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Collectivism and Creativity in the Workplace

Individualism-Collectivism and Group Creativity, is a new study which was released this week whose findings indicate that while emphasizing teamwork may be popular in workplaces across America, companies that focus more on individual achievement and development produce more innovative ideas in the long run. Barry Staw, who is a professor at the University of California at Berkeley`s ?Haas School of Business?, co-authored the study and says his findings may support the view that creative companies need to encourage differences, rather than build teamwork?because teamwork can lead to conformity.

"The more you emphasize collectivity and team membership and orientation, the lower is the creativity," Staw says, adding that, "?so much of creativity is being different, being willing to deviate and take chances and be the odd person out. If you want innovation, you have to seek out the person who is different and the person who is not like everyone else. You may have to tolerate people who are kind of jerks.? Staw?s co-author on the ?Individualism-Collectivism and Group Creativity" study was Jack Goncalo, of Cornell University. "Some of the most innovative people can be people who don`t get along very well in social situations and may be people you don`t want to spend a lot of time with,? says Staw. The benefits, though, seem worthy enough.

Staw and Goncalo?s study was published in the most recent issue of the journal ?Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes? after the two conducted experiments with several different teams of college students. As they devised new business uses for a hypothetical location that was vacated by a mismanaged restaurant, individualist groups generated 37 more ideas on average than the groups working on a collective solution, with the collective groups coming up with 26 ideas on average.