Successful Brainstorming: Tapping Into Your Employees' Creativity

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Look around you.  Did you know that you have an overflowing fountain of creativity at your disposal?  Tucked inside each cubicle and behind each office door, on the sales floor and in the warehouse, are ideas to be found lying dormant within your employees.  The trick is learning the techniques to bring these ideas to light.  One of the most powerful ways to discover these ideas is through brainstorming. 

Perhaps you already hold brainstorming sessions, but haven’t been happy with the results.  Some common complaints from meeting facilitators are

• “the same few employees tend to do all the talking, while others don’t say a word,”
• “someone always ends up with hurt feelings because his or her ideas were shot down,” and
• “in the end, we never seem to come to any solutions.”

It may be time to fine tune your brainstorming meeting skills.  Remember, when done correctly, brainstorming can be the ticket to your organization’s future.

The Tools

The right equipment is crucial to getting the most out of your brainstorming session.  You will need a large, white paper flip pad, colored markers, tape and easel, and a quiet area where your group will not be disturbed.  (Also, be sure that whoever is going to write down the ideas has legible penmanship!) 

The Team

According to Entrepreneur Magazine’s article, Gray matters - tips to successful brainstorming sessions, “the ideal size for a brainstorming session is from five to eight people. Fewer than five, and there won't be enough raw material generated; more than eight, and it's hard to keep everyone focused.”  It’s also important to remember that in successful brainstorming meetings, everyone is equal regardless of their position in the organization.  “Where possible, participants in the brainstorming process should come from as wide a range of disciplines as possible. This brings a broad range of experience to the session and helps to make it more creative,” suggests the author of the Mind Tools article, Brainstorming - generating many radical ideas.

The Mood

Creativity thrives in light-hearted environments.  Be sure to keep it fun.  Speaker Randy Braun of National Seminars Group suggests in his session, “Hey, Right Brain – WAKE UP!!! 10 Ways to Jump-Start Ideas,” that it helps to warm up the group by asking a “What If” question that is completely unrelated to the brainstorming session. “Questions such as, ‘How would the world be different if men, rather than women, gave birth?’ gets the creative juices flowing while also lightening up the mood of the room.”           

The Session

First, write out the problem on the flip pad as an open-ended question and set an amount of time for the discussion.  Since the initial focus of brainstorming is to generate a large amount of ideas in a short amount of time, encourage participation from everyone, even the quietest members, while being aware of any domineering members that try to “hog” the session. 

Remember, ideas can be far-fetched, crazy, and wild, but most important, they cannot be criticized.  “There should be NO evaluation of ideas in the first part of the meeting.  Stress to your group that no negative comments are allowed,” added Braun.  Criticism can leave group members feeling humiliated and as a result, unwilling to contribute further.  Welcome both practical and impractical ideas.  What truly matters is creativity!    

As these free-flowing ideas start coming your way, write them down with the brightly colored markers and tape the papers up on the walls so that everyone can view them.  Then, when the contributions start to slow down, encourage the group to review the ideas that are up on the walls.  Often, existing ideas can spark even more ideas.

“Next, write down criteria for judging which ideas would best solve the problem. Criteria should start with the word ‘should’, for example, ‘it should be cost effective’, ‘it should be possible to finish before July 15th’, etc.,” explained Jeff Baumgartner, Group Innovation Specialist in his article, The Step by Step Guide to Brainstorming.  Together with the participants, select approximately five ideas which everyone agrees best fits the criteria.

The next step, according to Baumgartner, is for the meeting members to give each idea a score of 0 to 5 points depending on how well they believe that it meets each criterion.  Afterwards, add up the scores.  Plan to implement the idea with the highest score, but keep a record of all of your best ideas and their scores in case you need a “Plan B” or “Plan C.”

As an added bonus, brainstorming meetings send a positive message to your employees.  By seeking employees’ ideas, you show that you recognize their creativity and problem-solving potential.  For you, it means that a solution to a problem may only be a cubicle away.