I just finished reading Florence Welch’s interview with Baz Luhrmann in May’s issue of Interview magazine and what struck me was Baz talking about Jay-Z being a serial collaborator. Something about that really resonated with me, because Baz talks about seeing a production of Twelfth Night when he was young with drinks and music like it was Club Med. And how being exposed to that inspired him. This is why I’ve based my entire career on collaborating highly and I try to do so with as diverse folks as I possibly can.

And it doesn’t just help with your work but I find it can help with personal challenges you have too. Just this weekend I was trying to solve a problem and I spoke to a few key friends that I knew would have great perspectives, and they approached the problem at completely different angles. It was so fascinating and I was able to take parts of what all 3 of my friends were saying to come up with the right approach to solving my problem, and you know, it’s just perfect.

I’m also in the middle of reading the book Give and Take where Adam Grant talks about Frank Lloyd Wright’s career, and how it soared when he worked with apprentices, but when he isolated himself his work languished. It’s also how I’ve built my whole ideation process, where I invite as many people as possible into a rapid Design Studio Workshop process so that the diversity of ideas can really bubble into something completely beautiful. I’ve gotten some resistance to this process and it’s just completely foreign to me as to why everyone wouldn’t want to work this way.

I do understand that working this way, you’re exposing your ideas before they’re fully formed, so it’s a little bit intimidating. There needs to be trust that you’re not going to get knocked down in the process. But if you can be brave enough to open yourself up in this way, the results can just be incredibly rich. Serial Collaboration is a transformational way of creating.