How to Brainstorm Well
“Biscuits are the unsung heroes of the 21st century.” It’s early in my career and I’m in a brainstorm so technically I’m supposed to treat this bold claim as a good idea. Turns out the unsung heroes of the 21st century are in trouble, and our brainstorm is going to save them. We’ve all filed into a windowless room; 20 minutes later the wall is a quilt of Post-it notes, a junior person is tasked with the write-up, and we all file out. Many years later this experience has translated to an all-company Zoom and a tower of chat comments. Fire away, all ideas are good ideas, and the Zoom AI will write it up. The brainstorm is alive and thriving (maybe even more than biscuits), yet we’ve rarely been taught how to run a good brainstorming session. We’re more winging it than storming it. There are proven techniques for doing a brainstorm well. (It turns out academics really love studying brainstorms.) Techniques that avoid the human pitfalls of group ideation and maximize our group potential instead. It would probably help to know them, so here goes.
Do You Have a Clear Problem?
First of all you have to start with a clear problem. Where most brainstorms go wrong is that everyone just dives right in. We all show up unprepared (“What’s this about, then?”), before blasting some thinking at a subject just to see what sticks. If the definition of a good idea is a novel and valuable solution to a problem, you can see the issue with this approach. Where’s the clear problem? Our first thoughts tend not to be our best thoughts, and this tendency is amplified when people are unprepared. Before anyone dives anywhere, lay out the problem. Ideally ahead of time, because . . .
Individual Work Before Group Work
A brainstorm works better if everyone does individual work first. The shocking truth is we brainstorm better on our own. We simply edit too much in front of other people. Individual work frees us from all the “effects” of human interactions. The “mean effect”: when we gravitate toward the average idea in an effort to maintain group cohesion. The “matching effect”: when we mirror the energy of Debbie Downer. And the “sucker effect”: when our contributions are tapered by the domineering, suck-all-the-oxygen voice in the room. The pull of norm and group dynamics will always guide people toward agreement around the most generically pleasing idea, so it’s important to begin with diverse ideas that challenge this tendency. Individual work sets the foundation for better group work. Leading us to our third brainstorm tip . . .
Volume of Ideas
Use the group to produce a sizeable volume of ideas. When the group wants to stop and edit, keep pushing through to more ideas. The reason for this is captured beautifully in the Atlantic article, “How to Be More Creative”: “The first solutions that come to mind tend to be either preexisting ideas or popular wisdom. These are the paths of least resistance. Though avoiding them takes work, it leads to more original ideas. One of the best ways to avoid popular wisdom is to push for volume.” Linus Pauling, the only winner of two solo Nobel Prize awards, shared his secret: “The best way to have a good idea is to have lots of ideas.” One way to ensure volume is to simply set a target for the number of ideas you expect.
And if individual work plus navigating group dynamics requires more energy than you have right now, here’s a completely different take— shift the goal of your brainstorm from ideas to questions. We only have so many ideas in us, but we can have many questions! What would a brainstorm look like if we had to generate 50 questions versus 50 ideas?
Despite brainstorms exposing the many flaws of human nature, there is still an excellent reason to do a brainstorm, and it’s the one least talked about. Brainstorms help with the sell-in of an idea. People buy ideas that they feel ownership of. Unless it’s defining the 21st century through the heroics of biscuits.