Creativity at the World Economic Forum? That may seem like a bit of a stretch. But according to a Washington University in St. Louis professor who moderated two sessions at last month’s forum in Davos, Switzerland, the two go hand-in-hand.
“The World Economic Forum (WEF) staff considers what they do to be fostering collaborative creativity and the unexpected insights that come from new connections,” says Keith Sawyer, PhD, associate professor of education and of psychology in Arts & Sciences and adjunct professor in the Olin School of Business.
“In their view, WEF is all about ‘group genius,’ as I call it,” Sawyer says.
He moderated two sessions at the forum – “The Creative Workplace” and “Managing Across Cultures.” Sawyer was the only WUSTL professor to appear at this year’s forum.
Sawyer is a renowned expert on the science of creativity and author of Group Genius: The Creative Power of Collaboration.
“What I’m doing to foster creativity and innovation is focusing on the power of teams and groups to generate creativity,” Sawyer says in a video on the Davos Debates youtube.com channel.
“In my research, I find that exciting news ideas always come from collaborative teams, but collaborative teams that are working together in a particular way, a way that I think of as improvisational,” he says. “When people are working together in an improvisational way, it’s almost like a kind of group flow where unexpected new ideas emerge.”
That’s where companies find most innovation, Sawyer suggests. “You need to create a context where you can have collaborative teams generating ideas together, realizing the power of creativity with everyone in the group,” he says.