Pitching, pitching, pitching. It’s all the teams seem to do these days. Very often, after a pitching session, teams must return to the drawing board to rework, reword, and get their ideas flowing. Hence a little look into the art of brainstorming (and how our teams do it)
Can you count the number of times your primary and secondary teachers would draw a big cloud with a word in it on the board with satellite clouds around it and ask you to raise your hand and shout out ideas? Chances are, it happened a lot — and we remember it: brainstorming. You’re expected to spit out as many words/ideas you can possibly think of related to the word or idea in the big cloud. And no ideas are to be laughed at or considered stupid.
It turns out brainstorming is not as earth-shatteringly productive as we all thought it to be back in the day. Sure, you’d think that criticism would slow creativity. But in FastCompany’s article entitled “The Brainstorming Process is BS but Can We Rework It?,” they look at the fact that “Numerous studies have [verified that]: Putting people into big groups doesn’t actually increase the flow of ideas. Group dynamics themselves–rather than overt criticism–work to stifle each person’s potential.”
Through studies by Jonah Lehrer and Susan Cain, it’s been proven that “the presence of criticism actually increases the flow of ideas.” Go figure. Susan Cain’s study and book, Quiet, shows that there’s also something to be said about thinking on your own. Susan Cain analyzes the New Groupthink in a New York Times article, looking at the ability and necessity of an individual to think creatively on their own. She points out that “most humans have two contradictory impulses: we love and need one another, yet we crave privacy and autonomy,” meaning that for many, working alone is when we’re most productive, but that the chance to give and receive criticism as well as to discuss with our peers is an invaluable part of our creative process and helps us to find better answers to our questions. Traditional brainstorming might be dead, but research is giving way to a new way of approaching creative processes, and it doesn’t start with a cloud on the blackboard. It starts within each one of us.
So, we’ve all got ideas within us. But “Good ideas usually don’t hang by themselves, unattached. They come about as solutions.” How does the new breed of brainstorming (the one that allows criticism) play a part in the process of problem solving?
FastCompany’s Cliff Kuang argues that “allowing criticism into a room full of people trying to brainstorm allows them to refine and redefine a problem. Adding more and more complex problems to the mix doesn’t stifle creativity–it actually gives the mind more to work with, simply by demanding that we find better and better answers.” In a follow-up article to calling the brainstorming process BS, Daniel Sobol looks into the power and importance of “deliberative discussion” – argue, discuss, argue, discuss. Rinse and repeat.
The idea of getting a group of people together to throw ideas around is a constructive one–given that it involves criticism, and looks not only at solutions, but problems as well (which usually ends up bringing about even better solutions). The group aspect of brainstorming was not entirely wrong. They just didn’t realize that “brainstorms can activate a neurological fear of rejection and that groups are not necessarily more creative than individuals. Brainstorming can actually be detrimental to good ideas.” They were, however, on the right track with the environment–they just didn’t hit the nail exactly on the head. For some rules to follow during your new brainstorming (aka deliberative discussion) sessions, check out what Daniel Sobol had to say here.
Here are the articles in their entirety:
The Brainstorming Process is BS But Can We Rework It?
Innovation Is About Arguing, Not Brainstorming. Here’s How To Argue Productively
The Rise of the New Groupthink
Groupthink
We asked our 11 teams how they view the creative process and when they are most creative/innovative. Here’s what came of the pseudo e-mail brainstorm:
