Why we don’t do paint night

Research has shown that when you show people the outcome, or even slightly suggest the answer, it significantly limits their imagination. When you give people a clean slate to work with, imagination runs free and ideas flourish.

That’s why 28Muses deliberately avoids team experiences such as cooking classes or paint night where at the beginning of the experience, all attendees are shown the outcome of what they’re working towards.

Worse, participants of paint night have told us that they silently struggled with self-doubt, self-criticism, and judgment and experienced negative flash backs of moments dating all the way back to elementary school of when they felt that they were “bad at art” or “couldn’t draw.”

That’s why at 28Muses, we purposefully design each workshop so that everyone’s outcome is guaranteed to be different; there’s minimal comparison between each other’s work; no right or wrong answers to remove as much self-criticism or judgment as possible. Yep the activities are sophisticated and unique and meaningfully memorable.

Creativity and active on-demand imagination frees your team from barriers, traditions and expectations that limit their ability to innovate.

If Apple’s motto is Think Different, ours is Think Free.

And it’s in that freedom of individual thought and unique human expression that empathy and equity precipitate. When team members give each other a glimpse into their mind - their thought process, how they see, hear, process information, and communicate their ideas - that’s how true understanding, respect, and trust becomes tangible.