Stop Brainstorming

“What?” you’re probably saying, reacting to the title. That doesn’t make sense. Brainstorming is how great ideas are born. It brings together different viewpoints and helps you get a new, sometimes better, perspective. Without brainstorming you leave yourself at the mercy of your own blind spots.

Not exactly – at least not the spitballing, “there are no bad ideas” approach to brainstorming. If you bring in a disparate, and often unprepared, group of people and just let them throw around whatever ideas come to mind, uncritically, you’ll just wind up with reams of half-baked ideas with little to no thought on how, or even if, you should act on them. Brainstorming, when done poorly, can leave you more in the lurch than when you started. But the real goal of brainstorming is not the mass of ideas themselves – because quantity should never trump quality. Brainstorming sessions should function as clearly articulated problem-solving sessions.

This isn’t a new idea, as a New Yorker story on what it calls “the brainstorming myth” suggests. For group creativity to work, you need a clearly outlined problem, prep time and, more than anything, candor. If you haven’t established enough trust with your team members, where an honest critique of ideas will shut them down entirely, you need to work on building that trust first. Without trust, honesty suffers; without honesty, teamwork suffers.

At Ferrazzi Greenlight, we have CPS, or “collaborative problem solving,” sessions. We’ve taken the basic brainstorming formula and layered it with our four mindsets of vulnerability, generosity, candor and accountability. We shift the focus from having an open, nonjudgmental meeting to creating an atmosphere where people discuss the pros and cons of each idea put forth.

The goal of collaboration isn't necessarily to reach consensus, though. At worst, consensus is defined as “everyone agreeing with the final decision” with no accountable party, confusion about what was being asked and watered-down results that lack true team acceptance. But the real objective of a great collaboration should be inclusion of everyone’s viewpoint, a powerful, well-challenged conclusion, and mutual commitment not to let each other fail.

A few years ago, my Research Institute put out a white paper about how to work together better in meetings. If you want to have more productive and worthwhile collaboration with your team, here are some tips we discovered to get you to solutions.

Clearly articulate your problem. You get what you ask for. Before you ask for a CPS fine-tune “the ask.” Make sure your entire team knows what it needs to be working toward.

Do your prep work. Contrary to popular belief, inspiration doesn’t just strike out of the blue. Give your team members the necessary background information so you can guide their thought process before the meeting. You only have so much time to collaborate, so don’t waste half, or more, of it explaining the problem.

Establish fairness and accountability. Rather than take the noncommittal, “no judgment” approach, aim for fairness in your collaboration. Keep criticism directed solely at the feasibility of the ideas and away from the person suggesting them. Communicate that the goal of the meeting is to find the best solution to a problem, and keep the conversation going among everyone. Nothing kills collaboration quicker than an attention hog, but collaboration participants who consider a decision-making process fair are more likely to accept its outcome without resentment, even if they disagree.

Name a Yoda. I say this a lot – because who doesn’t love Yoda – but to maintain fairness you need to identify someone in advance to lead the discussion and make sure all voices get heard. A good “Yoda” is someone who can read the room and gauge when the quieter members have something to say and open up a “safe” space for them to present their ideas.

Good ideas don’t recognize job titles. And neither should you in a CPS. Once you start the meeting, all participants must be seen as equals. If you stick to your flow chart you’ll miss out on alternate perspectives that could open up your options. No one has a 360-degree view of the situation, so listen with respect to the different points of view in your meeting.

Nail the follow-up. Ideas are only as good as the follow-up. So don’t let your meeting break before you know what your next steps are. Assigning responsibility is critical if you want people to start moving forward. Be sure to communicate the results and a resolution process, and continue the dialogue if necessary.

Every team has its own unique composition. Finding the right way to solve problems together takes effort and fine-tuning, but the more you can focus your approach and refine your process, the more successful your collaborations will be.

Photo by "My Life Through A Lens" on Unsplash

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