Collaborative Circles and Creative Work, Michael P. Farrell

A collaborative circle is a primary group consisting of peers who share similar occupational goals and who, through long periods of dialogue and collaboration, negotiate a common vision that guides their work. The vision consists of a shared set of assumptions about their discipline, including what constitutes good work, how to work, what subjects are worth working on, and how to think about them. For a group of artists, the shared vision might be a new style. For a group of scientists, it might be a new theoretical paradigm. Each member comes to play an informal role in the circle, and each role may have a history as the group develops over time. Even while working alone, the individual members are affected by the group and the roles they play in it. As C. S. Lewis observed, the group vision and the roles each participant plays in the group continue to guide and sustain the members, “even when… Friends are far away.” For members of the collaborative circle, each person’s work is an expression of the circle’s shared vision filtered through his or her own personality.

It is important to distinguish a collaborative circle from a mentorprotégé relationship. Although a mentor often plays a part in the development of a creative person, that role differs from the part played by a collaborative circle. A mentor is an older, more established professional who conveys the vision of a previous generation and guides the protégé’s early steps into a discipline. The protégé may in time become ambivalent about and rebel against the dependence inherent in this subordinate role (Levinson et al. 1978). In other circumstances, the protegé might become the disciple of the mentor, reluctant to accept creative advances that challenge the mentor’s work. In contrast, collaborative circles are groups formed by peers who negotiate an innovative vision of their field. Often they first come together as a friendship group that only later evolves into a collaborative circle. Although protégés of the same mentor sometimes form a collaborative circle, when they do, their relationship to the mentor and the mentor’s vision may be clouded by ambivalence.