Seminar – Point break? The process of creative vitrification and its impacts on the careers of creative leaders

Spencer Harrison, Associate Professor, INSEAD

Popular images of creative leaders often depict them as difficult to work with and yet, worth the struggle because of their ability to innovate: the “jerk genius.” Leading creative group work requires, by design, managing differences in perspective, vision, and ideas – creating some level of friction within the group, while also facilitating the collaboration so that the differences sparked by creativity do not lead to impasses. In this multimethod study, we examine what happens when the creative process breaks down and the leader can no longer work with the group. In a qualitative study of Hollywood insiders, we discover how creative leaders attempt to keep a collaboration moving forward while also revealing the process of creative vitrification that explains the underlying social dynamics that harden and subsequently break creative collaborations, leading to “creative breakdowns.” We then examine the long-term career impact for creative leaders associated with a creative breakdown using an archival sample of Hollywood directors leaving projects due to “creative differences.” Empirical evidence reveals that creative leaders leaving projects due to “creative differences” experience drop offs in future employability and creativity success. Together, our multimethod findings breaks new ground, challenging prevailing notions of the value of disagreeable creative leaders by revealing the long-term consequences of these behaviours while also elucidating the often obscured process of creative vitrification that leads to breakdowns in collaboration.

Speaker bio

Spencer Harrison is an Associate Professor of Organizational Behavior at INSEAD. His research has been published in Academy of Management Journal, Academy of Management Discoveries, Academy of Management Annals, Academy of Management Collections, and Academy of Management Zeppelins which is not a real journal but perhaps should be just so that the Academy has a journal for each letter of the alphabet and because Zeppelins seem to be an extremely dangerous place to practice managing. He is a co-founder of The Creativity Collaboratorium (a working group of creativity researchers). He loves finding cool new contexts and exploring new puzzles.

For more information, please contact Luke Slater.