Gina sat down to write her book on the ethnography framework she developed from 20 years of research and teaching … and nothing came to her. She stared at the cursor blinking on the screen and lifted her hands to type. The white space was waiting to be filled but her mind was blank. Why couldn’t she start?
In a panic, she called her friend and colleague, Vin, a creative problem solver who specializes in leading team brainstorms. He recognized her stumbling block immediately. Gina, an editor by nature, was stuck inside her head. Her mind wasn’t actually blank — she was revising every idea before putting it on the page, leading to false (or nonexistent) starts. “Don’t worry about the changes you’ll make later,” Vin said. “Just write something down — anything. Once you have some words in front of you, it will be easier to clarify what you want to say.”
Gina took his advice. Line after line, she began copying down her notes. As soon as there was text on the screen, she relaxed and dug in with edits and revisions. When she excitedly reported her progress to Vin, he explained that he had the opposite problem. He is innately an inventor, meaning he loves a blank page, so much so that he dislikes even ruled lines on paper.
This is how our framework was born, grounded in self-discovery and motivated by our desire to find, understand, and name our creative types: inventor or editor. While many people see themselves as both, ‘we’ve found through countless collaborations that there is a usually dominant role — just as a person who is ambidextrous is primarily right- or left-handed.
Recognizing and learning more about your creative type can be immensely helpful in the workplace, especially in highly collaborative environments. It can give you the freedom to be yourself, play to your strengths, acknowledge your development areas, and partner with creative opposites who will complement your thinking style, greatly improving your work.
What’s your creative type?
Each of us approaches creative collaboration in a certain way — our default, as it were. While there isn’t an exact science to identifying your type, understanding where your strengths lie and giving them a name can be powerful. In Gina’s classroom, for instance, students are often overjoyed when they self-identify. It helps them explain how they’re wired and how they best work with others. When group projects are assigned, students more readily engage with their peers. Conflict is no longer avoided — it’s welcomed as part of the creative process. In fact, conflict is an indicator of just how creative they’re being.
One easy way to figure out which direction you lean is to put yourself in front of a blank page, as Gina did, with the goal of creating something new. This could be a story, a solution to a problem, a design, a pitch, or any other type of creation. If you quickly fill the page with ideas — whether that’s images, words, codes, or something else — you’re likely an inventor. If you struggle to start, or get stuck making revisions in your head, you just might be an editor.
You can test your hypothesis by paying attention to your behavior during brainstorming sessions. Ask yourself where you start from when solving a problem. If you ask, “What hasn’t been done?” you’re probably an inventor. Inventors are often the ones who say, “Don’t tell me — I’ve got this.” They provide others with ideas that are the ingredients for creative solutions.
If you ask is, “What’s been done?” that’s a sign you’re an editor. Editors like to shape and refine other people’s ideas, and sometimes their own. They are the ones who say, “What could this idea look like? How can we make it better?” Their favorite part of the process is taking the ingredients provided by others to make solutions more relevant.
Unlock your collaborative potential.
The inventor and the editor have a symbiotic relationship that honors everyone’s approach to creativity and problem solving. Here’s how to improve your creative collaborations at work so that, together, you and your team members can produce the best possible results.
Be open-minded and seek out the unfamiliar.
As humans, we tend to gravitate toward the familiar. This often means inventors like to hang out together, just as editors are most comfortable with each other. However, sameness is not greatness. A room full of inventors can lead to impractical results with everyone trying to reinvent the wheel, while a roomful of editors can lead to the status quo. When you have diversity of types, imagination is tempered with realistic expectations.
At work, it’s important for a team to have a mix of both types of people. The inventor will appreciate the editor for making ideas sharper, more relevant, and workable. The editor will similarly value the ideation of the inventor. When you and your teammates make a consolidated effort to understand this inventor-editor dynamic and embrace your opposite type, it fosters a culture of mutual respect, accelerates the creative process, and results in much better outcomes. Instead of setting up an “us vs. them” polarity — one side spinning ideas and the other shooting them down — each side can work to appreciate their opposites.
Pair yourself with your opposites.
When working on a new idea, try and choose team members who think differently than you. This is especially important during brainstorming sessions — make sure there is not just a diversity of thought, but also a mix of editors and inventors in the room.
This opens the door for an inventor to take an idea to an editor and say: “We’d like to integrate AI into the customer service portal to reduce service time. How can we sharpen this?” An editor can then respond, “Integrating AI into the customer service portal sounds interesting. Let me see how this might work.” Suddenly, things are getting set into motion — instead of people dismissing each other’s ideas (a room of editors) or people throwing so many ideas out that the meeting feels ungrounded (a room of inventors).
It’s an incredibly simple way to create a respectful space in which disagreements are productive, open-ended questions are encouraged, and discoveries are made.
Group projects don’t need to be rife with conflict. You can intentionally seek out strong partners that complement and appreciate your thinking style. In doing so, you’ll inspire deeper creativity and raise the stake for everyone. The result is more innovative solutions, a joyful process, and a satisfying result.
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This article first appeared on hbr.org
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