UNSAID RULE OF BRAINSTORMING

Any ideal brainstorming session looks something like this – you sit with like-minded people with different skills and look for ideas and formulate their implementation. But what if those like-minded people do not concur with an idea, you firmly believe in?

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I once had an idea, that I felt was brilliant. I formulated it step by step and shared it with my mentor-like friend. He immediately rejected it saying it is not possible to invent it. I was a little disappointed but was still confident about this idea, so I went ahead and shared it with my team. They had mixed feelings about it, nevertheless, we started working on it. No prizes for guessing, the innovation was a debacle. I considered analysing the mistakes we made and came up with solutions and improved design, but my team believed it was worthless to continue so they left. I brought in team?members and started working from scratch on solving the same problem with a fresh perspective. As luck would have it, this failed as well and the team got dejected. This went on for 4 whole cycles and each time I resurrected myself and the innovation. In this time frame, I worked with 4 different teams to implement the idea. Finally, the 4th time We were able to solve the problem with a technically feasible solution

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Why move beyond brainstorming?

The start of any good idea is brainstorming but it surely isn’t the end. Never consider it as the last step while taking a call on the implementation of an idea. Productive brainstorming sessions are a piece of advice on the practicability of an idea but there is no certainty that the conclusion has to be the final word. It is like an imaginary barrier that needs to be crossed each time you feel that an idea is good but the brainstorming session didn’t yield well.

What makes any brainstorming session effective is not the success of an idea but the implementation. Which is only possible when we execute the idea well.

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Conclusion:

It is time we move beyond brainstorming and start implementing our ideas. What is the point of getting a great idea but not risking a little to carry it through?

The maximum that can happen is that we fail, but at least we will never regret not trying anything. It is easier to witness a debacle and resurrect after it, but very difficult to let go of a great idea just because the people around us don’t believe in it.