Brainstorm in a tea cup.
Why research on the effectiveness of brainstorming misses the point.
When BBDO partner Alex Osborn coined the phrase ‘brainstorming’ in his 1953 manifesto Applied Imagination, even he couldn’t have thought that the term would become part of the common lexicon. But, today, brainstorming has become a ubiquitous catch-all for ideation methods — just do a Google search and you’ll get “about 19,500,000 results”. Nearly everyone has participated in a brainstormaing session at one time or another. Consequently, for many, brainstorming has become the gold standard method for group problem sovling.
The two tenets of Osborn’s brainstorming were: to defer judgement and seek quantity over quality. In the decades since, other ‘brainstorming’ methods have developed along similar lines. Whether it be 6–3–5 mind writing, mind mapping or De Bono’s 6 thinking caps, all these approaches have the same premise at Osborn’s brainstorming — there are no bad ideas.
“Is brainstorming all that it’s cracked up to be, or are we all being led into an intellectual cul de sac?”
However, despite brainstorming and it’s related methods’ pre-eminence, there is some new commentary (and research) that contradicts Osborn’s theory — that the group is more effective at generating ideas than the individual alone. Like brainstorming itself, have we all being tricked into a form of group think? Is brainstorming all that it’s cracked up to be, or are we all being led into an intellectual cul de sac?
Based on research by Charlan Nemeth, Jonah Lehrer’s 2012 New Yorker article Groupthink called brainstorming “a myth”. Lehrer argued that it is the critical assessment of ideas as they arise, not the quantity of ideas, that leads to better quality results. In particular, Lehrer pointed to Nemeth’s research which showed that the inability to criticise ideas limited both the number and the quality of ideas. In Nemeth’s study, groups that were allowed to criticise ideas produced twice as many proposals than those who had to defer their judgement. In Lehrer’s opinion, criticism allows people to come up with collective ideas that aren’t predictable. To Lehrer, it is the conflicting perspectives in a group that causes us to reassess our initial assumptions and try out new ideas.
That may be true, but conflict — even if only between perspectives — is not something that most people are willing to enter into. The trouble with a critique (of any kind), is that most of us aren’t very good at delivering it, let alone accepting it. So are we stuck with sub-par ideas? Or should we learn how to toughen up? Perhaps we should stop thinking about brainstorming as a singular task that’s checked off on a project plan and consider it as a practice. A ritual, of sorts.
“Brainstorming on even unrelated topics primes our brain for generating new ideas.”
Have you ever been in a workshop or class (or gig) where it took people a while to warm up and get into things? It’s why we have support acts at gigs, ice breaker games at meetups and pre-conference drinks. Even with a great facilitator, bringing people together to brainstorm something can be fraught, because even before the problem is considered, there is another layer of social complexity at play. With that in mind, I don’t think brainstorming is about finding the solution to a problem, but rather, getting into the right mindset to see a potential solution.
Just like advice about “sleeping on it” or doing exercise after learning something new; or making time to play — brainstorming on even unrelated topics primes our brain for generating new ideas. When we ritualise the process by regularly playing together, we can remove both the fear (imagined or otherwise) from contributing to the process and the pressure that a single brainstorming session can create: “we’re not leaving till we find a solution!” Ritualising brainstorming means that it doesn’t matter whether we are critical of ideas as they arise because we can regularly re-visit and reframe past ideas. Regardless of the approach, brainstorming is a practice.
At Kllective, Daniel and I have a “follow the (brain) train of thought” process that errs on the more critical side. This is mainly because of the geographical distance between us most of the time — he is in Stockholm and I am in Melbourne — but our discarded ideas aren’t abandoned — we often pick up on them again.
“We should care less about which methodology we choose to use when finding a solution…”
Zurb, the excellent product design agency from Silicon Valley, have their own creative ritual called Friday 15s. Zurb’s Friday 15s are “creative exercises that allow teams to stretch their product design skills while learning something new.” Each exercise might include task such as creating a recognisable artwork from Post-Its, writing a witty headline to a random photo, or telling a story from a random word. Zurb run the Friday 15s every Friday, and while they’re not capital ‘b’ brainstorming sessions, they foster a team culture in which crazy ideas can be heard and critiqued without the fear of causing offence.
We should care less about which methodology we choose to use when finding a solution and more about practicing any approach to problem solving. When we do, we not only insulate ourselves from the sensitivity to a completely new process, but ready ourselves to recognise a solution when one presents itself.
