Innovate - Brainstorming can stimulate and refresh
This concept seemed completely foreign to me when I was first introduced to it at grad school. By brainstorming ideas, you can actually increase the energy of a group rather than drain it. Now, anyone who has ever sat in a two-hour-long meeting knows the only thing you want to do at the end of it is get out; you are either bored, drained or close to suicidal. So imagine how surprised I was after my first brainstorming session to find my mind flooded with ideas, a bounce in my step and a profound sense of satisfaction at having accomplished something. Brainstorming needs to be taken seriously, so before the first corporate session I held, I sent out a set of guidelines:
No negativity! Any negative comments about any ideas will be met with a barrage of soft projectiles.
Check your title and ego at the door when entering – no bosses in the room.
Homework is mandatory – people need to mentally prep for this exercise.
You must commit to the entire session – no dining and dashing.
No PDAs/No laptops allowed. (This will be strictly enforced to avoid distractions.)
Remain open to the wonderful possibilities!
I worked for an organization at the time that did not hold by many hard-and-fast rules; people were free to interpret guidelines as best suited their personalities, and I kicked off the session with this in mind. At the end of the session, the initial group of participants mandated that the rules be iron-clad, moving forward. In fact, they barred participants who left early or had not done their homework from the breakout sessions. Now, this might seem a little harsh, but as a group they observed that those who did not prep for the session, or who sneaked out early, had added noticeably less to the group than those who had committed to the exercise. Those who were both mentally and physically present started communicating more directly, and sparking ideas off what others had said.
I mentioned in the introduction to this chapter that a collaborative group will outperform a lone genius, time and time again. We had assigned a scribe to a brainstorming event who frantically scribbled down any idea that had been suggested on poster-sized post-it notes. Then, at the end of the session, everyone got a smaller sticky pad and got to vote on ideas. The interesting thing is that during the voting, people started to build bonds that under the normal course of business would not have happened. They found commonalities; they laughed and got to know each other. Not only did we down-select over fifty ideas that received at least one vote; we manage to execute easily on ten ideas that contributed to making IT better and more customer-focused. An added side bonus (not that we needed one) was that our team started to view their colleagues in a more positive light. While they may disagree on a variety of issues day-to-day, they found that as part of an innovation group, each individual had a lot to offer.
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