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- An important and useful skill: In education, collaborative classroom learning is replacing head-to-head competition. In business, the best leaders are team-builders who can inspire great group efforts. Tharp uses her decades of experience to explain why teamwork is a superior way of working for some of us and inevitable for almost all of us. .
- The essential lessons of group effort: Tharp takes readers through the most common varieties of collaborations, including working with a partner, with institutions and middlemen, outside your expertise, in a virtual partnership, with a friend, with someone who outranks you, plus how to deal with toxic collaborators, and much more..
- Examples from one of America's greatest collaborators: Twyla Tharp shows how she built successful collaborations with Jerome Robbins, Mikhail Baryshnikov, Frank Sinatra, Billy Joel, Elvis Costello, David Byrne, Milos Forman, and four generations of great dancers..
- Sales Rank: #386123 in Books
- Published on: 2013-02-16
- Released on: 2013-02-16
- Original language: English
- Number of items: 1
- Dimensions: 9.00" h x .30" w x 7.00" l, .45 pounds
- Binding: Paperback
- 168 pages
From Booklist
Face it, “team” has become an overused, overdone, even overwhelming business word––formalized in sports and extended to the predominantly male corporate world. Yet running as undertones throughout this latest contribution from world-famed choreographer and author Tharp (Push Comes to Shove 1993 and The Creative Habit 2006), is the sense that it’s more than time for a kinder, gentler, and wiser take on working together. In 2009 and beyond, that word is “collaboration”; writing primarily from the arts perspective, she weaves stories in and out of her points, as in collaboration should be a challenge and change, vis-à-vis her partnership with Mikhail Baryshnikov; or underscoring how to collaborate with a community is her tale of creating two ballets for the Pacific. Every chapter also features a collaborator or two, highlighting lessons to learn and listen to, from Duke’s longtime basketball coach Mike Kryzyzewski to scientists Marie and Pierre Curie. If collaboration, as Tharp claims, is truly the buzzword of the millennium, then consider her as standard-bearer, motivator, and philosopher. --Barbara Jacobs
About the Author
Twyla Tharp, one of America's greatest choreographers, began her career in 1965, and has created more than 130 dances for her company as well as for the Joffrey Ballet, The New York City Ballet, Paris Opera Ballet, London's Royal Ballet, and American Ballet Theatre. She has won two Emmy awards for television's Baryshnikov by Tharp, and a Tony Award for the Broadway musical Movin' Out. The recipient of a MacArthur Fellowship, she was inducted into the American Academy of Arts & Sciences in 1993 and was made an honorary member of the American Academy of Arts and Letters in 1997. She lives and works in New York City.
Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.
Chapter 1
What It Is, Why It Matters, Why It's the Future
I'm a choreographer who makes dances that are performed on stages around the world. It's just as accurate to say I'm a career collaborator. That is, I identify problems, organize them, and solve them by working with others. Many of the stories I'll be telling involve the world of dance, but you don't have to know anything about dance to get the point. Work is work.
I define collaboration as people working together -- sometimes by choice, sometimes not. Sometimes we collaborate to jump-start creativity; other times the focus is simply on getting things done. In each case, people in a good collaboration accomplish more than the group's most talented members could achieve on their own.
Here's a classic example of someone who identified a problem and worked with others to solve it. The year was 1962. The problem was a new play, A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum. The collaborator was Jerome Robbins, the choreographer and director who later became my good friend and coworker.
As A Funny Thing was completing its pre-Broadway tour, no one was laughing. Not Stephen Sondheim, who wrote the music and lyrics. Not veteran director George Abbott. Certainly not producer Hal Prince and the play's backers.
And, most important of all, not the audience.
At the Washington previews, just three weeks before the New York opening, audiences were fleeing the theater. By the time the curtain came down, the theater was often only half full.
And yet, on paper, A Funny Thing should have been a huge hit -- the creative team couldn't have been more distinguished.
What was wrong? No one knew.
What to do? That they knew.
When a show has script trouble, it's common for the producers to bring in a "play doctor." In business, he'd be called a consultant. I'd call him a collaborator -- someone who works with others to solve a problem.
The doctor they called in was Jerome Robbins, who came to Washington from Los Angeles, where he had just collected an Academy Award for West Side Story. He watched a performance -- and by intermission, not only had he analyzed the problem, he had a solution.
A Funny Thing, Robbins said, was a farce inspired by the comedies of Plautus, a Roman playwright. But Plautus lived from 254 to 184...before Christ. How many theatergoers knew who he was? Or what kind of plays he wrote? And, most of all, who knew what kind of play A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum was supposed to be?
Jerome Robbins offered simple, commonsense advice: It's a comedy. Tell them that.
Sondheim quickly wrote an opening number called "Comedy Tonight" -- "Something convulsive / Something repulsive / Something for everyone: a comedy tonight!" -- and once ticket buyers knew what they were supposed to do, they laughed. The New York reviews were cheers for an "uninhibited romp," and A Funny Thing played 964 performances on Broadway before going off to Hollywood and becoming a hit movie.
Clearly, it's a good idea to tell people what to expect.
Here's what you can expect from this book: a field guide to a lot of the issues that surface when you are working in a collaborative environment. I'll explain why collaboration is important to me -- and, I'll bet, to you. I'll show you how to recognize good candidates to work with and how you build a successful collaboration -- and I'll share what it feels like to be trapped in a dysfunctional one. And, finally, although this isn't a book that promises to help you find love or deepen your romantic life, I suspect that some of what you may learn from these pages can help you in your personal relationships. In each case, because collaboration isn't an airy concept but a practice that's found in our daily reality, I'll be light on ideas and heavy on stories.
Collaboration is how most of our ancestors used to work and live, before machines came along and fragmented society.
Time to plant the fields? Everybody pitched in and got it done. Harvesttime? The community raced to get the crops in before the rains came. Where were those crops stored? In barns built by teams of neighbors.
In the cities, the same spirit applied. Anonymous craftsmen spent their lives building cathedrals that wouldn't be completed for generations. Michelangelo is celebrated for the Sistine Chapel; in fact, he supervised a dozen unacknowledged assistants. Even one of the greatest composers, Johann Sebastian Bach, chose to deflect credit for his compositions, writing at the bottom of each of his pieces "SDG," for Soli Deo Gloria -- to God alone the glory.
By the twentieth century, only a few self-isolated sects practiced the collaborative tradition. Blame it on wars that killed millions, the atomic bomb, Freud, or any combination of factors you choose -- there's no shortage of reasons. The result is that most of us grew up in a culture that applauded only individual achievement. We are, each of us, generals in an ego-driven "army of one," each the center of an absurd cosmos, taking such happiness as we can find. Collaboration? Why bother? You only live once; grab whatever you can.
But now more and more of us are realizing that the brilliant CEO, the politician who keeps his own counsel, and the lone hero are yesterday's role models. The media may still love them, but our new heroes are men and women who know how to gather allies, build teams, and work together toward shared goals. Name an enterprise, and you'll find levels of collaboration that were unthinkable just a few years ago. The real success stories of our time are about joint efforts: sports teams, political campaigns, businesses, causes.
Collaboration is the buzzword of the new millennium.
Like many of you, I went to school when victory meant raising your hand first and shouting out the answer -- school was a war zone that rewarded only the brightest and most aggressive. But now learning is collaborative; children work together in groups to solve problems. They solve them faster this way, and without winners or losers. And in doing so, they gain valuable life skills.
Consider the Internet, which has dramatically increased our ability to communicate with friends and associates -- and millions of strangers around the world. Now we can form networks and create collaborations without start-up money, an infrastructure, or even an office. Result? Our basic urge to work in groups can be realized more easily now than at any time in modern history.
Thanks to the Internet, a battered economy, and a profound shift in personal values, a notion that was once heresy -- that the wisdom of a smart group is greater than the brainpower of its smartest member -- is increasingly accepted in every discipline and every profession and at every age and stage of life.
On the Internet, someone posts an article, then others comment. With the addition of new facts and points of view, readers benefit -- and by contributing to the conversation, they become part of a smart community.
In business, "crowdsourcing" -- assigning a task that used to be done by a single worker to whole communities -- has become a powerful tool in the product-development process.
Dell Computers, for example, created an outreach called IdeaStorm to get ideas and feedback from customers. So far, the company has used almost three hundred of their suggestions -- keyboards that light up in the dark, more color choices, longer battery life -- in its new products.
Starbucks has launched a Web site called My Starbucks Idea to gather consumer brainstorms, filter them through management, and then have the coffee company's customers vote on the best ones. The site has collected seventy thousand suggestions.
In politics, the 2008 presidential campaign of Barack Obama proved that the most powerful word in his slogan, "Yes we can," was we.
Until 2008, most politicians used the Internet only for fund-raising. Barack Obama, a former community organizer, saw that "social networking" could mean more than the exchange of trivial blasts of personal information by virtual "friends." And he used the Web to build a movement that transformed interest into participation.
Obama's site had double the traffic of opponent John McCain's. Four times as many visitors to YouTube watched Obama's videos. He had five times as many Facebook "friends." Three million people signed up for his text messages -- and he sent them fifteen to twenty a month. And in the last four days of the campaign, Obama campaign volunteers made three million personal phone calls.
Experts say that no political campaign, no matter how well funded, could generate that much content on its own. Obama's core Internet team consisted of just eleven people. The rest of the work was done by highly committed supporters who took the communication devices they used every day and repurposed them to rally their personal networks for a common cause.
In sports it has always been about the team.
Michael Jordan started winning scoring titles in 1986. But the Chicago Bulls were not winning championships. Bulls Coach Phil Jackson knew why: "Scoring champions don't win championships." The team brought in some stronger players. And although Michael Jordan was already recognized as the greatest player in the history of basketball, he started moving the ball around. In 1991, the Bulls won their first championship in franchise history. That year, Jordan was voted the most valuable player in the finals in part because he scored thirty points in the deciding game -- but also because, in the same game, he passed the ball to teammates for ten assists.
You are probably not a professional basketball player or a politician or the proprietor of an Internet news site. You probably don't run a high-tech company or make educational policy for a school district. But in the last few years, you've certainly been exposed to the noti...
Most helpful customer reviews
37 of 42 people found the following review helpful.
Sorry, but I can't agree.
By Theresa
I was eager to own this book after hearing Ms Tharp (who I think is brilliant)interviewed on NPR. After reading the book jacket and reviews here on Amazon I even thought this book might be a good gift for my work team at our annual training. Unfortunately the book is mostly anecdotes strung together into chapter form, triple spaced in large font format; perhaps charming, but not a substantial read. I felt compelled to write a review because this is not "how-to" or a "business book" as the jacket claims and the current reviews here are somewhat misleading. Buy it if you love theater and want a slim text to adorn your coffee table but don't expect more.
21 of 25 people found the following review helpful.
OK, to a point
By wiredweird
I enjoyed Tharp's The Creative Habit immensely. I consider it one of the clearest statements of what it takes to succeed in a creative field, be it dance, art, engineering, or any of the sciences. So I dove into this with high hopes.
I fully agree with everything she says. Collaborations differ according to whether the rest of the team is nearby or distant, or is a friend, institution, or community. Collaboration is learned, and it matters critically in all but the smallest kind of endeavor. And, as in everything else, careful preparation and hard, continuous work improve your chances of success as much as they can be improved. Tharp illustrates these points largely through her own experience with dancers like Barishnikov, dance companies around the world, and small companies of her own. Always, in the relationship between choreographer and dancer, there is an asymmetry: the choreographer designs and the dancer executes. Tharp emphasizes the other half of this relationship as well: the choreographer pays close attention to each dancer, as well, in order to discover and play to their unique strengths. And, of course, performers collaborate with the audience. She illustrates this with "A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum." That nearly failed as a stage production until the creators added one song: the introduction, "... comedy tonight." Once viewers had their expectations set properly, they loved it.
Each chapter ends with a case study: Steve Martin, clothing designer Norma Kamali, her experience with David Byrne, and more. These add focus and concreteness to the discussion. They also emphasize the rewards of successful collaboration for all concerned. I found the discussion lacking in a few ways, however. Perhaps Tharp has never had a collaborator she just couldn't get along with. A little professionalism goes a long way, but the pathological cases do exist. You can't always just bail, so a little more mention of damage control might have helped. Perhaps that asks too much though - to paraphrase Tolstoy, "Happy collaborations are all alike; every unhappy collaboration is unhappy in its own way." Tharp also concentrates on collaborations between peers, albeit peers with different responsibilities in the collaboration. Nearly all collaborations in industry involve management hierarchies. Although engineers (drawing on my own experience) and managers can often work together in their different spheres, the boss/bossed relationship can't be denied and imposes special demands of its own.
I found "The Collaborative Habit" helpful, entertaining, and very readable. There's a lot to agree with, including one gem: "... really smart and talented people don't hoard the 'secrets' of their success - they share them." I appreciate brevity, too. Without its airy typesetting, this ~150 page book might have been half as long. Despite her wide experience, however, Tharp seems to lack experience in some of the kinds of collaborations in which many people must engage. This book is good, but it's not the classic that I consider "The Creative Habit" to be.
- wiredweird
30 of 41 people found the following review helpful.
What is it like to collaborate with a genius? Bracing. Exciting.
By Jesse Kornbluth
The first time I took the elevator to Twyla Tharp's penthouse was a grey, chilly morning in early April. We sat in her minimalist office that overlooked a terrace that overlooked Central Park, but when you're in a room with Twyla Tharp, it's hard to notice anything else.
To say she can be intimidating is to understate.
Her features are sharp, her hair is no-nonsense white, her glasses are oversized and round. Somewhere below her neck is a small, taut body, and a white shirt and loose jeans, but none of that matters. Only her gaze does, and it was focused on this newcomer with curiosity and skepticism.
I thought: I am not worthy.
I'm surely not the first to think that. Tharp revolutionized dance with her insistence that classical ballet and modern movement need not be antagonists, and over a 40-year career, she's explored that breakthrough idea in a dizzying catalogue of greatest hits. She's choreographed movies. She's had a Broadway hit. She was anointed with a MacArthur Fellowship, the one that certifies you as a "genius". And she's written two books. One is an autobiography,"Push Comes to Shove". The other, "The Creative Habit; Learn It and Use It for Life", is a surprise --- a wise guide for the general reader about harnessing your personal creativity.
It was a book that brought us together. Her new one, "The Collaborative Habit: Life Lessons for Working Together", would be published by Simon & Schuster in November. She'd written enough for several volumes, and would, in time, surely have been able to carve a book out of it. But she was also embarking on a new show --- "Come Fly With Me", a night of dance built around Frank Sinatra songs --- and her time was tight. If the book was to be published on schedule, someone was needed to help her get to the book's finish line.
I have done this work before, with mixed results. In 1986, I collaborated with Roger Enrico, then the CEO of Pepsi Cola. He worked as hard as I did, all the while running a giant company; all these years later, we still get royalties. Less happy was my experience with Kelsey Grammer. I was hired to write his memoir just six weeks before an inflexible deadline; Grammer gave me little time or guidance, and I succeeded only in turning a total disaster into a mere failure.
If I was skittish about signing on to a new collaboration, I had an additional reason --- Twyla Tharp has a reputation as an artist who finds even perfection inadequate; it was easier to picture her as an autocrat than as a collaborator. But I didn't sense that at our first meeting. She grilled me about Balzac, Tolstoy and Proust; I parried to the best of my ability, painfully aware she'd practically memorized every word they'd written. After a half hour of literary tennis, I suspect we were both pleasantly surprised, she that I had read a book or three, me that that her work ethic seemed fairly reasonable.
One thing I should know, she said: She got up early, worked all day, went to bed early. She expected appointments --- ours included --- to begin a few minutes before the appointed hour: "If you're not early, you're late." I said I understood.
And so we began.
There was one table in her office --- a venerable Shaker piece that was sufficiently rare that I quickly learned to put a coaster under my water glass. This work surface was bracketed by two chairs and industrial shelving stacked with a video editing system, stereo equipment and books. Up a few steps was a large empty room: a dance studio and rehearsal space. When she didn't go to the gym --- at 69, she can still bench more weight than I can --- she danced here. It was one of the supreme perks of our time together that she sometimes showed me how the thing was done.
From time to time, I'd look outside and imagine us finishing the book in July, reading the manuscript and sipping iced tea in air-conditioned comfort as the park shimmied in the summer heat. Some days it seemed that time would never come --- Twyla Tharp could be fierce.
Not that she was ever in a grim mood. It was always, "Good morning, Miss Tharp" and "Hello, my sweet" with us --- formal manners delivered with irony and topspin. The thing was, Twyla Tharp is a one-off. She lives in the now, and she does it with a ferocity I've never encountered. I'd bring up some moment from her childhood that stunned or shocked me; she never had an emotional reaction. Stuff happens. It makes you who you are. Move on. Dazzled by her equanimity, I would.
And so we did plowed through her collaborations with Billy Joel, Jerome Robbins, Mikhail Baryshnikov, Bob Dylan, Elvis Costello, David Byrne, Richard Avedon, Milos Forman, Norma Kamali and Frank Sinatra. This required considerable discipline, because this book, even more than its predecessor, is for general readers --- the stories are about dance, but as she often said, "Work is work." And to drive the point home, we dotted the pages with stories of great collaborators: Steve Martin, the Wright Brothers, Marie and Paul Curie. Even the baseball slugger Kirk Gibson makes an appearance.
Who wrote what? She wrote everything. No one has ever worked harder; anything I sent to her would come back marked, edited, revised, improved. Nothing I did could have made her dramatically better; my contribution was to buff and suggest, propose and try, and, on the rare occasion, shoot the moon. Throughout, she could not have been more supportive and appreciative. As her dancers know, a "very nice" from Twyla Tharp is a bit more meaningful than it is from almost anyone else.
There was only one disappointment. The final month of work on the book involved many meetings at her apartment. Only in the July heat did I learn that I wouldn't be sipping iced tea in the air-conditioned office --- because her office opens on to her dance studio, it isn't air-conditioned. Cold air may be good for writers, but it's bad for dancers.
So, with the terrace door open and the hot air blowing through, I swooned. And I sweated. My eyes smarted; the pages of the manuscript were marked with blotches. I can't remember a more physically demanding work environment. Or a more rewarding one --- I worked with a genius, and survived, and now, magically, there's a book
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