How to Brainstorm — And How Not to

Photo by Naone Lopes on Unsplash

It’s a bright and breezy 8.00am by the Whitstable (Kent UK) seashore in late August. My wife Suzanne and I are staying there on holiday for a week. Our daughter Jenni has a pop-up shop in a market by the harbour. This time of the morning Jenni and I get out together — she is running and I’m cycling alongside.

It’s a lovely time to share and an easy space for conversation.

Whitstable to Herne Bay offers a pretty level cycle and running path along a beautiful coastline. We pass some dog walkers and see a few individual runners and cyclists.

During the previous morning’s run/cycle I had mentioned that my business partner Martin and I had been thinking about how we might further develop our business — the Barefoot Thinking Company.

Today, as we go past sailboats on the shore with sound of wind blowing through their riggings, Jenni asks whether we might do some brainstorming on Barefoot as we run and cycle.

‘Sure,’ I say. ‘How should we go about it?’

‘Maybe we could take successful tech type businesses and apply lessons from them to Barefoot?’

‘Great idea!’

Brainstorming on the go

So we proceed to consider Squarespace, Air b’nb, Amazon, Uber, Ebay.

With each one, we start by identifying what we think are some of their key characteristics — for example, Squarespace (Jenni is a user)

• low upfront cost
• lots of small biz customers
• contemporary designs
• very customer focused
• subscription model

For each characteristic, Jenni asks ‘So how might that work for Barefoot?’ — how could you have a low upfront cost and lots of customers?’ As she is speaking it makes me think about our Life Canvas, a one page Life Coaching Process and how we might offer that widely. She continues with the questions and the ideas keep coming. I’m thinking what a good structure for brainstorming this is.

And so the process continues through 45 minutes of cycling and running, until we are back at the little cottage where are staying.

At which point I realise that I haven’t taken any notes and that Jenni and I will not be together again until the evening.

We agree to write up our thoughts after dinner.

Writing up the ideas later

Fast forward 12 hours. We’ve all had dinner together and cleaned up. I’m sitting at a table with pen and paper and finding it difficult to get started. I can’t actually remember the ideas that we came up with in the morning.

Jenni suggests that we start with the tech companies and identify what we thought was special about them.

I get out my laptop and open my favourite mind mapping app, Scapple.

I start with Squarespace and with prompts from Jenni put down some thoughts about them. Then I move onto Air b’nb to do the same. Jenni asks whether we should stop with the first one and see what the ideas for Barefoot were.

I say that we should keep going with this process as I feel we’re on a roll. So we complete it for the different companies and highlight the points that stand out for us. So far so good.

Then we return to Squarespace and try to remember the ideas that flowed so easily in the morning. We produce little of consequence. It gets no easier when we move on to Uber. We’re both feeling tired and are losing desire for the task. How could something which was so easy in the morning, be so difficult later?

Why had the morning session worked?

Early the next morning as Jenni and I run and cycle our way along the seashore we talk about and the contrasting brainstorming experiences of the previous day.

We start to deconstruct them.

Why did the morning session go so well? 5 points emerge from our conversation.

1. Clear task that we each understood.
2. Positive mood — we thought it might be fun and it was.
3. Lots of give and take — no right answer. We listened to each other and built on the previous response.
4. Our conscious minds occupied with running/cycling, which made it easier for non-conscious minds to operate — ie. get into a ‘flow state’.
5. Simple process — a) think of the company, b) what was distinctive about what they did? c) how might that apply to Barefoot?

At this point the running and cycling paths diverge. Mine is still paved but much narrower. I have to take more care to avoid other bicycles, dogs and their walkers.

Why was it so hard to do 12 hours later?

A few minutes later, Jenni and I are on the same path again. We start to discuss the second question — So why did it not work at night? Why did it become so hard to do?

After a little while the following thoughts become clear:

1. The task was less clear — it was part brainstorming and part remembering.
2. We made the process too complicated — I should have stopped after considering the first company and tried reconstructing our thinking from there. By the time we had finished the 5 companies there was too much information on the page.
3. Our mood was less positive and less energetic. We started this after dinner and after a long day energy levels were lower. As soon as we realized that the ideas were not flowing, we started getting discouraged and annoyed that we hadn’t written down the ideas at the time!
4. We didn’t get into ‘flow’ — in fact, the opposite. We started with a concern that we might not remember (or be able to reconstruct) everything and felt under pressure from the start.

So besides being a great example of how not to brainstorm, these two experiences made something very clear to me.

You need to be ready when inspiration strikes. It pays to catch the ideas in the moment. They may not hang around long enough for you to pick them up later.

Look here for some ideas about how we might have done that.

Peter Redstone and his artist wife live in South Devon, UK in a converted cowshed. Their 4 children all grew up on the farm before spreading their wings. Peter was a management consultant in the 1970’s, an organic dairy farmer and ice cream maker in the 1980’s and 90’s and now delivers science leadership training. He teaches creative thinking and admits to being a mind mapping missionary.