Why brainstorming won't get your team out of the box

Brainstorming is a very popular tool to address a problem or challenge with a team. The logic is that the ideas of a handful of people will be more creative or powerful than those of an individual. No issue here. In a brainstorming session, each participant takes turns to come up with an idea, and all are listed on a flipchart, without evaluating, judging or even reacting. The long list of ideas is then reduced, ideas are voted on, or combined.

Brainstorming is very intense. Energy is high. Participants think hard to come up with a brilliant idea waiting their turn ... and hoping that nobody else will have the same idea ! Nothing worse in a brainstorming session than to have your neighbor steal the idea you were about to share !

Neuroscience has demonstrated the limits of brainstorming when it comes to finding real breakthrough ideas. Because of the high level of energy and the dynamics of a brainstorming session, participants come up with those ideas or solutions that require the least thinking effort. The brain is forced to work hard: while others shout their ideas, the brain works overtime to come up with something - anything - by the time it's its turn. After a second of relaxation once the idea has been added to the list, it's back to thinking hard to come up with something - again, anything - before the next turn.

Research by David Rock (Mr. Neuroleadership) has shown that forcing the brain to think under time pressure does not mean great ideas will pop out. It is quite the opposite. Real breakthrough ideas occur when the brain is at rest. When some question or riddle jumps around in our unconscious brain, the weaker connections between neurons are activated: those are the things we know but we don't use them routinely. And that's where new solutions are found. So David Rock recommends the following process. When you are faced with a really complex challenge, spend some time with your team to agree on what the key question is the team should answer in order to solve this challenge. Let the team disperse, and go back to what they regularly do. Then bring them together, one or two days later. The brain has been allowed to rest, and the question has been playing around in team members' brains over this period. Doing a brainstorming at that moment will deliver far superior ideas than the immediate brainstorming.

Need urgent and great new ideas ? Slow down first !

Efficiency. Again, and again, and again

While we were enjoying the cool winter weather in Chiang Mai a few months ago, the tap water stopped running. We quickly learned that the main water pipe leading into the village was broken. This water pipe was 15 years old and made of concrete. Within 2 hours, the Provincial Water Authority had mobilized the repair team, with digger and all. The leak was located, the old pipe dug up, a new 5 meter long plastic pipe was inserted and the hole filled. After flushing out the brown water for a few minutes, all was back to normal after half a day of minor inconvenience (the swimming pool was a useful backup !).

Until two days later, when the same happened. The concrete pipe had broken in another spot. Same digger, same team, and a new 5 meter long plastic pipe. And then, of course, it had to happen again. Three times in one week.

The repair crew was very efficient. They arrived quickly (once even on a Sunday), started digging, replaced the pipe and filled up the trench. When I asked why they did not replace the entire concrete pipe that was falling to bits little by little, they told me that their “rules” only allowed to put in a new pipe once the old one was broken. So even if the 100 meter long concrete pipe would continue to break, the only possible solution was to replace each 5 meter section at a time, and mobilize the crew a total of 20 times.

The Provincial Water Authority was so focused on executing their procedure in an efficient way, that the obviously more effective solution of replacing the entire pipe, and mobilizing the team for a day or so, could not even be considered

This story makes you want to chuckle at the absurdities in government services. But are these limited to government bureaucracy ? What happens in our businesses ? We put in place processes for some reason at some point in time, often to solve a problem situation (broken water pipe). We train people to execute the new process (mobilize, dig, replace, fill) as efficiently as possible. They get good at doing it, practicing over and over again (3 times per week if needed). The problem gets solved in a rather satisfactory way and complaints are limited (repair within half a day). But then the environment changes (pipe no longer breaks once a year)  – new customer segments, new technology, new competitors – and the old solutions – that worked so well for so long and that we’ve become so good at – have become ineffective.

It is not easy to take a step back and ask the dumb question “why are you doing things this way ?” about something you have been doing for ever. An external eye looking at your processes can probably help to ask a few of those questions. They often turn out not to be so dumb after all.