit in and try to get you to like me.

Those are all nice for cooperation, but for creativity,

you want something a little bit different.

>> We don't want to conform on the task,

we want to be individual when it comes to the task.

>> Right, and so individualism does the opposite, it gets people to stand out, to

be different, to assert their uniqueness, to engage in conflict, to argue, to rebel.

All of those things are good for breaking down some of those barriers that we talked

about that limit creative expression.

>> So norm for individualism.

>> Right, unpleasant but creative.

[LAUGH] [SOUND]

2-2.1 Individualism

Creativity Toolkit II: Creative Collaboration

Meet the Instructors