Articles from Integral Leadership Review

4/7 The Perils of Pernicious Polarities:

Contemplating Creativity, Collaboration, and
Complexity.
2015- 04- 07 19:04:47 Alfonso Montuori

Alf onso Mont uori

Alf onso Mont uori

Back in t he lat e 80s and 90s I rant ed and raved in print and of f about t he f act
t hat our underst anding of creat ivit y in t he US was f ocused exclusively on
individualsinevit ably t he lone male geniusand t here was no recognit ion of
creat ive int eract ions, of musical groups, t heat er product ions, movie making,
and t he perf orming art s in general, let alone women (Mont uori, 1989; Mont uori
& Purser, 1995, 1999). A f ew decades lat er, t he t rend has shif t ed.
Collaborat ion is in, lone geniuses are out . Open-plan of f ices are in, cubicles
are out . Brainst orming 2.0 is in, solit ude is out . It s We-t hink and Open-Source
innovat ion all t he way (Leadbet er, 2009). Americans have apparent ly
embraced collaborat ion t o such an ext ent t hat a f ew years ago, Susan Cain,
soon t o be t he aut hor of a popular book on int rovert s, called it t he new
groupt hink (Cain, 2012).
Cain right ly crit iques t he superf icial aspect s of t he embrace of collaborat ion
and part icularly t he way it s been f orced down peoples t hroat s in schools and
of f ices. Clearly not a f an of t he new t rend, she t ells us t hat t he best work is
done alone. T he problem I have wit h t hisbot h wit h t he collaborat ion t rend
and Cains count erargument is t hat it is of t en t oo polarizing. It s locked in
eit her/or t hinking even when it t ries not t o be. In t he case of t he collaborat ion
craze it s also of t en f orcing people t o be collaborat ive when it s not clear
what collaborat ion really means except t hat everybody has t o be involved
wit h everyt hing, part icularly because t he new (collaborat ion) is most ly
ident if ied as being in opposit ion t o t he old (t he lone genius), which was all
about one person, of course. Goodbye t o t he great leader, hello t o
part icipat ion and endless input . Cain gives examples of t his f orced

gregariousness and t heyre not pret t y, part icularly f or a st one-cold int rovert
like me. Open-plan workspaces wit h no privacy at all are one horrif ying
example, alt hough t heir most ly dismal f ailure means t hey are f ort unat ely
already on t he way out . But one doesnt have t o have a mind sharpened by
subt le hermeneut ics t o see t hat Cain herself f inds t he idea of collaborat ion
rat her t rivial when it comes t o creat ivit y.
I am a card-carrying loner. I have f rankly not been much of a f an of
commit t ees, t eams, and so-called brainst orming over t he years. When I
received a 360 f eedback about 15 years ago one of t he big t ake home
messages f or me was t hat I should make an ef f ort not t o drum, surrept it iously
read a book, and generally appear so complet ely unint erest ed during
commit t ee meet ings. Fair enough. But as much as I agree wit h t he right t o
privacy, I part company wit h Cain when she essent ially argues t hat
collaborat ion has not hing t o of f er creat ivit y, which really happens in solit ude.
I remember when I f irst saw t he slogan t here is no I in t eam. It s not t hat I
f eared losing my individualit y, or resent ed t he f act t hat I would not be allowed
t o shine in f ront of my colleagues. If anyt hing, I was most int erest ed in
disappearing. It seemed like a recipe f or disast er, given my experience, and a
slogan t hat would f it rat her nicely in an aut horit arian syst em. In f act , it
sounded like t he slogans I heard when I lived in China in t he mid-80s. Af t er all,
in a cheerf ul lit t le piece ent it led Combat Liberalism Mao Zedong (Mao, 1961)
had argued t hat liberalism
st ems f rom t he pet t y self -int erest of t he bourgeoisie which put s personal
int erest f oremost and t he int erest of t he revolut ion in t he second place. It
is a corrosive which disrupt s unit y, undermines solidarit y, induces
inact ivit y, and creat es dissension. (A communist ) should be more
concerned about t he Part y and t he masses t han about t he individual and
more concerned about ot hers t han about himself . Only t hen can he be
considered a communist . (pp. 515-516).
T hat s pret t y st raight f orward, I t hink. Now in our environment ally conscious
t imes we also see many new variat ions on t his slogan, one of which is f rom
ego t o eco. T his slogan is of t en accompanied by t wo drawings. T he f irst is a
hierarchy wit h a man at t he t op. T he second is a circle wit h a series of f igures
t hat are so un-hierarchical t hey seem t o be f loat ing miraculously in t he
luminif erous et her. T here is a pig f loat ing above a woman who in t urn is
hovering precariously bet ween a snail and an oct opus. In some variant s of t his
ego t o eco post er, under t he hierarchy we read WRONG, and under t he circle
wit h t he f loat ing woman and t he pig we read RIGHT . T hat s also pret t y
st raight f orward, I t hink. It s not easy being green, cert ainly not if it involves
developing our skills f or levit at ion.
T he point Im making here, if rat her laboriously, is t hat it s easy t o f all vict im t o
opposit ional t hinking. It s one t hing t o crit ique t he myt h of t he lone genius, it s
anot her t o deny t he relevance of t he individual, of solit ude, and say goodbye
t o I and ego. And let s f ace it , if it were really so easy t o say goodbye t o I

and t o ego, we probably wouldnt need so many self -help seminars.

I agree wit h Cain t hat we may have gone t oo f ar, cert ainly if were t alking
about f orced collaborat ion. Im f ine wit h her suggest ion t hat creat ive
individuals include a lot of int rovert s and t hat creat ivit y requires periods of
solit ude. But she loses me wit h an excessive ping- ponging back in t he ot her
direct ion when it becomes clear she sees no real value in collaborat ion. Im all
f or solit ude. I spend 70% of my day on my own, surrounded by books. But I am
not a misant hrope, and I do enjoy spending t ime wit h people. In f act , t here are
some people whose company I very much enjoy, and t o a large ext ent t heyre
t he reason why I have been pushing t his social creat ivit y t hing f or years now.
T he evolut ion of creat ivit y remains a f ascinat ing phenomenon f or me. It
document s how we have const ruct ed our underst anding and pract ices of
creat ivit y over t ime. It illuminat es what , in t urn, t hat const ruct ion says about
how we t hink, who we are, and what we f eel st rongly about . It s clear, f or
inst ance, t hat our view of t he lone genius emerged as a result of valorizing of
t he individual during t he Renaissance, t hen f ound it s great est art iculat ion wit h
t he Romant ics, became inst it ut ionalized wit h American individualism, f ollowed
by a rout inizat ion of charisma, if you will, in t he Genius Bar at my Apple st ore.
I became part icularly f ascinat ed by how we const ruct our underst anding of
complex phenomena when I not iced t he blind spot s in t he underst anding of
creat ivit y, most not ably collaborat ive creat ivit yno research on bands! How
could t hat be, wit h all t hese brilliant people working on creat ivit y?
T wo examples f rom my own experience illust rat e some of what s missing f or
me. T he f irst is t hat as a musician in London I loved spending hours
improvising wit h my f riend Eddie Kulak, a brilliant pianist . Out of t hat
experience we creat ed a band t hat was a joy and also event ually became a
bit of a cross f or bot h of us. Of course we now look back on it wit h great
f ondness. I t hink we would bot h agree t hat our playing was of t en bet t er when
we played t oget her rat her t han wit h ot her people, in t he sense t hat t hrough
t he miracle of recordingwe could list en back and of t en shake our heads,
laugh, and wonder where t hat part icular f lurry of not es came f rom. And
t oget her we also sparked each ot hers creat ivit y t o produce mat erial f or our
band in a way t hat we had not been able t o do on our own, wit h ot her bands,
and in ot her musical part nerships.
Lat er on in lif e I have enjoyed t he int ellect ual equivalent of t hese jam sessions
in my long walk-and-t alks wit h a small number of f riends and colleagues. T his
is not brainst orming, not commit t ees or t eams. It s not f orced. T his is t wo
people walking around T okyo or Chicago or Mont erey, occasionally st opping in
caf es, and t alking about ideas and wat ching t he sparks f ly, get t ing excit ed
and inspired and opening up new possibilit ies and direct ionsand t hen going
home t o digest it all in solit ude, in t he same way t hat Eddie would writ e songs
af t er our jam sessions, and I would explore musical rif f s, t hemes, and
arrangement ideas. In ot her words, it s a much more inf ormal but deep
creat ive and int ellect ual convivialit y t hat simply has not hing t o do wit h

brainst orming or commit t ees, and involves both int eract ion and solit ude. I t hink
t his somet hing most of t he people Ive ever spoken about it can relat e t o, and
yet I have f ound t hat our t hinking about creat ivit y, collaborat ion, and solit ude
is seemingly t rapped in t hese opposit ional cat egories rat her t han drawing on
act ual experience.
For t oo long t his sort inf ormal creat ive convivialit y has been complet ely
ignored by t he research. T he assumpt ion was t hat t he only way one could
have collaborat ive creat ivit y was in some kind of f ormal set t ing, even using
explicit rules. T his is clearly not t he case, and most cert ainly t he result of a
very un-relat ional view of t he world. As an ant idot e, I highly recommend T ony
Kushners wonderf ul piece in which he argues t hat it is in f act a f ict ion t hat he
wrot e Angels in America on his own (Kushner, 1997). Kushners ref lect ions do
not just apply t o playwright s, of course. Joshua Wolf Shenks f ascinat ing book
Powers of Two, is t he f irst really solid popular t reat ment of creat ive f riendships
and dyadic collaborat ions, and Vera John-St einers a more academic one
(John-St einer, 2006; Shenk, 2014). For a more rollicking, alcohol-f ueled version,
wit h a f ew more part icipant s, t heres always Plat os Symposium.
I have long been f ascinat ed by t he possibilit ies of organized but subt le and
generat ive approaches t o creat ive collaborat ion, st art ing wit h scenario
planning and search conf erences, and now wit h t he art of host ing, an
umbrella f or a rich range of collaborat ive processes. Because t he abilit y t o
t hink and work t oget her in a way t hat is generat ive rat her t han dest ruct ively
conf lict ual, is essent ial in t hese cont ent ious t imes, and one were not
part icular skilled at , it s vit al t o have processes t hat f ost er int elligent , creat ive
collaborat ion. It s also import ant t o bring f orward images of creat ive groups
t o show t hat t here really is such a t hing. I believe t his is why t he so-called jazz
met aphor has become quit e popular.
T he second example f rom my own experience is, of course, musical groups.
Solit ude. Work on your own. Fair enough. But again, t his assumes t he work in
quest ion can act ually be done most ly on ones own. At t he end of her NYT
art icle, Cain ret urns t o t he example of int rovert St eve Wozniak: at work he
shares a donut wit h colleagues and t hen disappears back int o solit ude t o do
t he real work. T hat , it appears, is t he ext ent of t he collaborat ion: Sharing
donut s and cof f ee and exchanging some t hought s. Not clear what t hey
t hought s about , really (Is t his Peet s?). Cert ainly not t he creat ive convivialit y
I had in mind.
So what about bands, t heat er groups, movies? Our underst anding of
creat ivit y is st ill shaped by a f ocus on writ ers, composers, paint ers, and
ot hers who can be said t o work alone. T he lack of represent at ion of t he
perf orming art s, t he result of having t he individual as t he unit of analysis, has
dramat ically skewed our underst anding of creat ivit y. Part icularly but not
exclusively in bands t hat value improvisat ion, it s all about int eract ions. T he
sound of t he band is an emergent propert y of t he int eract ion of t he musicians.
Yes, you can pract ice and st udy at home, and in f act you had bet t er, but on

t he bandst and you almost always have t o show up wit h ot hers, unless youre
doing a solo concert . Miles Davis wasnt exact ly an ext rovert . John Colt rane
wasnt eit her. But in order t o do what t hey did, t hey always had collaborat ors
great bands, Miless celebrat ed part nership wit h Gil Evans.
T he sociologist Howard Becker has writ t en eloquent ly about collaborat ion in
t he art s in his classic book Art Worlds (Becker, 2008). Never one t o be led by
t he nose by t heoret ical f rameworks and ideologies, Howie st art s t he book
wit h t he endless list of credit s we see at t he end of a movie. What about
t hese people? From t he cost umes t o t he music t o t he cinemat ographer t o
t he direct or and act ors t o t he best boy and t he grip (t he lat t er t wo being
my own personal f avorit es), it s blat ant ly clear t he f inal product requires
people working t oget her, no mat t er how brilliant a Fellini or a Scorsese might
be. And t hat doesnt even address what s needed t o get t he movie int o your
t heat er, and let you know it s t here.
It s not just t he collaborat ive dimension of creat ivit y t hat int erest s me. It s t he
way t he self is underst ood and def ined in t he discourse of self -societ y,
individual-collaborat ion opposit ions. Because it s f ramed as self versus
societ y, individual versus collaborat ion, we have t hese polarized cat egories
t hat will prevent us f rom t hinking of t he t wo t erms t oget her, and seeing how
t hey play out in t he world. Echoing Kushner, social psychologist s Markus and
Conner (Markus & Conner, 2013) writ e t hat You cant be a self even an
independent self by yourself (p. 44). T he f ascinat ing quest ion of t he nat ure
of t he individual, and whet her we ult imat ely see t he individual as a closed
syst em or an open syst em, deserves more at t ent ion t han I can give it here,
but I believe it is a cent ral quest ion of our t ime and one t hat lies at t he root of
many of t he polit ical opposit ions and ext remes were seeing in t he US t oday.
A relat ional, open syst em view is emerging, and in t he process we should not
be surprised t hat t he virt ue of self ishness is being ext olled in t he backlash.
It s shouldnt surprise us t hat t he t opics conservat ives have said t he most
bizarre t hings about are women and t he environment , bot h t radit ional
st andard-bearers of a more relat ional view of t he world (Merchant , 1980). But
it should also not surprise us t hat democrat s have f ocused most ly on
(relat ional) care and f airness, on support ing t hose in need, and t hus f ar have
not been part icularly inspirat ional when it comes t he role of individual
achievement and init iat ive (Graham, Haidt , & Nosek, 2009; Haidt , 2013; Lakof f ,
1996).
For Americans t he issues of creat ivit y, individualism, and collaborat ion t ouch
on a cent ral aspect of our cult ural and personal ident it y. We can see
individualism, so cent ral t o t he sense of being American, was closely
associat ed wit h heroic f igures, myt hologized cult ural icons like John Wayne
and t he lone Privat e Invest igat or. When I f irst st art ed writ ing about social,
cont ext ual, relat ional creat ivit y, t he response was of t en disbelief (social
creat ivit y is an oxymoron) or anger (an at t ack against t he dignit y of t he
individual in f avor of social det erminism). T oday t hings have changed.
Research shows t hat Millennials see creat ivit y as much more relat ional

(Mont uori & Donnelly, 2013). T hey f ind t his collaborat ive creat ivit y complet ely
normal. My sense is t hat t here is a massive shake up going on in Americas
collect ive myt hology and sense of ident it y, and it has t o do wit h t he
t ransf ormat ion of American individualism and t he emergence of a more
relat ional view of self and world (Mont uori, 1989; Ogilvy, 1977, 2002; Spret nak,
2011). Cent ral t o t his will be t he shif t f rom t he lone male as t he dominant
image of t he person t o a view t hat includes bot h women and men, and not
exclusively whit e women and men (Barron, 1999; Eisler, 1987; Mont uori, 1997;
Mont uori & Cont i, 1993; T hompson, 2013).
In a t ime of social, cult ural, and economic t ransit ion such as ours, t here is a
dramat ic increase in polarizat ion and height ening of opposit ions. Philosopher
Jay Ogilvy (Ogilvy, 1989) wrot e t hat
(t )he pressure t oward post modernism is building f rom our lack of abilit y t o
overcome cert ain dualisms t hat are built int o modern ways of knowing. P.9
T he dualisms are coming t o light , and somet imes in ext reme f orms. T his is
polarizat ion is surely a harbinger of change, but it also leads t o f rust rat ion and
concept ual as well as polit ical impasse. It s easier t o t hink dualist ically t han t o
t hink in a way t hat recognizes and indeed promot es generat ive complexit y in
t he f orm of a more nuanced underst anding of t he world. T his will require a
more radical approach, meaning one t hat goes t o t he root s of t he issues
were dealing wit h. In t his case, t he nat ure of creat ivit y, agency, individualism
and collect ivism and t heir social scient if ic correlat es at omism and holism. T he
t aken-f or-grant ed way in which weve been t aught t o t hink will require
explorat ion and reconcept ualizat ion. If we are re-invent ing t he world, we need
t o underst and where we came f rom and how we got here. Edgar Morin (Morin,
2008) has writ t en t hat
our t hinking is ruled by a prof ound and hidden paradigm wit hout our
being aware of it . We believe we see what is real; but we see in realit y
only what t his paradigm allows us t o see, and we obscure what it requires
us not t o see (p. 86).
Making t hat paradigm explicit , addressing it s blind spot s and limit at ions, and
illust rat ing specif ically how it has shaped our t hought and act ion, can assist us
t o not replicat e it s problemat ic aspect s in our at t empt s t o creat e
alt ernat ives. Art iculat ing alt ernat ives requires complex t hought if we are not
t o duplicat e t he very dualisms built int o modern ways of knowing.
Ogilvy has made a very signif icant cont ribut ion t o t he
individualism/collect ivism quest ion in a series of works (Ogilvy, 1977, 1992,
1995, 2002). He argues t hat at t he heart of t his hist orical opposit ion lie t wo
very dif f erent ways of seeing t he world, t wo dif f erent ont ologies (Ogilvy,
1992).
As long as bot h individualist s and collect ivist s assume t he ont ological
primacy of eit her t he individual or t he collect ive, and are able t o support

t hat ont ological primacy wit h a corresponding epist emology or paradigm,

t hen () t he t wain shall never meet . (p.229)
He goes on t o writ e t hat
T he way out lies not in opt ing f or one ont ology or t he ot her, but in
appreciat ing t he ont ological, paradigmat ic charact er of t he conf lict .
() Rather than seeing the individual and the collective as ontologically given
and concrete, individuality and collectivity can be recast as equal and opposite
abstractions from the concrete lives of everyday communities. (p.229) (it alics
in t he original)
What were dealing wit h are t wo dif f erent ways of seeing t he world, st art ing
wit h what we might call t wo dif f erent unit s of analysis, t he individual and t he
collect ive. If t hey are ontologies, it means t hey are descript ions of t he way we
t hink t he world really is, and consequent ly t wo ways we t hink about being in
t he world. But Ogilvy reminds us t hat individualism and collect ivism are
abstractions from the concrete lives of everyday communities.
T hese abst ract ions also create worlds, of course, as well as policies and
polit ical plat f orms, in t he recursive relat ionship bet ween t heory and pract ice,
descript ion and prescript ion. But t hese cat egories are f ailing us on all levels.
T ime t o re-view bot h t he concret e lives of everyday communit ies (as Howie
Beckers work const ant ly reminds us) and t he t heoret ical f rameworks we have
used t o make sense of t hem.
T he new creat ivit y should not be about collaborat ion as opposed t o solit ude or
individual brilliance. It should not be about anemic collaborat ion or hyper-egoic
genius. I pref er t o see it as an invit at ion t o dive int o t he ent ire phenomenon
more deeply. It invit es us t o become aware of act ual pract ices as well as
alt ernat ives perspect ives and t he pract ices t hey in t urn involve, t o challenge
limit ed and limit ing viewpoint s and develop new ways of t hinking, new ways of
relat ing, and new ways of being. It is also an invit at ion t o ref lect more deeply
about who we are and how we have def ined ourselves, how we t hink, t he
cat egories we creat e, and how t hey can t rap us as well as liberat e us

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About the Author

Alf onso Montuori, PhD, is Prof essor at Calif ornia Inst it ut e of Int egral
St udies, where he designed and t eaches in t he T ransf ormat ive Leadership
M.A. and t he T ransf ormat ive St udies Ph.D. He was Dist inguished Prof essor in
t he School of Fine Art s at Miami Universit y, in Oxf ord Ohio and in 1985-1986 he
t aught at t he Cent ral Sout h Universit y in Hunan, China. An act ive musician and
producer, in a f ormer lif e Alf onso worked in London England as a prof essional
musician. He is t he aut hor of several books and numerous art icles on creat ivit y
and innovat ion, t he f ut ure, complexit y t heory, and leadership. Alf onso is also a
consult ant in t he areas of creat ivit y, innovat ion and leadership development
whose client s have included Net App, T raining Vision (Singapore), Omint elOlivet t i (It aly) and Proct er and Gamble.
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