In a society that praises solo achievements and competition as one of the core elements, one might wonder how friendship – an emotional and affectionate bond – stimulates creativity and the ability to solve problems.
However, history and science tell a different and quite fascinating story where some of the biggest advancements like art from the renaissance period or even the unique startups of Silicon Valley were not the work of individual geniuses but rather stems from collaborative friendships.
These kinds of relationships are based on trust, respect, and a sense of shared vulnerability which, in return, provide the ideal environment for creativity.
In this article, we will look further into how friendships serve as a motivation for creativity and enable people to work collaboratively to solve problems. Oftentimes people tend to dismiss the idea of friendship as many view creators as one, but it is very much evident that friendship is a crucial piece in solving tough problems and so we are going to discuss what synergies it brings in combination with creativity.
The synergy created by friendship and psychology behind it.
Be it friendship or companionship, relationships have always served as a safety net making these relationships fundamentally provide a blanket of protection. Creativity always flourishes in areas that allow the room for individuals to experiment, fail, and refine into something new.
Trust as a Starting Point for Taking on Risks
It is known that trust creates a sense of judgement free anxiety that helps engage in creative endeavors. An example of this is a 2018 experiment conducted by Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, in which teams of friends came up with 25% more ideas while brainstorming as compared to teams that comprised strangers. The reason behind this is straightforward: friends are unlikely to dismiss ‘outlandish’ ideas on the spot, which creates a safety net for creativity.
The mentioned paper agrees with Google’s Project Aristotle, where the importance of psychological safety is heavily emphasized, as it is considered to be the top predictor of a team’s success. In situations where colleagues forge a friend like relationship, they are able to converse freely without the butter of challenges to existing decisions, assumptions, and contributions being made.
All in good faith, to build a more constructive environment.
Emotional Empathy and Freedom of Expression
Friendships act as a buffer against the emotional weight of creative endeavors. Unlike some situations where there is a feeling of innovation pressure, friends provide a sense of encouragement and empathy. As stated in Abraham Maslow’s hierarchy of needs, feeling a sense of belonging and esteem is very important for self-actualization, the latter being the most desired outcome of creativity; indicates that friendship greatly aids self-actualization.
Ergo, friends have a shared history of battles won which builds on the mental fortitude of individuals. Consider Steve Wozniak’s and Steve Jobs’ friendship which was strong enough to withstand their early failures at Apple allowing them to shift away from things like the Apple Lisa and focus on breakthroughs like the Macintosh instead.
The Unsung Communication of Friends & Creativity
Friendships are responsible for the creation of new forms of communication that make working together more efficient.
Inside Jokes and Shared Language
Good friends create a form of language with blended inside jokes, define references, and unique gestures that speed up the exchanging of ideas. This, as linguists put it, is known as phatic communication, which helps in building relationships and decreasing misunderstandings.
Ideally, in a creative working environment, this speared language makes it possible for teams to avoid long and boring discussions and get straight to the complex aspects of the solutions that need to be addressed.
For example, in the 19th century, some Impressionist painters like Monet, Renoir and Degas used coded reviews during their meetings at Cafe Guerbois. Their friendships empowered them to break free from conservative academic styles and create a whole new approach in art.
Constructive Conflict
In addition, friendships allow for creative conflict whereby disagreements are transformed into a means of getting things done. Unlike most relationships like transactional ones that question the validity of arguments and seek to table disagreements, friendships allow for what is termed ‘productive friction’.
According to a 2020 study from Nature Human Behavior, teams with strong interpersonal bonds engage in more intense conflict but claim to reach more creative solutions because the focus is to achieve a collective goal as opposed to individual identity.
Orville and Wilbur Wright demonstrate this perfectly. Their discussions surrounding differing perspectives of the best wing designs resulted in a smooth blend of respect which gave birth to the first successful airplane. “We could hardly wait to get up in the morning to argue,” said Wilbur with excitement.
Case Studies: Friendship as a Crucible for Innovation
The Inklings: Literary Genius Through Camaraderie
People often look back and appreciate the friendships between C.S. Lewis and J.R.R. Tolkien blossomed within the Oxford literary group “The Inklings” as a testament on how collaboration amplifies creativity. Every week, they gathered to read rough drafts of ‘The Lord of the Rings’, greatly feedbacking the book along with ‘The Chronicles of Narnia’ and vice versa. Tolkien credited Lewis for “persuading me that my ‘stuff’ could be more than a private hobby,”.
Friendship in the Boardroom: Pixar’s “Brain Trust”
The creative process at Pixar benefits from a friendship in the boardroom as seen with their “Brain Trust” – A team of directors and writers who offer their opinions on works in progress. While they carry certain degrees of seniority, as a team they function as peers and friends. Ed Catmull, Co Founder of Pixar, relates the company’s success to this “culture of interdependence” where trust comes before hierarchy.
Open Source Communities: Digital Friendships
These days, friendships are formed and nurtured on various platforms and open-source projects such as Wikipedia and Linux emphasize the importance of these digital friendships. They come from diverse backgrounds and together work towards a common goal, fighting over code and edits through forum debates. The exchange of such code opens new channels of building trust and reciprocity where we do not have to meet face to face because of how these societies function. It all shows that you do not need a physical presence to collaborate and aid each other.
The Neuroscience of Collaborative Creativity
Advancements in the field of neuroscience now tell us that friendships help encourage creativity in ways we have never considered.
Brain Synchronization
We function in a world where we are more progressive than ever. Take this graph in fMRI scans of close friends who demonstrate synchronized brain patterns in areas related to creativity like the prefrontal cortex. Such relationships further enhance intuitive understanding because such strong friendships allow them to anticipate each other’s thoughts and behavior. Today, working with someone offers a new level of creative thought that has not allowed us to think the same way.
Neurochemical Cocktails
Such interactions perform wonders on your brain and it goes as far as increasing dopamine which is related to motivation and reward. Positive social interaction with friends ignites the release of oxygen which helps those feel less stressed while being around their friends. The juxtaposition between the single release of oxygen in their system and them being surrounded by high stress cortisol serves as the perfect cocktail which fuels the excitement of exploration which dopamine brings.
- Making Friends in Unconventional Ways: How Individuals and Organizations Can Achieve This
- For individuals: Focus on meaningfulness instead of quantity
Vulnerable personal investment alongside time is required for creative partnerships. Foster joint activities or skill sharing. Use disagreements as a way to improve ideas.
For Organizations: Create Opportunities for Unplanned Interactions
Companies like IDEO and Google use open office layouts and community cafes so people can easily interact, as friendships form during spontaneous events. Emotional intelligence training can also bring teams closer.
Encourage More Variety in Friendships
It is normal to form friendships based on similar traits, but friendships with people of different backgrounds create new perspectives. The interdisciplinary friendship between chemist Marie Curie and physicist Albert Einstein is an example of how diverse friendships increase creativity, leading to breakthroughs in radioactivity.
How Friendship Can Always Be The Biggest Creativity Killer
While friendships improve creativity in most cases, there are times it can lead to groupthink. Interpersonal bonds can be too strong sometimes, leading to certain ideas being avoided or changed completely due to their controversial nature. Introducing external viewpoints and changing team positions can lessen this issue, as well as having an organizational culture where constructive feedback is acceptable.
Rethinking Friendship in a Hyper-Competitive World
Friendship is not a hindrance to efficiency, rather, it is the essence of it. Maintaining trust, communication, and emotional strength fosters friendships that turn cooperation into a moving, innovation-generating force. With the increasingly intricate global issues we face from AI ethics to climate change, the ability to utilize friendship’s creative prowess will most likely influence our shared future.
As poet W.B. Yeats said, “Consider where man’s splendor begins and ends, and say my glory was I had such friends.” We must not take friendship as a social obligation, rather we ought to embrace it as the pillar of change.
