Practice of Leadership                                                              Organizing Genius: Ambassador Kamal                                 The Secrets of Creative Collaboration TA: Jacek Hurkala                                                                          By: Warren Bennis         March 27, 2001   Presented by: George Seraphim          Sherif Salib          Georgina Vaca Idea of the book is written on how networks of gifted people have changed the world.  Groups become great only when everyone in them is free to do his or her absolute best.  It is about organizing gifted people in ways that allow them to achieve great things and to experience the joy and personal transformation that these accomplishments bring. I.   THE END OF THE GREAT MAN · Collaboration- In our society leadership is too often seen as an inherently individual phenomenon.  But cooperation and collaboration grow more important every day.  Yet people even though they acknowledge collaboration, they strive to distinguish themselves as individuals.  Emphasis on teamwork and requirement of many talented people in order to succeed.  People think towards the Great Man or Great Woman instead of the Great Group.  Seven Great Groups mentioned: Ø Walt Disney Ø PARC (Palo Alto Research Center) Ø Apple Ø 1992 Clinton campaign Ø Elite corps of aeronautical engineers Ø Black Mountain College Ø Manhattan Project   All these groups have altered our shared reality in some significant way.  The Manhattan Project ushered in the Nuclear Age with all its benefits and horrors and Disney Feature Animation did more than create an enduring art form.  Each one is made up of gifted people and each has sparked creative collaboration elsewhere.  Creative collaboration is seen in all art forms from filmmaking to painting to technology. "Every man works better when he has companions working in the same line, and yielding to the stimulus of suggestion, comparison, emulation. Great things have of course been done by solitary workers; but they have usually been done with double the pains they would have cost if they had been produced in more genial circumstances." – Henry James · Recruiting extraordinary talents – Some people look for “the fire in the eyes”.  Others rely on different types of tests.  Most recruiters would rely on tests and memory and also simple questions based on broad knowledge and the ability to see relationships.  Participants in recruiting process are young, under 35 years of age.  Women play important roles in successful groups even though dominated by the Good Old Boys’ Clubs.  With unlimited capabilities and not knowing what they can't do puts everything in the realm of the possible for these groups.  Another important skill is that people who are members of Great Groups typically can't be told what to do: Being able to determine what needs to be done and how to do it is why they are in the group in the first place.  They are looked at as indispensable.  "You do not merely want to be considered just the best of the best. You want to be considered the only ones who do what you do." – Jerry Garcia, Grateful Dead · Success – members who usually succeed are pragmatic dreamers.  They are people who get things done, but they are people with immortal longings.  People with an original vision.  Dreams are always at the heart of every Great Group.  Such great leaders seem to incarnate the dream and become one with it.  Failure does not exist amongst these groups.  Failure is considered a learning experience. "You miss 100 percent of the shots you don't take." – Wayne Gretzky II.   TROUPE DISNEY Ø "Greatness starts with superb people.  Recruiting the most talented people possible is the first task of anyone who hopes to create a Great Group.  The people who can achieve something truly unprecedented have more than enormous talent and intelligence.  They have original minds.  They see things differently.  They can spot the gaps in situations. Ø "Great Groups and great leaders create each other.  Great Groups give the lie to the remarkably persistent notion that successful institutions are the lengthened shadow of a great woman or man.  It's not clear that life was ever so simple that individuals, acting alone, solved most significant problems. Ø "Great Groups are full of talented people who can work together.  This may seem obvious, but talent can be so dazzling, so seductive, that the person who is recruiting may forget that not every genius works well with others. Ø "Great Groups think they are on a mission from God.  Whether they are trying to get their candidate into the White House or trying to save the free world, Great Groups always believe that they are doing something vital, even holy.  They are filled with believers, not doubters, and the metaphors that they use to describe their work are commonly those of war and religion. Ø "Great groups see themselves as winning under-dogs.  They inevitably view themselves as the feisty David, hurling fresh ideas at a big, backward-looking Goliath. Ø "Great Groups are optimistic, not realistic.  People in Great Groups believe they can do things no one has ever done before.  The term for that isn't realism.  Such groups are often youthful, filled with talented people who have not yet bumped up against their limits or other dispiriting life lessons. Ø "In Great Groups the right person has the right job.  This, too, may seem obvious, but the failure to find the right niche for people – not interchangeable. Ø "Great work is its own reward.  Great Groups are engaged in solving hard, meaningful problems.  Paradoxically, that process is difficult but exhilarating as well.