Co-creativity and democracy

Co-creativity is more than getting the ideas and perspectives of disparate players into our idea generation, but includes changing participants in ways which make new ideas possible.

One way to clarify this key aspect of co-creativity is to compare the democracy of the ancient Greeks to the electoral battles of today.

In the original democratic process, not only were a wide range of issues and perspectives welcomed into the discussion, but the decision makers participated in the debate and were open to having their knowledge, beliefs, and assumptions shifted by the process. As the debate proceeded, not only were ideas proposed and rejected, but the problem owners changed their expectations of a solution. It was a co-creative learning process.

A great example is the family vacation. Assume that one person gathers all the various ideas, criteria, wishes, expectations of each family member and uses the best analysis and logic to calculate the optimum vacation to make the most people most happy.

Bring the plan to your family and as they each evaluate it in their perspectives, they will hate you for letting them down.

However, if you bring the family together to share and discuss their inputs and ideas, various insights and compromises of expectations emerge. When a final plan emerges, each is prepared to satisfice, to decide to be satisfied.

This is certainly not the case in modern politics in which the goal is to keep reshaping and redescribing the bill or the candidate until just enough disparate people will vote in favor. There is no process of co-creation, of transformation, of becoming a community ready to accept a common solution.

In a co-creative approach to problem solving, it is accepted that no one person understands the problem and there is no one ultimate coherent decision framework. As I often tell my students and clients, if you have a clear understanding of the problem, you do not understand the problem, because the problem is not clear in and of itself.

But as you assemble people who understand bits and pieces of the relevant knowledge, dynamics, and values, and build a cohesive ability to respect and co-create with each other, a new reality can emerge that is ready to be satisfied by a new idea. This is not an easy process.

It is critical to note that it may also be necessary to transform the perspectives of people who were not immersed in the co-creativity to create the context for acceptance and implementation of the ideas developed.

At one of my employers I led a 40 hour study of an organizational issue by about 30 people drawn from all the levels and areas of the company. Interestingly, although all ideas were rejected by senior management when we briefed them, every idea was implemented across the entire company in less than a year. Each participant had moved to a point where the new solutions were obvious, and took action within their authority to make it so. Then they told their peers, who quickly saw the advantages and copied the ideas.

In other words, although the quality of the ideas was great, the greatest impact of the study may well have been the shift in perspective by representative managers, a shift which made the new ideas obvious. With the right participation, not only are the ideas more responsive to the organization's realities, but the organization is more responsive to the ideas.

So as we design deliberate creativity and innovation efforts, it is critical that we include processes which will allow the disparate experts and stakeholders to move their perspectives in ways which not only make new ideas obvious, but make them possible.

Unfortunately, we can only dream of our political process becoming co-creative, and thus truly democratic.