CREATIVE ENCOUNTERS AND CREATIVE TEAMS Human encounters range from a mere nod or a smile or a grimace to hours of conversation,

and their outcomes range from violent hatred to a shared feeling of sublime intimacy. Interactions may fall into one of the several classes. Dominated interactions:

i)

- One of the two parties wins, the other loses. The loser seeks revenge at the earliest opportunity, or avoids future interaction with the winner.
ii) Mutually frustrating interactions: - Neither party tastes victory. - Both feel blocked, frustrated, annoyed. - Both feel that they are losers and feel averse to having further interactions with one another. iii) Mutually satisfying interactions: - Both parties feel they have got more out of the interaction than what they had to give. - Both feel like winners, creative interactions are of win win type. - One or both parties see a new point of view or a new way of doing something that is not merely new but also effective.

Reasons for the unsatisfactory encounters. 1) SITUATION:- In situations where there is a conflict of interest but only the one with power can win, the probability of an unhappy encounter is high. Ex: An employer sacking an employee or a teacher failing a student or a parent punishing a child.

- The power asymmetry is so great that the weaker side has virtually no redress.
- Each move by a party is seen as antagonistic by the other, and vice versa, and the sequence of responses leads to frustration for both the parties to the encounter.

2) MOTIVES:- People get into encounters to protect their seniority or ego or social standing. - Some to experience a thirst for conquest, others to get some job done, others to provide help or learn from the interaction.

- If the power motive or defensive stance is very strong, the consequence of the encounter is likely to be unsatisfactory at least for some.
- The stronger the motive to get some job done or to help or to learn something from the others, the more likely will the interaction be mutually satisfying.

- Even if, initially, the parties to an encounter have strong defensive motives, it may

often be possible to arouse achievement, altruistic, or actualizing motives through appropriate actions.

3) SKILLS:- A number of skills help productive interaction, and their absence can promote an unsatisfactory interaction. - The ability to build up credibility and trust by being serviceable and honest is vital.

- The skills of being a good listener, of being empathic, of helping the group to clarify its needs and arrive at a consensus, and equally, the ability to change the perspectives of the group by thought provoking questions, analogies, facts etc. are also very important.
TOOLS OF CREATIVE INTERACTION:1) Effective Listening:- Lending ones ears wholly to the others is an important first step. - Restating what you understand to be the gist of what the others are saying is a useful way to avoid misunderstandings, and of getting additional clarifactory information from them. - When another person is experiencing stress, it is extremely useful to help him or her unburden feelings of anger, frustration, anxiety, guilt etc. - After the person has expressed his feelings, got matters off the chest, so to speak, he is more likely to be receptive to logic and rational exploration of the problem.

2) Empathy:- A major barrier to effective interaction is premature evaluation of what a person is saying. - The principle of brainstorming ie do not evaluate while ideating is useful here. - To listen with empathy is to see the expressed idea and attitude from the other persons point of view, to sense how it feels to him, to achieve his frame of reference in regard to the thing he is talking about. 3) Clarifactory questions:- In interpersonal problem solving encounters, often the problem being discussed is not very clear and it is seldom stated as a problem.

- A sharper focus can be achieved by questions such as

What do you see as the problem? What do you see as the causes of the situation? What do you see as the consequences of the present situation? - If the problem is a complex one, the principle of attribute analysis can be harnessed, namely that to be able to come up with better alternatives to a product, activity, or a process, it is useful to list its fundamental properties in as abstract a manner as possible, and then for each such property or attribute, list as many highly concrete alternatives as possible.

4) Feedback : - The other person may ask you for your feelings and opinions, if he or she is in a receptive frame of mind. - The sharing of feelings is to be done in a factual, non-evaluate manner. - Dogmatic assertions and negative evaluations of the other person need to be avoided. 5) Evocative questions: - Questions can be hostile, designed to bring out the truth or trap the other person or they can be creative, evoking from the other person his own ideas and experiences that can lead to creative solutions. - Sometimes a person may get stuck in a groove. He needs to be dislodged from it to be able to see the problem from a fresh perspective. A groove shattering question can be Under what circumstances would you be willing to change your mind? 6) Analogies: - A person can see a problem from a fresh perspective with the help of analogies. - If a problem concerns engineering, analogies from biology may be sought ( synectics technique)

7) Converging to a solution or conclusion: - The steps of effective listening, empathy, clarifactory questions, feedback help the other person articulate his/her problem more clearly. - The steps of evocative questions and analogies can help the person engage in divergent, creative thinking. - It is often useful to help the other person get a sense of closure or conclusion by helping him move towards a satisfactory choice. - Help with frank feedback and information, help in evolving criteria for evaluating alternatives may be very useful in the phase of interpersonal interaction. Factors influencing the effectively functioning teams: 1) Shared values: - Teams work well when members share an ideology. - An ideology consists of connected values. - The following ideologies need to be kept in mind. (1) Democratic functioning:- freedom and autonomy of members, their participation in decision making, equality etc. (2) Benevolent authoritarianism:- a strong leader with absolute authority who exercises it for the objectives of the team and for the benefit of its members. (3) Idealism and service mindedness:- the team operates for a cause, usually one of serving humanity. (4) Radical:- overthrow an existing social order and its replacement by a better order.

2) Skills and Resources: -Teams pursue tasks that are bigger than what any one person acting alone can pursue. -Teams must have a fairly wide spectrum of expertise, skills and abilities and also an access to other types of resources money, equipment, technical skills, authority to act. 3) Structure, roles, rules: - It makes sense to develop some sort of a structure to take care of routine and non routine tasks. - A number of roles need to be played for a team to perform well. One role is that of the analyst and the idea man. Second role is that of technical expert. Third role is that of the style setter, the artist. Fourth is that of the consensus creator, harmonizer Fifth role is the executive or managerial role.

4) Leadership: - The teams leader is obviously a very keen person.

- His responsibilities are to set goals for the team, plan its activites, recruit the right sort of team members, allocate roles and responsibilities, coordinate the work of team members, control their behavior, motivate them and see that the work proceeds according to plan.

-The leaders who respond to the emotional needs of members tend to evoke high morale.

-The leader needs to be both subordinate oriented and task oriented.

5) Process: - Teams that reflect on their internal process instead of concentrating only on task achievement are likely to be more effective in the long run.

- Periodic reflection would uncover behavioral issues like

the excessive dominance of a few the feelings of marginally of some too little attention to feelings of tension, insecurity, or distrust an inadequate structuring of the teams task or problem too quick an endorsement of a line of action without examining other alternatives too premature a commitment to a particular solution - Communication between the team members