The Leadership Directory

“People using group brainstorming have been stifling, not stimulating, creative juices.” Richard Wiseman

Put a group of people in a room, ask them to operate to a few simple rules:

• participants should be encouraged to come up with as many ideas as possible, however strange they are (there are no bad ideas)
• focus on quantity; the quantity will breed quality
• no judgment should be given about any idea, until the end of the session, whether negative or positive. Don’t criticise; every idea is valid at the brainstorming stage
• encourage “piggy backing” in which participants build and extend on each others’ ideas

That was the theory of Alex Osborn, an advertising executive in the 1940s. And the approach - brainstorming - has become a standard group creativity technique.

Brainstorming has now been tested to evaluate its effectiveness as a tactic to improve creativity. And unfortunately it doesn’t do all that well. In the vast majority of experiments participants working on their own produce a higher quantity and quality of ideas than those working in groups. Why?

• production blocking, i.e. participants have to attend to other people’s ideas, leaving them with less mental time and space to think of new ideas
• social inhibition in which participants hold back their ideas for fear of sounding foolish. And airtime is filled by those confident and vocal contributors whose self confidence exceeds their level of innovation
• “social loafing” also plays its part. When individuals work on their own, success or failure is attributable to their personal talents and efforts. In a group context, it’s easy to hide, knowing that any success won’t result in personal praise, but failure can be attributed to others’ shortcomings.

So why does brainstorming and variants of creative group work continue? Because intuitively we know that “two heads are better than one”, and the power of diversity emerging from different people collaborating stimulates creativity. For group collaboration to generate innovation: 

• use it for complex and improvisational tasks. Tasks that participants can and should do individually should be completed on their own
• switch between individual and group activity. Don’t ask the group to do what individuals should do. And don’t place the burden on any one individual when the task requires group debate
• there are clear criteria against which the creative outcomes should be evaluated
• draw on a small number of informed participants with complimentary skills, motivated by the challenge rather than see it as a process in stakeholder consultation that invites along anyone who might be interested
• utilise an experienced facilitator, able to gauge group dynamics, the pace at which the group can work, and to judge how much preparation, structure and follow up is required

Eight ways to improve brainstorming