Why Your Brainstorming Sessions Are Failing

  • By Dawna Kinnunen
  • •
  • 14 Nov, 2018
  • •

And steps you can take to promote participation, stimulate ideas, and generate results

“Houston, we’ve had a problem.” This cliché tagline from the 1995 film Apollo 13 is now used to informally announce an unforeseen problem. There’s a scene in the film where NASA’s team meets to brainstorm creative ways to bring the crew of Apollo 13 home safely. Although the launch of Apollo 13 occurred in 1970, the act of using brainstorming sessions is actually relatively new for that time.

Brainstorming was a concept popularized in 1953 by Alex Faickney Osborn in his book Applied Imagination. Since then, the technique to gather a group of people to collect creative ideas and solve problems with critical thinking skills is practically commonplace in business settings; however, if not approached with careful planning and foresight, brainstorming sessions can become counterproductive and simply downright frustrating.

Why brainstorming is here to stay

There are several benefits of brainstorming that warrant its popularity still today. Kristen Price (n.d.) suggests the following benefits of brainstorming, especially for smaller businesses where the company doesn’t have a dedicated marketing team to pool ideas from:

  • Collects different viewpoints—Your employees will have a variety of backgrounds, interests, motivations, and experiences to draw on. The greater the variety of viewpoints, the great variety of creative and unique ideas may be arise.
  • Encourages critical thinking—This means being able to view a situation, concept, or idea in a clear, logical way, free from personal bias. Brainstorming encourages critical thinking skills to be able to break down a problem and identify smaller parts then come up with objective solutions.
  • Gets you out of your head—Getting stuck in your own thoughts, or not being able to see clearly through your own ideas is normal. Brainstorming provides an opportunity to get the ideas out in the open–audibly or on paper–giving them space to develop and shape into tangible ideas. 
  • Builds teams—Brainstorming promotes teamwork. A group has to develop effective communication skills, active listening skills, and even empathy when taking others’ perceptions and reactions into consideration. It also takes the onus off one individual person to generate ideas and carry the workload for the company. Instead, it’s a team effort and the weight of the responsibility is shared among team members.

Why we hate brainstorming

You’ve received a meeting request for yet another brainstorming session. Your shoulders slump and eyes roll… here we go again. Ineffective brainstorming sessions may be caused by several factors:

  • The thinkers or stakeholders needed aren’t present
  • A clear hierarchy is set; those at the top get to share their ideas; ideas from those lower aren’t heard; subordinates tend to simply agree with their superiors
  • Introverts don’t get the time they need to think before sharing
  • Extroverts tend to take over meetings with their ideas, not giving opportunities for others to share
  • Facilitator does all the talking and doesn’t give a chance for others to share their ideas
  • Ideas are shot down, criticized, ignored; this creates a negative environment where others may be afraid to share ideas and creative thinking stagnates
  • Too many voices speaking at once; no process
  • There’s no follow-through after the ideas are generated

Have effective, productive brainstorm sessions

The benefits of brainstorming far outweigh the drawback, especially when you proactively take steps to ensure your company gets the most out of brainstorm meetings. Although there is no one right way to lead a brainstorm–it will be different for each group depending on the types of personalities participating, their level of confidence and comfort sharing ideas in front of others, and the complexity of the topic being discussed–there are steps you can take to ensure your next brainstorm meeting is effective.

Before the brainstorm session

Determine who should attend. Yes, the usual suspects from your office group will likely attend; however, are there any experts in the field, any stakeholders, whose input would be valued and beneficial? Invite them!

Circulate the question or topic. This will help avoid awkward silences as people scramble to think of something on the spot. You will get many more creative options from participants if they have a chance to think about it for a while first.

Accept suggestions in advance. This will give introverts a chance to provide input without feeling overwhelmed by extroverts who may share more openly during the meeting.

Create a collaborative workspace. Sit at a round table. This creates an environment of equality and gives structure for taking turns while sharing ideas. Set up a cloud-based sharing point where ideas can be posted, reviewed, and added to (before, during, and after the meeting).

At the start of the brainstorm session

Set clear guidelines for how the meeting will run. Laura McClure (2017) suggests these five clear guidelines:

  1. One idea at a time—Give each person in the room a chance to speak; start at your left and go around the table one at at time
  2. Encourage wild ideas—Don’t waste time putting down outside-the-box ideas; improve on wild ideas with suggestions (never put down someone’s idea or you’ll shut them down) or move on quickly to the next idea
  3. Build on the ideas of others
  4. Defer judgment (no criticism)—Make it a rule if you’re going to put down someone’s idea, you need to come up with an alternative or way to make the idea work
  5. Stay on topic—As meeting facilitator, stop off-topic discussions and limit the amount of time spent talking about each idea

During the brainstorm session

Your role as facilitator is to ensure the guidelines are followed... respectfully. Keep to time limits, ensure everyone gets a chance to talk, and be quick to prevent others from talking over each other.

Assign someone to take clear action-style meeting minutes. Record all ideas and who contributed them (you never know when you might want to go back and review all suggestions… some ideas might work well for other projects). Record who is responsible for completing particular tasks and when these tasks are due.

Be open to different communication styles. Some people may be more comfortable talking, others writing, some drawing. Have the resources available for different sharing methods (e.g. whiteboard, pads of paper and pens, etc.).

After the brainstorming session

Follow up on action items; your role is not to micromanage, but simply to check in and answer questions. Welcome ideas that come after the meeting; new ideas may have had time to percolate.

Go ahead… it’s not like your landing a man on the moon

Unless you do work for NASA, chances are that you don’t have much to lose by trying something new. The key to running effective brainstorming sessions is open, structured communication. By following the simple guidelines presented here, you can make employees feel valued and appreciated; you’ll see improvement in employee participation and production.

“Apollo, we have a solution!”

---------------

Resources:
Markman, A. (2017, May 18). Your Team Is Brainstorming All Wrong. Retrieved from https://hbr.org/2017/05/your-team-is-brainstorming-all-wrong

McClure, L. (2017, March 10). TED-Ed Blog. How to lead a brainstorm. Retrieved from http://blog.ed.ted.com/2017/03/10/how-to-lead-a-brainstorm-for-young-introverts-and-extroverts-too/

Peace, N. (2012, Apr. 9). Why Most Brainstorming Sessions Are Useless. Retrieved from https://www.forbes.com/sites/nataliepeace/2012/04/09/why-most-brainstorming-sessions-are-useless/#5d...

Price, K. R. (n.d.). The Importance of Brainstorming. Small Business - Chron.com. Retrieved from http://smallbusiness.chron.com/importance-brainstorming-77488.html

Whenham, T. (2016, Sept. 8). 10 reasons your last brainstorming session failed (and how to fix it). Retrieved from https://www.nureva.com/blog/business/10-reasons-your-last-brainstorming-session-failed-and-what-to-d...


Sharpening The Saw

By Dawna Kinnunen • 01 Sep, 2020

Just finished a 3 day John Maxwell virtual conference of learning and growing.  So blessed to be a part of this incredible team. 

Law #7 from Stephen Covey’s 7 Habits of Highly Effective People, “Sharpen the Saw” is such an important one to stay in the right “mindset”…regardless of our circumstances!  

Law#7 in this book says:
Seek continuous improvement and renewal professionally and personally.

Sharpen the Saw means preserving and enhancing the greatest asset you have--you.                                                                                                                         It means having a balanced program for self-renewal in the four areas of your life: physical, social/emotional, mental, and spiritual.

Everyone of us in business has been challenged this season.  How WE manage it, how WE deal with it will predict our outcomes that follow. 

 It's just SO important that we continuosly invest in ourselves as leaders, develop ourselves and sharpen our saw.  Not only is it the best gift we can give our team, our families and those around us, it's the best gift we can give ourselves!

We need to change and grow in order to bring change and growth.  As leaders, if we are not where we want to be we need to first look within.   

Transformation always starts with the leader, and trickles down. 

The ONLY way to be a great leader is to first start with leading yourself!

What are you doing to Sharpen Your Saw? 

Sage advise from John Maxwell ... looking back to learn.

By Dawna Kinnunen • 05 Dec, 2019
Sharing this post from John Maxwell. A great exercise to take time to look back ... to learn

What will you remember about 2019?

As the last days of this year trickle by and your thoughts turn towards presents and parties and preparations for 2020, I wonder what your memories of this year will be.

What will spring to mind when you think back over the year’s-worth of days you’ve lived?

I ask because this is a reflective time for me, but also because it’s a reflective time for many people. We look back before we look ahead because reflection is the process that turns experience into insight. I’ve taught that principle for years, but I want to offer a qualifier for your consideration:

What you reflect on determines what you will learn.

I always guide my reflection process by my calendar; I look back on appointments I’ve kept, meetings I’ve held, talks I’ve given, and other time commitments I’ve made to help me invest my time wisely in the year that’s to come. It’s a process that works well for me, and I’ve recommended it to many over the years.

But if I were to only reflect on my calendar, then the only lessons I would learn would be about priorities and scheduling. While there’s nothing wrong with that, there’s also so much more that should be learned.

My calendar is only the starting point for me—I look beyond just where and how I spent my time, and I call to mind the people and purpose for which that time was spent. I focus on the real faces and causes that invited me to add value to them, and I reflect on whether I succeeded in that mission.

I’m not afraid to say that I’m not always as successful as I’d like to be, and I glean from those moments ways that I can continue to grow and improve. But I look at the successes too.

There’s just as much to learn from when we win, but people don’t often look there while reflecting. We tend to think that the only way we’ll really learn is by examining what didn’t work. My friend, nothing could be further from the truth.

We have as much—if not more—to learn from our successes, if we’ll spend the time looking at them.

One of my favorite stories about this idea comes from the John Maxwell Team. A few years ago, we’d just completed a Certification event in Orlando, and everyone raved about the quality and the excellence they experienced during our time together.

Mark Cole, my CEO, came across Paul Martinelli, President of the John Maxwell Team, and congratulated him on a job well done. Mark commented how by all measures it was the best event we’d ever done, and congratulated Paul on his hard work.

That’s when Paul showed him the list: 37 things that could make the next event better. He’d taken the time to reflect on each success while the event was happening and took notes on future improvements!

So what will you remember about 2019? Will it be only what went wrong—or will you also spend time thinking about what went right?

When it comes time to reflect, make sure you’re looking back in a way that will help you move forward.  Spend time reflecting on your wins and losses because each hold their own lessons that can help you grow.


By John Maxwell  | December 3, 2019


How Good Leaders Disempower Their Employees… Intentionally or Not

By Dawna Kinnunen • 15 Nov, 2018
A productive workplace empowers employees to contribute to decision-making and boosts employee morale; however, even good leaders can fall victim to these bad habits that disempower their employees.
Share by: