Leverage People’s Differences is Post #6 in a series from a presentation entitled 11 Great Creative Slip-Ups: The Most Common Mistakes in Brainstorming. The introduction to the series begins here.
The Problem: Forcing people to brainstorm in the same way
“Thank God, we’re all different,” my Nana used to say. “Otherwise, it’d be a very boring world.”
And yet, here we are, often treating people as if they’re exactly the same in a brainstorm.
Forget leveraging people’s differences. Or allowing people to leverage their individual strengths, or knowledge, or cultures. It’s almost like the military has taken over creating ideas!
Yes, I understand uniformity creates a united front, it’s faster to mobilise, and it’s likely to be cheaper to operate. I also agree that the War for Break-Through Ideas is becoming more complex every day.
But that war isn’t going to won if parallel thinking, repetition and routine are the principles tools in our creative arsenal.
The new world needs new thinking. One way isn’t better than another. To not attract, leverage and empower different people, voices and ways of thinking is a waste of resources and time.
Solution: Yes, I’ll say it again. Leverage people’s differences!
Here are some suggestions:
1. Mix solo and group brainstorming.
There’s lots of noise about the effectiveness of group brainstorming. (Most of it not good.) But, much of the best research suggests the most effective brainstorms are when facilitators allow people time to generate their own ideas in advance.
This is about helping all types of thinkers …
… to think in different ways …
… in advance of the brainstorm.
As a quick aside …
James Webb Young wrote a brilliant, short book in 1965 called A Technique for Producing Ideas. Building off the original four-step process of creativity outlined by Graham Wallas in the 1930s, Young created a superior five-step process.
The second of the five steps is Incubation, or “allowing oneself to physically or mentally get away from the problem, using unconscious or subconscious thinking by doing something/anything else.” To use a word that scares many corporate executives, to be creative people need to daydream, which is largely an solo activity.
Young’s third step is Illumination, most simply described with the phrase “Two heads are better than one.” This is the group brainstorming part.
In other words, encourage people’s inate differences and creativity by leveraging these two skills together.
- Provide them the creative background (no more than one page!) in advance for them to think about prior to the brainstorm.
- Give them just enough details to focus their creativity: goal, problem, end user, any other key details. (Check out writing a, but you don’t need to go into this much detail.)
- A few days in advance is fine. Too much time: people will forget. Too little time: people will feel pressured. I find 2-3 days is fine.
Here are the benefits:
- Gives everyone a chance to think silently without the conversation of a group brainstorm.
- No worries about being heard or interrupted.
- It’s self-paced, and – believe it or not – it’s faster for the individuals.
Will it work the very first time? Probably not, because it’ll be new and people won’t make it a priority. You may need to gently prod. Or remind them, you do this for me, I’ll do it for you when you need creative help. Tit for tat, as it were.
2. Mix extroverted and introverted exercises in a brainstorm.
There are many personality types who attend brainstorms. Perhaps the most common – or obvious – are the Extroverts and the Introverts.
Extroverts think aloud.
Introverts think in their head.
To mix them in a room causes friction for both.
A good facilitator can leverage different people together, but keeping the Introverts engaged is the bigger issue. They need a comfortable zone to think and express themselves. The easiest method is to conduct exercises which allow for some ‘quiet time.’
Hands-down the best exercise is . Read the article if you like, but the essense is to …
- Ask people to write their thoughts down on a piece of paper for a minute or two, then …
- Pass to the person to their left
- Encourage people to build upon the original idea, or start a new string of thinking, then …
- Pass again, and repeat until the pages silently carousel the room and the first page is back in the owner’s hands
- Invite people to read aloud the best or most intruiging ideas
A variation is to do this with sticky-notes or Post-its on the wall. (Works too for online collaborative tools.)
Or, invite people to write potential ideas on sticky-notes or small pages and add them to a bag. Mix-up the bag, ask people to pull out a random page and build upon the idea. The new pages/ideas go back in the bag, and mix-it up again, and repeat.
Here are some other ideas, from IDEO: 5 Brainstorming Exercises for Introverts.
Or this one by Andrew Pope: Quickly Brilliant: Brainstorming for Introverts.
If Introversion is of interest to you, check out Quiet: The Power of Introverts in a World That Can’t Stop Talking by Susan Bain.
3. Help left-brained people tap into their right-brain thinking.
First, I apologize for the term ‘left-brained people.’ Labels are clunky to begin with, and left-brain/right-brain has been wide debunked. Still, I like !
That said, there’s a large group of people who prefer to think in ways associated with left-brained thinking. They solve problems through logic, rules and rationality. Brainstorms in general are anathema to them.
One of my dearest friends Tom is left-brained – and extremely creative – but on his terms. When we brainstorm together, here’s what he taught me.
Process helps Logical People be Creative in Their Own Ways.
Tell them there’s a process from goal, to hypothesis, to information gathering, to brainstorming, etc.
Let them examine each step to see what’s gone wrong, what might be changed, or what could be improved.
Explain how a brainstorm works so it’s not ‘airy-fairy.’ Right-brained philosophy doesn’t worry about the invisibility of how creativity works. Help the rest of the world by leveraging their need to make the intangible tangible.
Left-brained thinking excels at finding the needle in a haystack. Tom loves facts. He loves to read and he loves to think about what he’s read. He’ll excel when I give him more information than less.
What’s more, it’s always a nugget of information that everyone else overlooked.
Mies van der Rohe would roll over in his grave, but in Tom’s case: More is more.
L-Bers are better at the end of the brainstorm than at the beginning. At the end of a recent brainstorm, with pages of notes but no read cohesion, I showed them to Tom. With a mental acuity that almost broke my neck, Tom instantly brought structure, priority and reason to a mess.
Here’s the wonderful think about leveraging people’s areas of power and strength. The curve of idea generation is very broad, just like people themselves. Some play a better role at different parts of the process than others.
A final suggestion: a great post from The Heart of Innovation blog by Mitch Ditkoff. 10 Ways to Help Left Brainers Tap Into the Best of Their Creativity.
Remember this, above all else. The curve of idea generation – like people in general – is broad. Figure out (or ask) how you can help your brainstormers play their best role in creating good ideas for everyone, if not the organisation itself.
Any other tips or thoughts to share where you’ve leveraged people’s differences and strengths to generate ideas? Please add your thoughts and comments below.
If you want to return to the original article with links to the other ‘Slip-Ups’, click here.
No comment yet, add your voice below!