The harmonic rub reminds me of a concept called “creative
abrasion” – the pairing of incongruous concepts as a way of breaking old
patterns of thought and discovering something wholly new. At first, the pairing
may seem “wrong,” a total non-starter. However, through the suspension of doubt
and the willingness to play with the possibilities, the pairings can be honed
into something new, useful, and (yes) beautiful.
Creative abrasion is the lifeblood of performance
improvisation. For example, in the game Actor’s Nightmare, two performers are
assigned roles by the audience (say, fast-food worker and customer). One of the
performers is given a script from a famous play (say, Waiting for Godot) and throughout the scene must pick random lines
from the play in lieu of making up his own lines. The other performer then has
the challenge of making his partner’s lines somehow fit within the context of
the fast-food scene, no matter how wildly out-of-place they seem. The scene
might start this way:
FAST-FOOD WORKER: Welcome to Big Bob’s Burgers, sir! What
would you like today?
CUSTOMER [reading from the script]: “Nothing to be done.”
WORKER: Well, we can leave your burger a little pink, if
you like.
CUSTOMER: “I’m glad to see you back. I thought you were
gone forever.”
WORKER: Yes, I almost accepted that full-ride scholarship
to MIT, but then I thought, how could I give up all this?
A trivial example? Hardly. The mindset required to field
these jarringly inappropriate lines is exactly the mindset required to create
innovative solutions of any sort, in any field.
After all, any creative
breakthrough idea began life as a rubbing together of concepts as seemingly
incongruous as “a fast-food customer spouting Beckett.” Consider these conceptual
pairings:
·
Creating
music by dragging a needle across a piece of black vinyl.
·
Flying
through the air in a 900,000-pound tub.
·
Driving
full speed on a toll road without ever stopping at a toll booth.
At one time, each of these ideas would have drawn a “Wha?”
response from most people. But by playing with the possibilities (and working
doggedly to implement them), the creative minds behind these idea pairs sanded
the rough edges off their abrasive conceptual surfaces and turned them into
concepts we now take for granted.
REFLECTIONS FOR THE YES! LEADER
As I’ve frequently mentioned, one of the hallmarks of the
YES! Leader is the ability to resolve seeming contradictions. I say “seeming”
because, as described above, many if not most concepts that appear
contradictory at first can be resolved through the willingness to suspend
judgment, play with the possibilities, and live with a bit of dissonance and
uncertainty while things work themselves out.
In this article, I’ve been focusing on “contradictions”
in the context of generating breakthrough ideas. However, the YES! Leader can
find many other examples of contradictions on an almost daily basis:
·
Team members who clash because of differing
opinions and perspectives.
·
A team member who wants to gain experience in a
new task that requires experience to carry out successfully.
·
A project that requires a detailed plan before
execution, even though experience shows that “no plan survives contact with
actual events.”
·
An organizational change that must be
implemented even though many people actively resist it – but who still must be
the ones to implement it if the change is to be successful.
As potentially dizzying as “a fast-food customer spouting
Beckett,” right? Well, like the best performance improvisers, the YES! Leader
is able to keep a clear head, avoid the urge to try to just “take control,” and
negotiate the twists and turns required to mediate a successful result that
takes multiple interests and concerns into account.
No comments:
Post a Comment