The Collaborative Habit: Life Lessons for Working Together [Hardcover]

Twyla Tharp (Author), Jesse Kornbluth (Contributor)

Book Description

Release date: November 24, 2009

• 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..

Editorial Reviews

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.

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Hardcover: 160 pages
• Publisher: Simon & Schuster; First Edition edition (November 24, 2009)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1416576509
• ISBN-13: 978-1416576501
• Product Dimensions: 7 x 1 x 9 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 4.2 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (8 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #597,443 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More 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.

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

28 of 31 people found the following review helpful

2.0 out of 5 stars Sorry, but I can't agree. December 13, 2009

By Theresa

Format:Hardcover

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.

9 of 12 people found the following review helpful

3.0 out of 5 stars OK, to a point October 23, 2010

By wiredweird HALL OF FAMETOP 500 REVIEWER

Format:Hardcover|Amazon Verified Purchase

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

3 of 4 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars Collaboration Skills for 21st Century Success December 3, 2009

By Larry Underwood

Format:Hardcover

From politicians who embrace transparency to progressive CEOs who value employee engagement, it's clear their success is driven by their proficiency at getting others to "buy in" to what they're "selling"; and what they're selling is "trust". By building enough trust, they can usually achieve their goals with a great deal of mutual collaboration. Both parties win when the collaborative process goes smoothly; of course, when it doesn't, the results are rarely favorable.

Twyla Tharp certainly understands this, and has compiled this highly engaging book detailing her personal collaborative experiences. Although most of those experiences have been successful, she's quick to point out some of her less than stellar moments, with her spin on why things didn't go as planned. Her approach is refreshingly candid without blaming others for the problems; like any good collaboration, egos are kept in check. Results are much more favorable when the parties can communicate openly, with no hidden agendas.

This is a most enlightening perspective from an extremely successful person, who's built an entire career on making the most of her collaborative efforts. In this day and age of instant information, practically everyone needs to learn the skills of making collaboration a good habit; one you'd never want to break. Going it alone just won't fly these days.