Praha circa 1979 ...
It was Alex Osborn, a 1960s advertising executive, who coined the term brainstorming. He passionately believed in the ability of teams to generate brilliant ideas, provided they follow four rules: members should share any idea that came to mind, build on the ideas of others, avoid criticism, and, most notably, strive for quantity not quality. Subsequent scientific research confirmed Osborn’s instincts: groups who follow his guidelines show more creativity than...
Brainstorming sessions are often hit or miss: they can be invigorating, leaving you and your team inspired, or they can feel agonizingly stale. (We’ve all sat through sessions where getting people to share ideas is like pulling teeth.) But a new experiment from researchers at the Kellogg School of Management at Northwestern University suggests an unlikely way to boost your team’s idea-generation ability: embarrass yourself a little bit first, as Leigh Thompson writes in the Harvard Business Review.
In the piece, Thompson, a professor of dispute resolution and organizations at Kellogg and director of the Kellogg Team and Group Research Center, points to previous research that found certain techniques—like aiming for quantity of ideas over quality and adopting a “yes, and” mantra to avoid shutting down your co-workers—have been shown to make brainstorming sessions more productive. (For example, a 2011 study Thompson cites backs up the idea the people given quantity-focused goals instead of just quality goals “generated more ideas and significantly higher quality ideas.”)
Research: For Better Brainstorming, Tell an Embarrassing Story - Harvard Business ReviewWant your team to brainstorm better? Share your most embarrassing moment first