Creative Teams
Courtney and I spent last evening at a celebratory dinner party in honor of a close friend who was accepted into grad school. It was an enjoyable evening of good wine, great food, and even greater conversation. In that sense, it was precisely what any good dinner party should be.
On the way home, I began to think about how one goes about building a successful creative team. After all, everyone who attended this party was certainly creative and either successful or well on their way to being successful in one form or another. I am incredibly lucky to have such a strong group of creative friends. We had in fact tried several times to actively pull together as a team with varying degrees of success. It frustrated me that none of it was working.
Of course, I see the same problem in my professional life and in my academic life. Corporate teams rarely work effectively. The only truly effective technical team I worked with was run by Othgood and management shut that team down because, to put it simply, it threatened the existing power structure too much for their comfort. Most corporate teams are filled with individuals working to survive. They dodge layoffs and watch coworkers drop like flies without batting an eye. There is no sense of loyalty, connectivity, or shared value. The same is true in the academic world. I am watching my project stall because I can’t effectively manage people who only have a cursory interest in its success. I may actually go outside of class to complete it which may be the only way to get it done. Students, like workers, are only interested in the grade. The product is secondary. A paper needs an A. It doesn’t matter the voice or the content as long as it guarantees them a good grade. In that sense grades are currency, unfortunately, art driven by currency alone tends to be devoid of any real life.
What’s the fix. then? As usual, it is deceptively easy to understand and incredibly hard to implement. It is all about vision. You need people passionate about the work and the idea. I have creative and talented friends, but they all have their own focus and passion. We don’t have a shared vision and I don’t really think we ever will. Without a shared vision, you end up with people working in a hundred different directions. I admit its frustrating. I would love nothing better than to take them and merge them into a solid and effective creative team that could focus on each others visions, but you can’t force a team. You can only develop it with willing members. People who are willing to do the work and to follow through all the way. People who help keep you accountable because they value the project as much as you do.
Of course, this is an unlikely thing to find beyond a single project. I suppose that is why there are so many individual artists, it is hard to find a shared vision. It would sure be nice, though.
