Brainstorms don’t work. Here’s why.

Throughout my career I have been involved in more brainstorming sessions than I can count.

Far too many of them were, unfortunately, an incredible waste of time.

There are so many problems with brainstorms, and in my two-decade advertising career I believe I have seen them all first hand.

Brainstorming is a technique that was developed by an advertising guy back in the 1940’s, it may have been innovative then, but it really is showing its age today.

There are multiple reasons why I feel it is a flawed concept; more often than not it is a mix of the people attending and the process involved. Here are some of the people you will encounter in a typical brainstorm session –

1.  The Wallflower: they don’t contribute or partake very much, they simply have creative shyness, they are afraid of their ideas being laughed at or ignored, but all they lack is some creative confidence.

2.  The Steamroller: they keep throwing stuff out, over the top of others and that eventually stops some from contributing.

3.  The Bar Stool Expert: they know everything, no really they do, just ask them, and if anyone else has an idea that is different to theirs then it is obviously wrong.

4.  The Distracted: they have too many other meetings and deadlines to be fully vested in the session.

5.  The Hitchhiker: they hear an idea and agree with it wholeheartedly, and that is about as much as they contribute, they are along for the ride as a passenger, not a driver or even a navigator.

6.  The Professional: maybe it’s a creative person who generates ideas for a living and they may already have their own thoughts and concepts that they don’t want to share in the session (they want ownership and to mark their territory as a creative). They want to hold back and then deliver their thinking the next day to their boss with something like – “Hey, I had some ideas after the brainstorm session”.

7.  The Disenfranchised: not part of the project at hand, roped in to make up the numbers. They would rather be anywhere else except in that room.

8.  The Phoner: they are the ones that are more engaged with their phone than the brainstorm.

9.  The ‘I’m Just Here For The Free Sandwiches’: you know the ones, but you can’t blame them, it’s a free lunch.

10. The Big Boss: the person at the very top, the CEO or Chairman, guaranteed to stop anyone who is career focused from throwing out wild ideas.

It’s a complex mix of personalities and egos all at the same table.

You don’t need the title ‘creative’ to be able to contribute effectively, on the contrary, all thinking can be invaluable, and I believe that everyone can be creative.

But unless you work with individuals the correct way and help them in the idea generating process you’ll never get the best out of them.

There is no cookie cutter one-size fits all method that works, everyone and I mean everyone thinks differently, that’s part of what makes humans unique.

But sitting them down cold at a table with a blank notepad in front of them and a pencil and expecting them to somehow have a Tesla or Einstein moment is not the way to do it.

For many that blank page can be as scary as being cornered by a hungry tiger and a horde of really angry cobras. Okay that may be an exaggeration, let’s just say two cobras, but they’ve had a really bad day.

I have developed methods I use daily to generate ideas and that is part of the secret, you have to be doing this daily to be better at it. I have written about this topic before but in short I push myself to come up with 20 new ideas a day, yes 20.

Why do I do that? Well it’s what I do for a living, idea generation, so I believe I need to keep training to be successful at it. If you want to be the best athlete in the world and win gold medals for running you don’t just roll out of bed every six weeks and go for a jog around the block, no, you train and you train daily. This is the same principle, train your brain daily to generate ideas, after a while it becomes second nature.

More brands/companies should be encouraging creative thinking internally to help foster innovation and to help that brand/company generate more ideas from within.

But the once every three month or so brainstorm session doesn’t cut it. It needs to become a part of the culture in some way.

On a recent blog post I recommended one book everyone who wants to generate more ideas needs to read and that’s ‘Lateral Thinking’ by Edward de Bono. Buy up a box load for your company.

I know, expecting everyone to read a book before an ideation session is a big call, but maybe everyone in your organization should be asked to read it no matter what. Open their minds to new ways of thinking.

Instead of just herding people into a room on random occasions why not make creative thinking a part of your culture, make it fun and enjoyable, show your staff that everyone can be creative, you need to encourage them.

Once you develop a few techniques on how to generate ideas it can become much easier when you are tasked to do so, even when that intimidating blank page is staring back at you.

I have many ways I use to make idea generation sessions much more productive, here are a few of them.

So let’s say you want to assemble a team for a session. Here’s a handy checklist –

1.  Be sure to get a good mix of personalities, hopefully you know your staff well enough to know who could be good. Don’t omit the ‘The Wallflower’, he/she probably has some great ideas, you just need to know how to get them to contribute.

2.  Invite different and interesting people to join the session, people not involved in your business or brand. Reach out to your network and you’re sure to find someone or more than one person to join in. A fresh set of eyes and ears can offer up some totally new perspectives.

3.  Don’t have very senior/upper management people in the session (‘The Big Boss’). Some of them have the tendency to put forward ‘their’ ideas and not allow for the creation of ‘new’ ideas. Also, it can be far too intimidating for many people to put forward wild and crazy ideas (which can generate other thinking) when there is someone so senior at the table.

4.  No smartphones or tablets allowed, no exceptions. People can check their devices during breaks. The world will not come to an end if they are not connected for a couple of hours at a time.

5.  Kick off the session with some lateral thinking exercises. These can be a fun way to get people’s brains to start ticking over at the start of the session.

6.  Never let them settle into one chair. You know the feeling, you have your little space all set up so as you feel comfortable. Comfort is an idea killer.

7.  Write down ideas; don’t call them out in a free for all. This can help The Wallflowers in the room.

8.  Think with words then think with pictures. Make your brain do some work. You don’t have to be an artist, stick figures will suffice, and there are many successful Art Directors in advertising who cannot draw any better than that.

9.  There are no bad ideas. This needs to be understood from the start. Even ideas that could be considered wrong can spark other ideas.

10.  Solo break out sessions: have people go to a spot in the room on their own and have them jot down as many ideas as they can on their own for a set period of time.

11. Team break out sessions: as above but put people into teams of three or four people and have them thrash out some ideas together in a set time period.

12. Don’t do the session in your own boardroom or any boardroom or company meeting room for that matter, this is a very important part of making a session successful. Go somewhere inspiring, if the weather is good then go outside. Or maybe contact an art gallery about using that as a base for the day. Anywhere would be better than a boardroom. You need a change of scenery. 

That’s it for today; see you tomorrow.

Rodd

P.S. If you are in New York and would like to attend a small talk I am moderating called ‘Where do ideas come from?’ on September 13 you can see the details here.

Rodd Chant is a Creative Director / Writer / Strategist and a bit more. He also teaches creativity to groups and individuals and makes a mean Thai red curry, or so he says. He also has a penchant for talking in the third person. You can read more of his LinkedIn musings here. You can also find him on Twitter and on Instagram. His official blog can be found here. Or drop him an email – [email protected]

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