Co-creation in Community

In The Alchemy of Fear I wrote about what I called co-creation in community.  What I meant is that a group of people who work together to create something new that none of us could have created alone, but because of our shared commitment to a goal and our varied gifts and talents, we make magic happen...together.

In Leading from the Heart I told about a daily occurrence of co-creation in community that happened at the newspaper where I worked for the first several years of my professional career.  In every 24-hour period, people from throughout the building would pull together separately, and somehow every day we produced a newspaper.  Although it happened, literally, like clockwork at 1:10 p.m. every day, to me it was always a wonder.

Last week a group of people from my organization, many of whom had never met, assembled from sites all over the country.  Together we co-created in community.  It had been a very long time since I'd experienced that feeling.  Work projects in recent years have almost always been assembled parts of individual work. The knowledge work equivalent of the old assembly line in factories.

Divide-and-conquer is how I used to describe it to my university students when I'd been assigning a group project.  "I will know whether you have divided up the work and prepared your pieces individually or worked as a team," I'd say.  Yet, in any given semester, rarely would more than one group actually work as a team.  And, I did know it.  In fact, their classmates knew it as well, but they may not have known exactly what they were observing.  The students rated each other's presentations, and, inevitably, the ones that scored the highest were the ones that I thought had worked together as a team--unified in a common goal.

The design project in which I participated last week demonstrated the best co-creation.  Each of us brought significant experience in design, but our various expertise was in different aspects, colored by different experiences in different organizations.   Although there were a couple people, who tried to divide-and-conquer us, with the exception of one time, we resisted.  The resistance wasn't unpleasant, and in fact, it might be more accurately described as persisting as a team rather than resisting fragmentation.

At the end of the second day of design, I am certain that we had accomplished way more than any of us had anticipated could be done in two days.  Not only did we get more done, but the quality of the work was much more solid because it incorporated so many perspectives. Often an idea would be brought forth and we would play with the idea, collectively moulding it into something even better. It was the knowledge work equivalent of an old "barn-building," when everyone would assemble to construct a neighbor's barn in one day.

The word "team" or "teamwork" gets thrown around a lot these days: we have discovered the magic of co-creation in community in both expediency and quality.  Yet my experience has been that the activities assessed as teamwork are really divide-and-conquer assembly of parallel projects.  It happens everywhere: at work, in our families, in community groups, and even in churches. 

Co-creating in community is really a sacred thing, touching the souls of those who engage together in making something that none could do alone.  Doing so lifts the human spirit.  I worked very hard last week, and at the end of the week, I had more energy than on a day off.  My spirit had truly been lifted.  I am grateful for this opportunity to have been touched by my work with this exceptional group of colleagues.

Co-creating in community

Something magical happens when a really good team co-creates something that exceeds what any members could have done on their own.  Today I had that opportunity: twice! In each case we shared what we each wanted from the product.  Each brought her experience and expertise. We listened. We explored. 

Then just magically something emerged.  When we knew where we were going, we each took a piece of the project to complete.  People met their deadlines. Not only were our products good, but creating them was fun.  I am more relaxed at the end of the day than I have been at the end of a work day for a long time.  It was joyful.

I wrote in both Leading from the Heart and The Alchemy of Fear  about the almost godlike quality that a collaborative team has--creating something where there was nothing and doing so in such deep connection it is like breathing together.  I worked in the newspaper business for many years, and on a daily basis I marveled  as I watched all the different departments pulling together to produce our "daily miracle" and to do so at precisely 1:10 every afternoon.  When our work involves high collaboration, we truly connect in a way that few other opportunities provide.

Yet, with that said, we co-create in community more often than we realize.  Just this week, the whole world is coming together to co-create disaster relief.  Actually, disaster relief is one of those things that humankind has actually managed to get right much of the time.  We show our capacity for caring and compassion, as well as taking on some massive logistical challenges.  Think of the great Indian Ocean tsunami of 2004 or the earthquakes in Haiti.  We actually have global outpourings of love. 

Similarly, we co-create emergency responses on a smaller scale all the time.  When I first moved to Washington, I was struck by a distracted driver (cell phone) while crossing the street in the crosswalk.  Although the emergency response people were quick to respond, drivers instantaneously spilled from their cars offering varying skills from retrieving my briefcase and shoes that had gone flying to offering witness testimony and holding an umbrella over me in a downpour until the EMTs arrived.  They just came together magically.

I am quite certain co-creating is how we are wired as human beings.  I am not sure how we lost that ability so much of the time, but it erupts regularly and spontaneously enough to tell me that it is hardwired.  And, it feels good when it does.  Today, I am feeling blessed at having had two good team experiences today, and more than a little intrigued about how to intentionally create something bigger.