To me the ideal would be to function as part of a team where everyone’s focused on the good of the project above their own egos, and the creatively-tasked could balance periods of solitary work (and the time needed for a brain to wrap itself around a problem) with collaborative touchstones and reality-checks to guide process and maintain focus. How you would best accomplish that I’m not exactly sure, certainly it would take a special kind of leader and a culture to match.

I agree with Cain that the creative process is often solitary – and I agree that it can, at times, be difficult to work with a team that you’re not exactly in sync with. However, the reality of managing a creative team is that it takes a collaborative effort to produce a project – creativity (designing, composing, programming, inventing…) doesn’t viably happen in a budget, schedule or challenge-free environment. A group of individuals working in the same room isn’t a team at all.

As you said, WITH PROPER LEADERSHIP (ie: decisive, organized, inspiring…), solitude and groupthink can be married effectively – and I think that that is the more important idea to put forward for companies looking to improve creative output.

To me, the problem with “the new groupthink” is relying on it for everything. With proper leadership, solitude and groupthink can be married effectively. Each company and project needs strong leadership to develop the structure in which both serve their purpose.

Great article, thanks for sharing!