What are the optimum conditions for creative output, particularly as regards working solo or in a group? (David Licata in a recent post praises artist residencies for the fertile conditions they can provide.) An article by Jonah Lehrer in the Jan. 30 issue of The New Yorker introduced me to the research of Brian Uzzi, a sociology professor at Northwestern, who is much interested in creative work. Uzzi uses social network analysis and complexity theory (whatever those are) to study teamwork, leadership, creativity and productivity.
It just so happens that Broadway musicals, viewed in toto as an industry, make excellent fodder for research on teamwork and creativity. It helps when the researcher loves musicals. Uzzi told Lehrer that he saw his first musical, Hair, at age nine: “I remember absolutely nothing about the music, but I do remember the nude scene. That just about blew my mind. I’ve been a fan of Broadway ever since.”
Uzzi observes, “Nobody creates a musical by themselves. [It] requires too many different kinds of talent.” Every writer and composer I’ve spoken with who’s worked on musicals has stressed the element of collaboration, its good as well as challenging points. I recall Stephen Schwartz (creator of Wicked, Pippin, Godspell and other musicals) advising participants in a workshop he led that with musicals a writer has to tamp down his ego and accept that among one’s collaborators “there can always be a better idea.” Virtually every writer, if he’s being honest, will tell you that’s not so easy to do. Schwartz added that some writers are just too solitary or independent to be part of a creative team.
How does the shared history of team members affect the product? Is it better for a team to have worked together on a number of projects or to be new to each other? To find out, Uzzi built a database of every Broadway musical between 1945 and 1989. Lehrer reports that Uzzi “spent years analyzing the teams behind 474 productions, and charted the relationships of thousands of artists, from Cole Porter to Andrew Lloyd Webber.”
Uzzi devised a “Q” factor on a five-point scale to denote the shared history of collaborators. He assigned a high Q to musicals developed by artists who had worked together frequently. A musical created by strangers got a low Q. Uzzi was surprised at how big a factor Q turned out to be. Lehrer reports, “When the Q was low – less than 1.7 on Uzzi’s five-point scale – the musicals were likely to fail. Because the artists didn’t know one another, they struggled to work together and exchange ideas. . . But when the Q was too high (above 3.2) the work also suffered. The artists all thought in similar ways, which crushed innovation. . . . The best Broadway shows were produced by networks with an intermediate level of social intimacy. The ideal level of Q – which Uzzi called the ‘bliss point’ – emerged as being between 2.4 and 2.6. A show within this range was three times more likely to be a commercial success than a musical produced by a team with a score below 1.4 or above 3.2. It was also three times more likely to be lauded by the critics.” The optimal situation turns out to be a combination of some old friends and some newbies. “They were comfortable with each other but not too comfortable.”
West Side Story is Uzzi’s favorite example of optimal Q. That musical’s concept was generated by Broadway veterans Jerome Robbins, Leonard Bernstein and Arthur Laurents. But those established artists realized that a fresh lyrical voice would benefit the project. After an extensive search they chose an unknown talent, a 25-year-old lyricist (see above handsome photo) who had never worked on a Broadway musical. You will have heard of Stephen Sondheim.
