There are myths of creativity and these myths
are usually propagated by people that have
romantic notions about heroes, romantic notions
about eureka moments.
And these myths of creativity keep people
from collaborating and it causes them to be
a lone wolf.
And the research says it causes them to fail.
So let me talk a little bit about those myths
of creativity.
In the world of sales and marketing I battle
against three myths.
Myth number one – the lone inventor.
This is very dangerous because there is no
such thing as a lone inventor.
As a matter of fact there’s a lot of historical
research that has debunked Einstein specifically
in terms of inventions.
Henry Ford.
Not a lone inventor.
A classic example – Thomas Edison.
In the invention community Thomas Edison is
a brand.
It stand for 14 people.
Yes there was a figurehead named Thomas Edison.
His name is on 10,000 patents.
He did not invent a single thing.
He marshaled people together and knew how
to spot innovations and put people together
like a creative soup if you will.
Here’s a classic example.
Steve Jobs.
You ask the average person, say a millennial
who uses a lot of Apple technology, who’s
one of the greatest inventors of our time?
They’ll say Steve Jobs.
Steve Jobs once said I never created anything.
All I did was notice patterns and put people
together to finish projects.
So think about it.
If he doesn’t have Wozniak there is no original
Apple, right.
If he doesn’t have Ive there is no iPod.
If he doesn’t have Tony Fadell there is
no iPhone and the list goes on and on.
Got a good friend of mine David Burkus who
wrote a really wonderful book about the myths
of genius.
And he was telling me that it’s a romantic
notion.
And I remember when I first read this research
years ago ‘No Lone Inventor’ it did kind
of hurt my feelings.
I’m a musician in my past.
I thought I wrote a lot of songs but according
to the research I never wrote a song.
I always collaborated with somebody.
The song that actually made it to the record
and made it on the radio had 15 to 50 hands
on it.
When I talked to David I said when I read
your research it kind of hurt my feelings.
And he goes it’s a romantic notion because
we want to be heroes.
We want to be as empowered as Ayn Rand.
We want to think that we are The Fountainhead
so this is how we tell the story.
But until you believe that genius is a team
sport you will never give up control.
And this is the problem for a lot of people
in sales.
They don’t want to seed any level of control
over their process to somebody outside of
sales world because they don’t value those
voices enough.
But the research is clear on this.
Miller Heiman Institute researched the difference
between good and great.
They call it world class organizations.
They win.
They sell 20 percent more than their nearest
competitor.
The only thing they have in common is they’ve
broken this myth and they understand that
every deal is about rapid problem solving
and no one person can solve the problem on
their own.
Quickly the other two myths of creativity
that must be dispelled is the eureka moment.
There is no such thing as a big idea that
changes the world.
I know this is another one of those hurtful
but very true based on empirical research
points.
There are little ideas that combine with other
little ideas that improve themselves into
game changing ideas.
And I’ve experienced this personally by
who I consider one of the authorities on creativity,
Ed Catmull, president of Pixar.
I remember standing backstage a few years
ago just gushing to him about John Lasseter,
his VP of creative.
I’m like he’s the bomb.
This is the guy who wrote Wall-e, the commercial.
This is the guy that wrote the script for
Toy Story, you know, telling the story from
the toys point of view.
And I remember Catmull looked at me, cut me
off and not to dismiss Lasseter, he said Toy
Story was a problematic idea from the start.
Make an entire full length feature film inside
a computer.
Do you understand how hard that is from a
rendering time standpoint?
Make the characters as human as human.
They didn’t even have facial control or
technology at the time for this.
And tell the story from the toys point of
view when we’ve never historically had a
toy have any narrative for us to draw on.
Catmull explained that nine months in they
shut the film down after a meeting with Disney.
They called it Black Friday.
And the Catmull said something to me that
shattered the myth of the eureka moment.
Catmull said Toy Story, the movie you saw
was a thousand problems solved.
And it was like a bolt of lightning.
I was like I get it.
When you do a billion dollar deal in an ad
agency.
It’s not a big idea, it’s a hundred problems
solved, 80 of them are inside your agency.
As you move through every level of that sale
you get obstacles in front of you.
And what this means is that if we no longer
depend on the big idea to fall out of the
sky and change the world we meet more, we
think more, we research more, we settle with
small pieces of progress that add up to momentum.
Finally the third myth of genius or creativity
that must be shattered if you want to be more
collaborative is the myth of the expert.
Now I believe in involving people in a dealstorm
who we think are experts on the problem space.
But if you notice I don’t want experts on
the solution space.
Because most of the great solutions to vexing
problems come from the edges of a domain,
you know.
People that don’t know what they don’t
know.
So they’re not limited by these false constraints
that hold people back that are in the middle
of this subject.
So the way I like to think about it is if
you could talk to a fish – if you could.
If the fish could respond – if it could.
And you walked up to a fish in a fishbowl
and you ask the fish how’s the water?
The fish would look at you puzzled and ask
you what’s water?
And that’s the problem with experts.
People that are so steeped in the domain they
don’t have the expansive perspective that
allows them to recognize patterns and convergence.
Because every invention, every solution is
really about pattern or convergence recognition.
And so it’s really important for us to follow
the following mantra in collaboration.
Ideas can come from anywhere.
As a matter of fact in dealstorming that is
one of my four key ground rules.
It’s just as important as stay on agenda
and don’t distract the person next to you.
Because the problem with the myth of expert
is it leads to not invented here dismissal
of good ideas.
So when you’re in a dealstorm meeting and
someone who’s on the edge of the domain
– I’ll just give you an example.
Someone out of finance that generally handles
something as mundane as revenue recognition.
They come to one of your meetings because
you have a problem related to how you recognize
the revenue of this deal or whatever.
And you’re in the middle of this conversation
about packaging and they come up with a really
novel way to think about how it’s built.
You might look at that person and say you
don’t know anything about billing sales.
You’re just a revenue recognition analyst.
We know billing and sales.
You’re about to shut him down for the rest
of the meeting.
And what you don’t understand is that he
may have an educational background.
He may have had previous jobs.
He may have a significant other that is steeped
in the billing expertise and he’s drawing
upon all of that.
The minute you tell someone only experts can
weigh in with ideas, everyone who’s not
an expert stops contributing.
In my experience it breaks down collaboration.
