I was privileged to attend the Fizz conference at Daybreak yesterday!
Mark Courtney's session kicked off the day. He talked about principles for carbonating your ministry. The first concept was "group fizz" - moving from solo to ensemble. He had a great quote from authors Kelley and Littman talking about the “myth of the lone genius.”
They write: “If you distrust the power of teamwork, consider this fact. Even the most legendary individual inventor is often a team in disguise. In six scant years, for example, Thomas Edison generated an astounding four hundred patents, producing innovations in the telegraph, telephone, phonograph, and lightbulb— with the help of a fourteen-man team . As Francis Jehl, Edison’s longtime assistant, explained, ‘Edison is in reality a collective noun and means the work of many men.’ Even Michelangelo couldn’t have painted the Sistine Chapel without the help of a gang of artisans…"
“At IDEO we believe that the myth of the lone genius can actually hamper a company’s efforts in innovation and creativity. After close encounters with dozens of real-life inventors, I have to report that most of them don’t have a lot to teach us about applying the creative process to business. Too many of the inventors I have met suffer from a self-limiting form of paranoia. They want help with their inventions but aren’t quite ready to reveal them. They aren’t quite sure they can trust us with their precious secret and are worried that any potential partners will take advantage of them. So they return to the safety of their garages and basements and nothing ever happens.”
(Kelley, T. and Littman, J. (2001). The Art of Innovation: Lessons in Creativity from IDEO, America’s Leading Design Firm. New York: A Currency Book, Doubleday. pp. 69 – 70.)
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Do you have a group/team in your church with whom you're creating fizz and staying on the creative edge of ministry?
