- When you generate ideas alone,
no one disagrees with you
or judges the quality of an idea,
or judges the quality of the idea maker.
But when you bring multiple people together
to generate ideas, the potential for all of that exists.
The beauty and the beast of brainstorming is people.
Everyone has their own individual worldview,
their own experiences, perspectives, and opinions.
The old saying inside every head is a world
is never more true than when those worlds
are asked to solve the same problem together.
Understanding the dynamics of group ideation
therefore becomes vital in understanding
effective brainstorming strategy.
Humans innately want to agree with one another,
offering conflicting ideas takes purposeful action,
while agreement requires little effort.
For effective brainstorming to happen,
it's imperative that people share different perspectives
and everyone involved should be open to that dynamic.
But because we want to agree,
it takes thoughtful planning
to put people in an environment
where they don't see their
different perspectives as conflict.
Add that most brainstorming is a corporate activity,
the people who are brought together
are often on different corporate hierarchies,
making agreement even more prevalent.
Few people want to openly disagree with their boss.
Therefore, much of the strategy
behind effective brainstorming
is creating an environment
that encourages a spectrum of ideation.
One that works to pull the best from people
and lets them build on one another,
even if those ideas are in conflict
with ideas that have previously been presented.
Everyone in a brainstorm session is equal.
There are no titles, only brainstormers.
This is a foundational truth to all effective brainstorms.