Forget What You See on TV: Good Ideas Don’t Come From Brainstorming

We’re all familiar with this common TV show scene where the main character has a moment of genius during a brainstorming session. Among the many iterations of this stereotype scene, Mad Men is certainly the one that uses it the most. The US TV show depicts a team of advertising executives from the 1950s elaborating the next hit slogan while sitting all day long in meeting rooms filled with cigarette smoke.

We call this spark of genius the “aha moment” or the “eureka effect.” In movies and TV shows, it looks like characters get it as soon as they decide to get together in a room and start thinking. However, the reality of brainstorming sessions is far from the idealized scenes made to entertain us. If you’ve already sat in one of these meetings, chances are it was not as productive as you expected.

We can all remember a time when we had a genius idea while taking a shower or doing the laundry. That’s because taking a shower increases your level of dopamine, which is critical for the “creative” part of the brain. Taking a shower also offers the second important ingredient for a creative cocktail: distraction. According to Harvard University researcher and psychologist Shelley H. Carson, “a distraction may provide the break you need to disengage from a fixation on the ineffective solution.” Distraction is the best way to unlock your mind and get an answer to a problem you are stuck with.

On the other hand, filling a room with more people stuck on the same problem will not help.

Why brainstorming doesn’t work

Meetings are full of cognitive biases (at least 16 different biases can be listed). In brainstorming sessions, three of them are particularly harmful:

• Social loafing: Social loafing is the phenomenon showing that people provide less effort to achieve a goal when they work in a group than when they are working alone. It is one of the main reasons groups are sometimes less productive than the combined performance of individuals.
• Evaluation apprehension: This effect is the fear of being judged for our ideas. Humans quickly learn that the social rewards and punishments that we receive from other people are based on their evaluations of us. Offering an idea that is considered as “bad” once can prevent someone from participating in future idea generation.
• Anchoring effect: The anchoring effect is a common human tendency to rely too heavily on the first piece of information they are offered (what we call the “anchor”). During brainstorming, it’s common to reward the first idea that gets on the whiteboard. You can’t fight it — just the fact that an idea is presented first will advantage it against other ideas.

If those biases weren’t enough, the “group effect” is also harming the efficiency of brainstorming. Introverted and less experienced people withhold ideas in fear of being judged or believing that they have less knowledge. The group is also trying to find the middle ground without realizing it, which could lead to decisions that are more in favor of the status quo.

In short, trying to generate ideas in a group kills your innovation. So if brainstorming is so bad, why do we keep having these sessions? In my opinion, the idolized image of brainstorming we’ve been fed by the media industry enforces the idea that these meetings are an effective way of innovating. Managers in hierarchical structures can also reap the reward of a group solution more easily than if individuals are let free to think and take ownership of their own ideas. Pop-culture images and old-fashioned corporate management are two effects amplifying the survival of brainstorming. To make it work, we should totally rethink how brainstorming sessions are managed, especially in a world where remote work makes it even harder.

3 steps to lead an efficient brainstorm

When handled well, a brainstorming effort can lead to true innovation. But first, you need to forget all you know about brainstorming and rethink it from the ground up.

Humans are more ingenious when they are left alone. Newton didn’t come up with the law of gravity during a meeting — he was alone, sitting under a tree! The benefits of solitude on creativity have been proven in many studies. In a paper from 2018, a team led by Harvard Business School scientists showed that putting people in a group increases their problem-solving performance but also decreases the quality of their solution. In contrast, when the group meets only intermittently, their problem-solving performance stays the same, and the quality of the solution increases. This intermittence is the key to good brainstorming.

Below are the three main phases of a modern, remote-friendly brainstorming session that uses intermittence:

1. Brainstorm individually

To make brainstorming efficient, the only solution is to deconstruct the group and let individuals think for themselves first. The first step is for the manager of the group to create well-documented material about the problem at hand. This document should contain as much background information as possible so the members of the group can provide well-informed input and ideas.

Once the document is ready, each individual should have time to think about it independently and do their own research. The concept of time is critical here. Good ideas can’t be rushed, and at least two weeks of time should be given to really think about a complex topic. Managers should ensure that enough time is allocated and fight against personalities showing a strong need for closure. When faced with uncertainty, some people tend to rush a decision to avoid the uncertainty to stay. This is another reason why a meeting doesn’t work in the early stage of brainstorming.

2. Put the notes in common and nurture them

Once each member of the team has had time to think and prepare their notes, it’s time to put them together. It’s essential to resist the temptation to have a meeting at this point. Trying to mix all ideas and opinions in a meeting will likely lead to strong argumentation and friction.

Offering time to read and understand a long-form argument is way more effective. Your team should take the time to go through others’ ideas, rethink their input, or offer additional insights to someone else.

If your team is used to asynchronous communication methods, this should be a no-brainer. If not, it’s important for the manager to train their team in taking the time to formulate long-form feedback in a written format.

It’s also the manager’s role to put all of this feedback together and construct a final version of the document.

3. Organize a meeting to align and fix issues, not to find ideas

In most cases, the last phase is optional and should only happen if necessary. If the previous phases went well, the manager should have a well-documented solution already at hand.

But sometimes, a bit of alignment is necessary, and that’s the only reason why a meeting should happen. If you are still struggling to generate ideas, go back to your desk and take more time to think. A meeting will not fix it.

The closing meeting can be used to confirm the decision that is taken and make sure all members of the group understand and commit to the next steps. If issues still exist and can’t be fixed by writing, the meeting can also help. A meeting can help problem-solving performance if the group is already well-informed.

What’s important at this point is that the manager doesn’t fall back to classical brainstorming sessions where ideas fly around. It could be tempting to have doubt, especially if some elements of the group are protesting the final decision. Pay attention to the group dynamic and avoid argumentation that will bring you one step back.

Someone needs to take the final decision, and that decision-maker should be clearly communicated with everyone in advance. Once a decision is taken, it’s important that the group commit to it, even if some members disagree.

With these three phases complete, your brainstorming sessions should become a decentralized effort leading to true innovation. Getting to this point takes a bit of practice, but it can unlock valuable input from your team.

Skip the brainstorming

The template for brainstorming I offered in this post is more easily implemented when a manager is willing to try something different. But sometimes, you may find yourself obliged to attend inefficient brainstorming sessions. If it’s the case, talking to your manager about this method could be a good start. You can explain that you feel more comfortable having time to think about a problem before offering a solution. This is easy to understand.

Another way to face this problem is to simply say no to unprepared brainstorming. We tend to forget that “no” is a valid answer in the workplace. If you don’t know how to present it, here is a simple template you can use to communicate with your manager:

I feel unprepared for this brainstorming session and would like to take more time to think about it before offering my opinion. If you could also send me additional information and data on this issue, this would help me to provide well-informed feedback.

This template offers a valid argument to postpone the brainstorming — you need more time — while also forcing the person in charge to take ownership and offer additional information on the problem to solve.

Brainstormings have been inefficient for many years. Now is the time to change our practice and get better at innovating. Forget about what you see on TV and start doing intermittent brainstormings — your eureka moment is just one step away.