THE POWER AND PITFALLS OF BRAINSTORMING

Any day of the week, in hundreds of states, cities and counties. there are staffers engaged in brainstorming efforts. Often, they’ve been brought together from different programs or divisions to provide a cross-section of opinions. The idea is that brainstorming will be satisfying – a positive experience that will lead to innovation and solutions to outstanding problems.

But brainstorming isn’t just a matter of bringing a bunch of people together in a room and hoping that magic will happen. In fact, over the years we’ve been aware of a number of these sessions that yield little but frustration.

For one thing, bringing together a variety of opinions can lead to a bunch of disagreements that result in tabling the discussion until the leadership can just make the hard decisions without the intrusion of conflict and friction.

We’d like to offer up several observations and ideas about how to make brainstorming bring down nourishing droplets of ideas instead of acid rain. The first comes from our experience with improvisation, as a form of entertainment. Our son was involved in this field for years and he taught us that the key to turning a bunch of random ideas into a funny scene is contained in the words “Yes. . . .and”

As television star and writer Tina Fey explained in her 2011 autobiographical memoir, Bossypants, “If I start a scene with 'I can’t believe it’s so hot in here,' and you just say, 'Yeah…' we’re kind of at a standstill. But if I say, 'I can’t believe it’s so hot in here,' and you say, 'What did you expect? We’re in hell.' ... now we’re getting somewhere. To me, YES, AND means don’t be afraid to contribute. It’s your responsibility to contribute. Always make sure you’re adding something to the discussion."

Even worse than letting a new idea languish is immediately shooting it down. Either of these create an environment of fear that can derail the conversation from having genuine value. If people are afraid that they’re going to be ignored or shot down by colleagues, then there can be an inclination for them to stiffen in the seats and withdraw.

A good brainstorming rule is that people who enter a session with the sense that their opinions are desired should leave that meeting with the same impression.

Another problem comes up when a group discussion has a dominating leader.  A few years ago, we were involved in a project for which we had done a great deal of research. We were brought into an office with a long (far too long, we thought) conference table with about eight people around it. For a while, attendees, including us, were debriefing the group about the work we all had been doing, but then the person who was in charge took off on a tirade about exactly how the project was going to work.

It quickly became clear that sharing ideas was never really intended because important decisions had already been made. This was frustrating to us, and we could tell by the expressions on the faces of other people in the room that they felt much the same way.

At the end of the session, ironically, the boss thanked everyone for their wonderful insights, and perhaps he genuinely appreciated some of them. But they didn’t seem to make a difference to the final outcome.

A related phenomenon is something we’d like to call “the power of the whiteboard.” One approach that large groups can take to brainstorming ideas is to split up into groups of five or six individuals, who are charged with considering various elements of the issue at hand, sharing ideas between themselves and then reporting out their findings to the full team. The idea of splitting up into smaller groups is genuinely appealing, because there’s more opportunity to dig deeper into the topic.

But typically, one person is put in charge of taking good notes, and then presenting the thoughts raised by the smaller group to the full group. There’s an awful lot of power in that position, and we’ve seen more than one instance in which the ideas that are put forward are largely those of the person with their hands on an erasable marker, putting thoughts on a whiteboard. Lots of good ideas disappear into the ether that way.

Our suggestion is to make sure that the person who will be reporting isn’t necessarily the one with the strongest opinions, but rather someone who will agree to be held accountable to represent the full range of ideas that the group discussed.

Two last thoughts:

It’s important at the beginning of a brainstorming session to focus the group on the single question or questions it is supposed to address. Otherwise, it’s easy for people to go off track and waste valuable minutes

While it’s impossible to make sure all the participants have equal time – and maybe that’s not even a good idea – it can help a lot to make certain that no one dominates the room. Just a few weeks ago, we were involved in an online meeting with a bunch of knowledgeable people, but one gentleman with a prestigious background, would follow the ‘yes . .  and” rule and then go on interminably with the “and” part. That left a bunch of potentially interesting thoughts from other participants unsaid when the meeting was over. This is a situation in which a strong leader can intervene and try to encourage others in the group to contribute. There are even ways to gently interrupt the non-stop talker to move things along. . . it’s not easy but it can be done by waiting for a slight pause and then interjecting, “What a great thought. Does anyone else have something to say.”

On a personal note, the two of us are perennially brainstorming together, just the two of us, and even though it’s somewhat easier to do this than with a large crowd, we follow most of the notions we’ve set out. In fact, that’s kind of the way this column was written.

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