Most of us are familiar with the brainstorming challenge: generate as many ideas as you can in 10, 20, 30 minutes. Don’t judge. Seek quantity over quality. No idea is a bad idea. Etc.
Most who attempt to do this, as participants or training facilitators know the outcome: colorful sticky notes on walls, which make great photos. But what did we come up with that was new?
There are numerous claims that brainstorming doesn’t work probably surprises none of us, (such as here and here, and plenty more in scholarly research, for those who want to dig further). What is an innovator to do?
The problem is not brainstorming, but instead, how brainstorming is implemented. Brainstorming is often used as a single, stand-alone activity–we just need to drop it as a step in our process, and Boom!, we get our creativity boost. That's the dream, anyway.
Bob Sutton (LinkedIn), a Stanford professor who studies innovative organizations, compares this practice to past “machine theories” that sought to break organizational processes into discrete, mechanical steps (he took on this issue both in 1996 and again in 2014). The thinking goes like this: each process step simply requires an input, an output, and clear specifications for achieving the task inside the box. Brainstorming is a step like any other, and used in this way, can inject “creativity” into any process.
What is overlooked is the necessary social environment where the brainstorming tools are being used. People work alone. People collaborate. Ideas flow, get stuck, and get unstuck. One person builds an insight out of another’s idea. Brainstorming is not a step in a replicable process. Instead, brainstorming (and other creative acts) are part of a longer journey that is path-dependent on what we did before, the environment we did it in, and where we are heading next (to use terminology from my thermodynamics class).
Sounds messy. How do we harness this? Well, here is what works for me.
Don't expect brainstorming (or any other tool) to be the miracle step in the process. or the magic ingredient in the recipe, that suddenly makes things work.
Instead:
Think. When I need ideas about something, I noodle on it more or less continuously, sometimes actively seeking ideas and other times letting my subconscious run with things.
See different. Look closely. Step back. Consider the problem. Explore possible solutions. Ask myself, what are others doing about this? I can always shake up my thinking when I look at the situation differently. Yes, I need to be problem-focused, but exploring other contexts helps my creativity flow.
Mix things up. The goal is not to “brainstorm.” The goal is to get new ideas, build insights, and, ultimately, find new and interesting ways to solve problems. There are countless “brainstorming-like” tools. If one of them isn't working for me, I try another one. (Just reading somebody else's description of a tool often brings a good dose of enthusiasm and motivation.)
Collaborate. Ideation feeds off of many ideas and many different ideas. Build a team of members with different capabilities who look at the world differently. I have a group of friends who can be counted on to listen to any of my crazy ideas and add to them, even suggest some steps I should take to move forward (rather than giving me all of the reasons why "it" won't work.)
Ultimately, the Wharton study referred to earlier (here) didn’t conclude that LLMs could be better entrepreneurs (even though it implied that in the PR headline). It didn’t conclude that LLMs created better products. Instead, the study concluded that generative AI could generate more and better ideas. That an LLM with access to the entire Internet can generate more ideas than a human can and that the statistical process inside the LLM can run through far more new combinations than a human can should surprise no one. Instead of cajoling humans to seek quantity and suspend judgment, use these AI tools instead to do what they do best, leaving us humans to do what we do best (everything in the previous section). To get started, I will make my own lists of ideas. If I give myself a few days, many more ideas (and more strange ideas) will pop into my head at random moments. When I need even more, I go on the Internet. Now, genAI gives me more reach than I have ever had and spits things out in a form that is ready for use. (For me, it isn't AI "intelligence" that is so powerful but instead the LLM's natural language interface that organizes information in the way we humans communicate, rather than me having to translate into coded search terms.)
I capture every thought, question, or idea with Lunch Box by simply sending myself chat messages from LINE or WhatsApp. These messages become shared notes that are combined with all my teammates have collected whenever—during walks, showers, meetings, or before nodding off in bed. Later, we each review and discuss the notes in Lunch Box with comments and reactions. This drives even more ideas and fuels our Continuous Curiosity. Want to learn more about how we create and innovate?: click on the link above.