Conjuring Up a Brainstorm

Back in the 1940s, a fellow named A.F. Osborne came up with the term “brainstorming” to describe how a group of people can generate imaginative ideas together in an uninhibited atmosphere.

Brainstorming is one way to find ideas quickly or to locate ideas that run deep when a client wants you to kick it up a notch and reach for a better concept. As a form of creative idea-making, it is a process in which you have to encourage unfettered expression, and demand that judgements be deferred. It’s a sloppy, risky exercise that can easily clash with the safe and efficient norms prized in most workplaces.

While the brainstorming sessions in Saddam Hussein’s office have historically been busts, the ones in your workplace can be productive if you’ll just ignore some of the preconceived notions that have attached themselves to this 60-year-old technique.

First, brainstorming doesn’t come naturally to everyone. While the method can be learned to an extent, some people simply are not able to brainstorm very well. Certain people are better at deconstructing and reconstructing on the fly than others. When you are assembling a brainstorming session, it’s best to include mostly experienced best-practice performers and to mix in a few promising beginners. As a group creative director who teaches brainstorming at our agency says: “Don’t be polite. Be productive.” It is better to step on a few toes than to include people who might bog down the session.

Resist the urge to fill every seat around the conference table. Smaller groups yield better results. The atmosphere is less competitive and you are more likely to get everyone participating. People connect with each other better, making it easier to focus the group, hear and capture ideas, and build on them. Six people – perhaps a few more – are plenty.

Leaders lead Brainstorming sessions should provide the chance for people not otherwise involved to offer fresh ideas. People immersed in the account begin to blinker themselves with notions about what the client will or will not do. People from other groups may bring in unencumbered suggestions. Some of the best ideas we have taken to clients have come from this kind of cross-pollination. Why? Because the less you know going in, the less likely you are to censor your ideas. And “censor” is the dirtiest word in the brainstorming dictionary.

The one running the brainstorming session is the most important person in the room. But you can’t contribute ideas and run the meeting at the same time. As a facilitator, you are a cross between a bartender and an air traffic controller. The task is to create atmosphere, set direction, capture ideas, and help the group make connections between ideas. It’s a full-time job requiring concentration and a limber mind. If you are brimming with new thinking and hell-bent on exposing it to the team, let someone else run the meeting.

To be a good participant, you have to modify some very natural behaviors associated with solitary musing. When you think alone you act cerebrally, take ownership of ideas, ignore input, and self-edit. In a brainstorming session, your behavior must swing to the opposite pole. You need to be vocal not cerebral; you need to be able to let go of ideas and respond to those of others; and you have to defer judgements and editing.

That last one can be difficult for anybody, and especially hard for account people accustomed in their client work to accelerating – not suspending – judgement. But more than anything else, brainstorming sessions must encourage spontaneity.

Brainstorming is a much more disciplined process, with its own techniques and guidelines, than most people realize. Participants should be provided with information on a brand’s positioning or its marketing goals in advance of the meeting. Our agency has developed a course for teaching the nature of this technique.

As brainstorming takes hold at your agency, you might initially hear muted complaints about people not being aware of what brands want or time being wasted. But if you have some innate talent on your staff and the skills to manage a free-form think-a-thon, you can expect transcendent ideas that will burn holes in all obstacles.