Better Brainstorming for People Who Hate Brainstorming

Maybe you like brainstorming sessions. If that's true, you probably lead brainstorming sessions. (In my experience, the only people that like them are the people that lead them.)

Me, I hate brainstorming sessions. They not only feel forced, they often become competitive as some people maneuver to be seen as the smartest guy or gal in the room.

Plus, telling me to instantly come up with five new ideas is like telling me to go to sleep right now. Can't do it.

But if you're like me and can't stand traditional brainstorming, there’s hope. I’m definitely not an innovator but I can be reasonably creative when I need to solve a problem.

Dream up incredible innovations? Impossible.

Think of ways to solve a problem? That I can do.

For most of us, the easiest way to flip our internal innovation switch is to think of ways to solve a problem — even if it's an imaginary problem.

Here are some ways:

1. Create an imaginary barrier.

The “What if?” game works really well. What if you lose power for a day? What if your email server goes down? What if all shipments get delayed by two days? What if a key vendor goes out of business?

Don’t just create contingency plans; see if some of those solutions should be implemented now. A CEO friend’s favorite artificial barrier is, “What if a major competitor enters our market?” How would you respond: different products, different services, or different pricing structures?

I guarantee some of your ideas will make sense to implement today.

2. Pretend you lose a key driver.

Many professional photographers jealously guard the copyright to their photographs. (Absent a separate agreement, a photographer legally owns the rights even though another party has paid the photographer to take those images.)

Why? The photographers hope for additional sales. “Give away” the rights and they lose the potential for follow-on sales.

Your key driver may be your mailing list, or services provided after a sale, or maintenance and upgrades. Whatever it is, pretend you’ve lost that key driver. What will you do?

Thinking of other sources of revenue -- and giving away or discounting some traditional ones -- could differentiate your business and create a competitive advantage.

3. Imagine you could only break even on all initial sales.

Every sale should generate a profit, right? But what if, due to customer acquisition costs, you only broke even—or even lost money—on your first sale to every customer? What could you do to generate reliable, profitable subsequent sales? And should that become a sales strategy?

I know a HVAC contractor who intentionally loses money on equipment installations in order to be the low-cost provider; he recovers that “investment” by providing preventive maintenance, repairs, and component upgrades.

Every business wants long-term customers—if the only way to survive is to ensure you create long-term customers, what steps should you take?

4. Pretend you just lost leadership team.

Managers and supervisors can add unnecessary delays to decisions and processes. Still, you need them—but what if they disappeared for a day or week? How would that impact operations? What processes would grind to a halt?

By deciding how decisions would get made in the absence of formal leaders you may determine the best place for those decisions to be made.

(Hint: Decisions should always be made at a lower level than you assume.)

5. Stand on an imaginary precipice.

When I was a kid we built obstacle courses and pretended the ground was lava; if we fell off, we “died.”

Extend that premise to your business: What if every mistake, no matter how small, was a fatal mistake? If every shipment had to be perfect, what would you need to do?

Pick any process and assume perfection, not incremental gain, is the requirement. It’s amazing how creative you can be when there are no “outs” to fall back on.

6. Pretend you don’t have all the answers (this one comes naturally to me.)

Your employees are really smart—especially when you let them show how smart they are.

In a group setting ask for ways to solve problem and then sit quietly. At first, employees may tentatively offer suggestions and then quickly glance at you, expecting feedback.

Don’t say anything. Just look at other people to show you really want to hear their input, too.

Soon the conversation will take on a life of its own... and you’ll get more creative ideas than you can possibly implement.

I also write for Inc.com:

(photo bigstockphoto.com)

If you liked this post you'll love my book based on four years of sharing personal and professional advice: TransForm: Dramatically Improve Your Career, Business, Relationships, and Life... One Simple Step At a Time. (For now only available as PDF; Kindle etc versions to come.)

While I could go all hyperbolic on you, here's the deal: If after fifteen minutes you don't find at least 5 things you can do to make your life better, I'll refund your money.

That way you have nothing to lose... and hopefully plenty to gain.

Scott J. Simmerman, Ph.D.

We sell GREAT tools for engagement and collaboration, globally. Lost Dutchman's Gold Mine game and the Square Wheels images.

9y

Jeff -- we use an image of a wagon rolling on wooden Square Wheels with a cargo of round rubber tires as a theme of "how most organizations really work." That image works as a Rorschach or inkblot image, with people projecting their beliefs onto that image and those become the anchor points for much of the discussions around issues and opportunities. It is a simple process but one anchored to all sorts of psychological principles and metaphorical kickers. We also set up a language of Square Wheels (objective, focused on things that work but do not work smoothly) and Round Wheels (ideas, best practices and opportunities). Fun, Fast, and with visual metaphors that readily stimulate discussions about improvement. Pretty bombproof, too.

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Karol Pokojowczyk

3xFounder/Product Manager (SaaS, Growth Hacking, Social Media)

9y

There are many ways to make everyone to brain storm feel good. interesting you put it. Thank you.

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Vin Lee

Grand Met: Boulmiche, Finlay Fine Jewelers, Heilig-Meyers, Bailey Banks & Biddle, Gallery Rodeo

9y

Unfortunately I find people more focused on why something cant be done. A lot of armchair quarterbacks in the C-Suite. Thank you for your contribution.

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You're definitely right about that sometimes people in the brainstorming session become competitive and just try to come up with the coolest/most innovative idea - no matter how helpful it may be. These are some great points to keep in mind during our next session. Thank you for sharing your insight!

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