Why Brainstorming Doesn't Work



Brainstorming is one of the most popular creativity techniques used by organisations. The problem is: it doesn't work. In a study conducted as far back as 1958, forty-eight undergraduate students were divided into twelve groups and given a series of creative puzzles to solve. They were instructed in how to follow the brainstorming guidelines. Another group of forty-eight students working by themselves were given the same puzzles to solve.

The solo student group came up with twice as many solutions to puzzles as the brainstorming group, and their solutions were deemed more “feasible” and “effective” by a panel of judges. "Groups think of far fewer ideas than the same number of people who work alone and later pool their ideas".

        Find out more here

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

The 6 Factors of System 3 Thinking for Making Wise Decisions!

Image
Professor Emeritus of Psychology and Public Affairs at Princeton University's Woodrow Wilson School, Daniel Kahneman, won the 2002 Nobel Memorial Prize in Economics for his work on system 1 and system 2 thinking in “Thinking, Fast and Slow” .  The idea that much of our thinking and decision-making is subconscious, and automatic (system 1), as opposed to rational and deliberate (system 2). But he missed the observation by Japanese theorists, Professor Emeritus Ikujiro Nonaka at the Graduate School of International Corporate Strategy, Hitotsubashi University, and Professor Hirotaka Takeuchi, of the Management Practice in the Strategy Unit of Harvard Business School that there is a third system . We typically rely on system 1 thinking because it’s automatic, fast, and experience-based. We use our innate or gut feel to quickly arrive at a decision that “feels right”. System 2 thinking is logical, rational, and fact-based. We use system 2 when we need to slow down and analyse the i...
Read more

Patience, young grasshopper!

Image
"Patience, young grasshopper" is a quote from the 1970's Kung Fu TV series starring David Carradine as Kwai Chang Cain. His teacher, Master Po called him "grasshopper" as a child, emphasising patience as the ultimate martial arts skill. But we live in an era of high-speed, same-day, cutting-edge, first-to-market, fast-food, get-it-now, snap-judgement. If we're told we have to wait, we get irritated. If we can't come up with the right answer right away, we get upset. if someone or something gets in our way, we get angry. Why is patience considered one of the most powerful martial arts practices? Because patience is the antidote to anger, and anger represents the most terrible and destructive manifestation of self-driven desire. When we're angry with someone, we're estranged form them and from the true core of our being. We end up losing the very thing we believe we're fighting for. Patience is a discipline. It takes practice to over...
Read more

How to Lead Millenials!

Image
Herding cats is easy compared to keeping a bunch of smart millennials motivated for long enough to make a meaningful contribution. Yet, fast-growing, agile, entrepreneurial organisations need this kind of sustainable energy to do good things for clients and communities. What's the secret?  It turns out this is exactly the same problem faced by professional service firms - the McKinseys, Deloittes, and BCGs of the business world. They have to entice a group of disparate professionals to give up autonomy in return for a group share of the profits, while at the same time maintaining the bonds of a matrix-structured organization which threatens to fly apart at any moment under the centrifugal force of massive ego! Have they cracked the code?  Laura Empson, Professor in Management at the Cass Business School, London, and Ann Langley, Professor of Management at HEC Montreal think they have. Their model of the professional service firm (2015) is an elegant guide in how t...
Read more