Why Your Brainstorming Sessions Are Failing
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:
- 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
- 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
- Build on the ideas of others
- 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
- 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!”
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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...
