“Could you just leave me alone for ten
minutes, I need to think about something. No, I don’t need help. What? How dare
you call me an introvert! Don’t affix your labels to me. And don’t even think
for a second that this means I’m an extrovert either. I can be inspired by
whatever I damned well please.”
What do you picture when you think of
inspiration? For many, images of collaboration come to mind – an artist and
their muse, a brainstorming session between business colleagues, a band writing
together, open-collaboration projects… the list goes on. Particularly in this
day and age, we see creativity and inspiration as a group activity that
leverages the old saying, “Two heads are better than one” to encourage us to
solve problems by tapping on our neighbor’s shoulder.
However, what if we’re wrong?
History has shown a plethora of examples
where isolation has been the key to an individual’s breakthrough. Douglas Adams
reportedly used to lock himself in a hotel room with enough alcohol to wet a
platoon when writing. Beethoven was a notorious recluse, often refusing to
speak to or see even the closest to him when writing. Steve Wozniak admits that
the key to his creation of the Apple I was spending inordinate amounts of time
sitting alone in a cubicle at HP. Picasso is quoted as saying, “without great
solitude, no serious work is possible.”
It would appear as though history may have
a thing or two to say about collaboration. Yet in our time, we have become
addicted to social sharing, collaborative thinking, and creative groups and in
doing so, we have eroded our ability to connect with one of our most powerful
creative tools: our minds. We’ve produced an army of creativity-zombies by
idolizing the New Groupthink (a term coined by Susan Cain); all of us shuffling
along in the same direction, yearning for the one thing we refuse to stop and
use. We build institutions – schools, offices and social settings – that are
designed to discourage isolation and reward the loudest among us. We look down
upon those who desire a bit of breathing room for their minds – calling them
hermits, recluses, odd-balls and outcasts.
Yet at times, we all need to step away from
the rush and madness of our day-to-day to allow the space to tune out the
clutter and focus on the task at hand. Eventually we can connect with
colleagues to unveil and expand upon an idea, however, we must first ensure
that we have an initial idea to discuss. Otherwise, 9 times out of 10, a group
of clever people in a room with no briefing, thought time or outside
inspiration, will attain little more than a lot of rambling and wasted time.
In a sense, I could just be stoking the
flames of the old introvert vs. extrovert argument. Some people are powered up
by the spotlight of the outside world and prefer to create in groups while
others like to derive their energy from solitude and create their genius free
from distraction. However, the reality is that even terms like introvert and
extrovert are limiting. We should know better than to think that the
complexities of our own mind can be drawn so black and white. Everyone falls at
different points on the personality spectrum and for all we know, it may not
even be a spectrum. The timid newt in the room could draw all their inspiration
by observing others and the brazen loudmouth could just be buying time to go
home and think.
Everyone has their own way of thinking. This
article is not a call for you to lock yourself in a room of complete isolation
the next time you need ground-breaking innovation. That would be as ridiculous
as locking yourself in a room full of loud, alpha-personalities attempting to
reinvent an industry (which no responsible corporation would ever do… right?)
This is
a call to realize that different people work in different ways and that as
leaders, managers, educators, collaborators and friends, it is our
responsibility to encourage all types and foster innovation from any source of
inspiration.
Ironically, if you held a gun to my head
and asked me my personality type, I would probably have to call myself an
extrovert. However, I write this article, sitting alone in my apartment after
four failed attempts to write it at my office. I love a good brainstorming
session as much as the next person, however, sometimes the world just needs to
shut up.
