I have copped a bit of stick for my obsession of numbers lately. So much so, in some circles I am considered ‘The Stat-Man’. And it’s something to boast about… I’ve had a numerical mind for as long as I can remember which is partly why I have developed a passion for Basketball over the last 12 months. I watch a game whenever I get the chance, but due to the spenno price of a League Pass, I have followed most of this season by looking at scoresheets and highlights. I can tell you that James Harden, Russel Westrbrook, Stephen Curry and LeBron James are fighting out the MVP award; but I’ve come to learn that stats are not always indicative of a quality team performance. Watching the game allows you take in to account each player’s interactions with the rest of their team, and is a much better assessment of quality team mentality.
Keith Sawyer’s article regarding group flow was intriguing. The focus on Pickup Ball had me entertained. Comparative to the NBA, games of pickup ball are less confined by rules and can be altered depending on who’s on the court at a specific time. I wasn’t aware of the elimination of free throws in (some) street ball games, which would boost the freedom of the sport. As Sawyer writes, “Competition, mixed with loosely specified goals, can be just the right recipe for group genius”. The analogy of a recipe seems very fitting. Substitutes can be used and still the desired result can be achieved. All depending on how well each player, or ingredient feeds off the rest.
Sawyer writes of Mihaly Csikszentmihalhi’s four important characteristics of ‘flow’. 3 of the 4 are quite straightforward but the other one is contentious. A challenge of skills, concentration and instant feedback is understandable, but I believe the concept of flow isn’t always measureable. Musicians write music with no clear goal, because a goal would implement a restriction. Creativity breathes when improvisation is apparent, much like the Jazz ensembles mentioned further in Sawyer’s piece. As Sawyer puts it “There’s no creativity without failure, and there’s no group flow without the risk of failure”. Jazz Music, the ultimate form of improvisation is about balancing deep listening with creative contribution to try and avoid failure. I can imagine playing in a Jazz Ensemble would feel like being in a state of limbo. There’s no real expected outcome, it’s all about being in the moment, neither here nor there. I suppose more broadly, the goal with music is to create something pleasing to listen to, but even still, music is limitless.
It’s expected that we will learn to work in groups effectively to create a variety of artefacts over the coming years. From Sawyers’s article, it appears that compromising to create vision is the key of collaboration and group flow. Bouncing ideas off one another and working within each others boundaries will eventually lead to rewards…
Reference Material
- Keith Sawyer, 2007, Group Genius: The creative power of collaboration, New York: Basic Books, 2007, pp.39-57
– Gabriel