Quality vs. Quantity in the Creative Process
by Robert Fritz
In a now famous story, a pottery teacher divided his class into two groups. He told one group that their grade would be determined by the quality of their work no matter how many pieces they made. 
The second group would be measured not on the quality of their work, but on the quantity. The more pieces, the higher the grade.
At the end of the semester, the results were clear. The group that had made the most pieces also had produced the highest quality work. Ironically, those students who were directly focused on quality were less able to produce quality. How come?
What is the relationship between quantity and quality? Often, the more you produce, the more mastery you will have. Creative mastery comes in many levels. How you make critical decisions along with the ability to be decisive. How your mind understands the creative process as well as a type of visceral understanding that develops over time and experience. How free you are to make mistakes while increasing the sense of the right direction to take.
Learning allows you to move from one level of understanding and competence to a higher level. Usually there are mistakes to make. Usually the more demanding the learning, the more mistakes.
Quantity does not always lead to quality. If there isn't a learning dimension, nothing will change, and quality might even decline. But the most natural pattern when creating anything is a progression of mastery through a progression of learning. How does learning take place?
©2010 Robert Fritz
Click here for part II of Robert's article.
Robert Fritz, a composer, filmmaker, and organizational consultant, is founder of Technologies For Creating® and author of the international bestseller The Path of Least Resistance. This post first appeared in his free monthly e-newsletter, Creating. Click here for more information about Robert and his work.
"Making pottery" photo by Randy Oostdyk; used under the terms of the GNU Free Documentation License.