We're not done with the Yahoo story yet. Much has been said about whether workers produce more at home and whether CEO Marissa Mayer had slowed women's progress by denying working mothers the opportunity to telecommute. That is not today's topic.
Mayer says she wants workers to come into the office because collaboration encourages innovation. As the official memo put it, "Some of the best decisions and insights come from hallway and cafeteria discussions, meeting new people and impromptu team meetings."
But is this true? Does a room full of people burst with a creative energy not available to the singleton at home? Fans of this view have studies indicating that this is so. Other studies say otherwise.
Mandated "face time" can be a major drag on efficient workers, according to some time management experts. Those able to do an eight-hour job in four hours often find themselves wasting the dead afternoon stretch watching puppy videos. They'd be better off at home doing the laundry or out playing tennis — and their employer would be no worse off.
In his book "Extreme Productivity: Boost Your Results, Reduce Your Hours," Robert C. Pozen writes, "Unfortunately, research suggests that corporate managers still confuse 'face time' with quality of results." A senior lecturer at the Harvard Business School, Pozen holds that this makes "no sense" for those whose "contribution is not the time they spend on their work but the value they create through their knowledge."
Creative people have active minds, and active minds may have low tolerance for being bored out of their skulls. A few software execs have speculated that some of Yahoo's more desirable employees may refuse to commute and leave the company, while the ones who can't find work elsewhere will hang on.
But what about the claim that interaction enhances creativity? That seems not the case for many of our most brilliant inventors.
Albert Einstein said, "I am a horse for a single harness, not cut out for tandem or teamwork ... for well I know that in order to attain any definite goal, it is imperative that one person do the thinking and the commanding."
This quote comes from Susan Cain's interesting book, "Quiet: The Power of Introverts in a World That Can't Stop Talking." She cites several great scientists who made their stunning breakthroughs working in solitude — among them, Charles Darwin and Marie Curie.
Stephen Wozniak, cofounder of Apple, wrote that like artists, inventors and engineers "work best alone where they can control an invention's design without a lot of other people designing it for marketing or some other committee." His advice: "Work alone. ... Not on a committee. Not on a team."
Sociologists have discovered a thing called "social loafing." This is a phenomenon where some members of a group relax as others do the work. Also, people with strong verbal abilities and self-regard tend to dominate groups. The quiet co-worker with a brilliant idea might not get heard.
One must wonder about the serendipity factor, the notion that chance meetings with co-workers ignite new inspiration. That could be, but bolts of insight might also occur in an encounter at the post office or sandwich shop, as well.
This is not to knock collaboration. Wozniak and Jobs needed each other to found Apple. But like Wozniak, Jobs famously went off on his own solo tangents. Having officially dropped out of college, he sat in on a course in calligraphy for the heck of it. There he learned about beautiful typography, one of the bases of Apple's success.
Would these guys have done better, cooped up in a corporate cafeteria? Possibly not.
To find out more about Froma Harrop, and read features by other Creators Syndicate writers and cartoonists, visit the Creators webpage at www.creators.com.
COPYRIGHT 2013 THE PROVIDENCE JOURNAL CO.?
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Ma'am; ... the real story here is the Hubris of a mother that can afford any sort of child care sticking it to many mothers who cannot... She does not offer them more money with a change of rules... She has the power, so she changes the rules, and tells people to adapt... And adaptation may be the cause of creativity since all change is an attempt at problem solving, but to think anyone does creative on a schedual, as chicken lays an egg with the morning light, is daffy... What is certain is that giving the people the power to be asses, and giving people the money incentive to be asses certainly results in a lot of asses...The same might be true of creation...
Unquestionable; some people thrive in a group situation... Some do not... But consider what this woman is asking is to be unique in the same old way... Where is her innovation??? Where is her creative approach???... I would say that you first hire creative people, and you try to give them what they need for creativity, and prode them into creativity by forcing them to share their ideas, and make something out of them, reward creativity by giving the creative notice, and a piece of the action, and finally, fire people who cannot produce...
One of the most prolific writers in America, William Falkener, served time in Hollywood... HIs boss used to brag that he had the best writer in America working for peanuts... He lived a lonely alcoholic existence there, and really got little credit for writing for the movies because he was such a story teller; but movies are movies, often made of stories, but carried by character, conversation, and scenery...He got credits for To Have or Have Not, a Cuban version of Casablanca... And there, the one persistent line of one character all but makes the movie... It is: Have you ever been bit by a dead bee??? This little question was the means by which a supporting actor who played a rummy determined whether people were real, or not... It is a question of which the answer can never be too certain... That quality that the creative share, in my opinion, is the need to recreate themselves through their creativity... What most people take for granted, their reality, the creative must prove through the creative act...
When at the end stage of the Manhatton district project, at Los Alamos, where our first Nuclear weapons were created, genius played upon genius... Mr. Oppenheimer who was not especially gifted with creativity was able to draw creativity out of people almost by the force of his own authority... Genius does play upon genius, and build upon it; but those people were forced to work in miserable condition under the clock of desparation... No one knew until nearly the end of the war how far the Nazis had progressed in their nuclear research... In some respects, it was the very democracy of the structure that led to the greatest advances... In their regular meetings during which ideas were forced across the membrane of social hierarchy, not just among the big brains and egos of the organization, but to the lower levels as well, of technicians- is where much of the creativity sprang forth...We say that great minds think alike, but it is in subtle variations of the theme that insight is found and progress is made...The way that Einstein turned Husserl's equasion for mass which everyone had enough of, into the famous E= MC squared to find energy which no one has enough of, is an example...
Creativity is most stunted by the need people feel to keep some ideas close to their vest, for another day that may well never come... Patent legislation in this country giving so much of invention to ones employers long after employment ends has had a terrible effect on invention, again, in my opinion... If people want it, they will have to pay for it, and they should be willing to pay as the price for encouraging invention...
Those people who say there are no great men, but only great committies have a point... Much as we think of great men, great philosophers, great artists, creative people as working in isolation we will never know what might have been possible in a coopertive atmosphere... Look at Ancient Greece where in the freedom and wealth of Athens great minds came together to explore possibilities... The influence of artists, philosophers, mathamaticians, and linguists begining the science of Anthropology all came together in a flowering of ideas that took centuries for the world to sort out... The play of personality amid competing ideas is one given to inspire creation... Yet; what was driving those people as much as the wealth and freedom and competing ideas; was the desparation of a failing society coming apart at the seams, forcing people into adaptation while resisting the feminization of the East, the tyranny of Sparta, and the vital encroachments of Barbarians...In the end their creativity could not save them... Yet, as some say, Greece conquered Rome...
Creativity is a fact, and not only an expression of individuality, but of national, or social will...All you have to do to realize how fragile and hamstrung is all our creativity for hire is look at the world of hackers which anyone may join without dues... Here the minds of China, Russia, Persia et al join in attacking us, but also in revealing our weaknesses...If we think we will be able to control the world on the basis of brain power alone, we have got to learn to make it pay for all the many creative people in the trenches... As the third world is showing us; when it gets to be a game of mind against mind, they do as well as anyone... They can handle computers and nuclear physics... When are we going to learn to quit making profit the sole reason for our education and invention??? When are we going to quit trying squeeze the golden eggs out of our geese, and give them a reason??? The qualities of need and personality are essential to invention and we do not want to bear the one cost, and we must bear the other...
We spend billions, perhaps trillions of dollars every year to stiffle creativity...No one pays for all those who search for gold in vain... The price is set by the costs of those who find it... The value of invention is nothing until it is needed, but if by then the inventor has starved to death, his mind and his/her ideas are lost... If we really care about owning the future, we have to be willing to buy it from those who imagine it...Getting the future of the cheap has not worked out for anyone yet...
Thanks....Sweeney
Comment: #1
Posted by: James A, Sweeney
Tue Apr 2, 2013 5:44 AM
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Ma'am;... Something to consider is: What is it all about... Those people who can create, and work in the milieu of their families and communities do so with the constant reminder of what, and who- what they do is done for...
When I was working I was for the most part supporting my family... My wife absolutely did her part... Some times my job was nothing more than brutal conditions, hard dangerous work, and deprivation that would inevitably take a toll... I know my wife felt unsupported and isolated... When your boss demands 100%, there are not many percent left over for relationships... My life was not devoid of meaning... In hard times and pain, I thought of them, and remembered why I was doing what I was doing, and not dragging up...As hard as it was for my wife, I think the constant reminder of what it was for and about- did make it easier, and thank God, she turned that easier into harder work as a true partner...A good wife is the difference between a hand and a good ironworker... She made me better, and better helped me keep my job on many occasions...
Consider if you will, what one therapist said to an ironworker I know... She said: I have had other ironworkers in here before, and from my experience, ironworkers do not form relationships; They take hostages.... I am certain there were times that I did just that...You can hold people responsible for the pain you suffer on their behalf, even if it is not fair, and it is the opposite of the object of caring, -to take on that pain, and to spare them... But; it seems to me that people trying to produce a commodity for people that will be of use to them and serve the good of all, could best create such a product within the meaningful context of family and home... The money is in serving business... The future is in serving people...
Thanks...Sweeney
Comment: #2
Posted by: James A, Sweeney
Wed Apr 3, 2013 5:46 AM
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