Why I Banned Brainstorming

8/10/2019 Why I Banned Brainstorming

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he GabY DR GAVIN SYMAN OWITZWhy bannedbrainstorming

Brainstorming is the oldestand most widely used crea-tivity technique in businesstoday. So if everyone uses

it then it must work, right?Wrong Brainstorming might work

reasonably well for gene rating medio-cre ideas with incremental impact, butit is completely useless for co ming upwith truly innovative breakthroughideas. I've banned brainstorming inmy business - here is the reason why.

IT S A NUM BERS GAM E, OR IS IT?"Come up with as many ideas as youcan. Focus on quantity, not quality "Th i s is the first fundamental rule ofbrainstorming and on the surface itseems to make sense. Nobel pr ize-winning scientist Linus Pauling said:"The way to get good ideas is to getlots of ideas, and throw the bad onesaway." A bit like picking strawberries- the way to go home with a good bas-ket is to pick lots of strawberries andthen just throw away the rotten ones.

Pauling also said: "When an oldand d i s t ingu i shed pe r son speaksto you, listen to him carefully andwi th r e spec t - but do not believehim . . . Your elder, no matter whetherhe is a Nobel laureate, may be wrong."I'm afraid in this case, he is. Ideas are

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a

not like strawberries.

HERE COMES THE BRIDE

Let 's say your wedding is coming upnext month. You've been dreamingabout the big day since you were a lit-tle girl and you want everything to be

perfect - especially your hair. You'vedone your research and have narrowedit down to two hairstylists, each witha very different approac h.

So the first hairstylist says, "I can do70 different hairstyles for you "

"Okay," you say, "but are you anygood?"

"Well, that's not really importantto me, it 's much more important thatI can do a lot of different styles, whocares what they look like?"

She hands you a book with exam-ples of her work. You go through it andcan't believe wh at you see. Each photolooks worse than the one before, nowyoure feeling quite depressed.

T h e n you go over to the secondhairstylist. She says: "Look, I don't doa lot of different hairstyles; in fact, Ispecialise in only thre e. It's not a widevariety, bu t they're immaculate, doneto absolute perfection." She holds upa card with jus t three photographs ,each displaying one of the three styles

she specialises in. Your mood changesinstantly. You can't decide which of thethree photos is the most beautiful.

Now the question is which hair-stylist is going to do your hair for yourwedding? Obviously it's the specialist.W h o cares how many styles a hairstyl-

ist can do if she does all of them badly?W h o cares how m any ideas you've

got if none of them are good? The real-ity is, asking people to forget aboutquality and focus on getting as manyideas as possible is a sure-fire recipe forrubbish. D o you really want 70 rubbishideas? I don't. I want on e great one.

It reminds me of the old joke abouttwo friends discussing business. Theone says, "I'm really excited, I justopened up a hamburger joint."

"Eantastic" says his friend. "Howmuch are you selling the burge rs for?"

"RIO."And how much does each burger

cost you to m ake?""R20.""Hang on. It 's costing you R20 to

make a burger but you're selling it forRIO. That means you're making a lossof R O on each burger that you sell."

"Oh, don't worry," says his friend."I'll make it up on volume."

No, he won't - no matter how many

he sells, he'll still on the losing end.And the same with brainstorming - ifyou come up with 70 loser ideas, at theend of the day, whichever one you pick- you'll still end up with a loser idea.You can't make up for it on volume.

A DIAMOND IN THE ROUGHIn reality, most great ideas don't startout great. They start out as seeds thatneed to be developed and nurtu red in astructured approach. And brainstorm-ing ensures tha t the seeds of great ideasare not given the attention that theydeserve. Th ere simply isn't the tim e todevote to building that one great ideawhen you're focused on generating asmany (bad) ideas as you can.

In ad dition, your company is unlike-ly to have the resources to properlypursue more than one or two big newproduct ideas a year. If that's the case,why would you want 70 ideas? Theunfortunate truth is that as we increasethe number of ideas we pursue, theodds of any one idea being successfuldeclines.

ARE YOU JUDG ING ME?

Th e second fundamental rule of brain-storming is that we are not allowed tojudge other people's ideas. Again, this

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seems to make sense on the surface.People interpret an attac k on their ideasas an attack on their self-esteem, andtheir natura l reaction is to get defensiveor to shut down and stop contributing.If we wa nt people to feel safe in pu ttingforward their ideas, we must be verycareful not to criticise their contribu-tions.

So at the s tart of most brainstorm-ing sessions, the facilitator will remindparticipants: "Don't judge - there areno bad ideas." T he problem is that th isrule is a recipe for even more rubbish.The reality is that there really are badideas. In fact, most ideas are bad ideas.An d the only way to make them betteris to identify th eir flaws and fix th em ,which means that you absolutely needto judge them to make tbem into betterideas. It's a crucial par t of the process.

"What doesn't kill you makes youstronger." It 's exactly the same withideas - if n idea is subject to tbe high-est level of scrutiny, and can weatherthe storm, tben it emerges a muchstronger idea - and much more likelyto succeed.

A great example to illustrate this isthe way the butterfly em erges from itscocoon. Wbile struggling to push itsway through tbe tiny opening of tbecocoon, the butterfly pushes fluid outof its body and into its wings. Thisstrengthens the wings, and withoutthe struggle, the butterfly would neverbe able to fly. It's the same witb ideas.You can't be easy on ideas - you need tostruggle witb them, identify the ir prob-lems, and work through tbem an d

through this process tbey will emergemuch stronger on tbe otber side.

So instead of telling participants no tto judge each otber's ideas, we sbouldrather encourage this behaviour. Tbekey is to get people engaged around tbeidea, because no idea can go forwardwitbout some level of engagement.Being silent about an idea is mucb

2 worse tba n criticising it.I As a contributor of ideas, we bave^ to und ersta nd tba t if our ideas are

I going to take bold, they will bave to= chang e - it's a given. You mig ht bave

beard tbe old joke: "A woman marries

a man expecting be will cbange, butbe doesn't . A man marries a womanexpecting tbat she won't cbange, andshe does." W be n it comes to our ideas,we sbould expect tbem to cbange. Weshouldn't get upset or take it personallywben tbat starts to bappen. We sbouldexpect judgm ent and accept it witbopen arms as tbe first step to makingtbe idea a reality.

IDE S ON DEM ND

Most business meetings are scbeduledwitb a specific key outcome in mind.

Tbis might relate to an action item,impo rtant decision, or feedback report.Eitber way, tbe expectation is tbat tbeoutcome will be resolved witbin tbetime allocated - and it usually is.

Tbe same tbinking is applied tobrainstorming sessions. Tbe sessionis scheduled to start at 13:00, and by14:00 we are expected to bave comeup witb tbe next big idea for tbe busi-ness. Unfortunately, creativity cannotbe ordered on demand. Big ideas don'tstick to meeting scbedules.

GOOD BUT NOT GRE T

I remember talking to a colleague wbo

bad just come out of a brainstorm-ing session. "How did it go?" I asked."Brilliant " be replied, "We were onfire. We generated 50 ideas "

Sadly, the success of brainstormingsession is often measured by tbe num -ber of ideas generated ratber tban tbeend-goal of actually solving a problemor improving tbe business. We bandout post-it notes and tell people to"W rite as man y ideas as fast as you canfor 15 minutes. Come on, I want as

many ideas as you can. It doesn't mat-ter what you write, just write " Nexttbing you know, tbe wall is coveredin bundreds of small yellow piecesof paper, perhaps witb little colouredstickers indicating wbicb ideas peopleliked. Tb en tbe time is up, tbe meetingis over, and everyone disappears backinto tbeir offices to carry on witb tbeirdaily work. An d, inevitably, very littlebappens after tbat.

According to Jim Collins, an Am er-

ican business consultant: "Good is tbeenemy of great." Unfortunately, thisapplies to brainstorming as well . I tyields good results, wbicb is wby tbepractice is so prevalent in tbe corporateworld and bas stood tbe test of time.However, it very rarely yields greatresults. And tbat 's wby I 've bannedbrainstorm ing in my business. I don'twant a good business. I want a greatone.

Dr Symanowitz is n ctu ry an d founder ofBlockbusterInnovation com

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C o p y r i g h t o f F i n w e e k i s t h e p r o p e r t y o f M e d i a 2 4 a n d i t s ce m a i l e d t o m u l t i p l e s i t e s o r p o s t e d t o a l i s t s e r v w i t h o u t t h e p e r m i s s i o n . H o w e v e r , u s e r s m a y p r i n t , d o w n l o a d , o r e m a

Why I Banned Brainstorming

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