Forget Traditional Brainstorming— Instead, Try This Technique To Spur New Levels Of Team Creativity - Forbes

Arguably, the key to organizational innovation is that elusive “out of the box” thinking that generates truly creative ideas and solutions. While many hard-core business types may have a hard time thinking of themselves as terribly creative, the LinkedIn Learning blog post “Why Creativity is the Most Important Skill in the World” offers a more inclusive definition of creativity—“problem-solving with relevance and novelty”—courtesy of creativity expert Stefan Mumaw. Indeed, the first step of enhancing creativity may be simply recognizing that creativity isn’t just for artsy types. The WeWork article “Creativity is the skill of the future-and it’s not just for creative teams” asserts, “In the workplace, creativity happens any time an employee thinks of a novel way to solve a problem—whether it’s improving the customer experience in some way or streamlining a cumbersome internal process. Thought of in this way, it’s clear that creativity is not just needed in some departments within a company—it’s a necessity for all.”

If we’re sold on the importance of creativity for teams and individuals, the challenge for leaders is determining how to cultivate new levels of creativity within their teams. Out of the box thinking sounds great but can be tricky to cultivate practically speaking. Sure, any leader can simply urge their team to “think outside the box,” but the most effective leaders actually have a bag of tricks to promote that type of creativity and innovation in a tangible way.

While virtually everyone has participated in brainstorming sessions, the truth is that while they can be valuable at times, they can also become rote and unproductive. As a facilitation trainer for nearly two decades, I’ve found that there’s another technique that’s much more effective, and even better, it creates an atmosphere that’s light and fun. It’s called “reverse brainstorming,” and it’s super simple.

Let’s outline three simple steps using an example.

1.    Identify your target or goal.

How can we increase safety in our field plant locations?

2.    Reverse the goal and brainstorm creative (somewhat wacky) ideas for how to achieve that.

How can we decrease safety in our field plant locations?

·      Pressure employees to cut corners to save costs/Punish employees for taking safety measures

·      Prioritize cost over safety in management decisions

·      Institute 24-hour shifts, eliminate breaks

·      Offer no safety training

·      Have wires running all over the floor

·      Ban personal protective equipment (PPE)

·      Buy old, broken down equipment/Don’t maintain equipment

·      Ban fire extinguishers and first aid kits

·      Make important safety information hard to find (e.g. poison control, fire rescue, etc.)

·      Never discuss safety protocols or best practices

·      Don’t provide any sick days

·      Ban any safety related discussion during work hours

3.    Consider the opposite of each “wacky idea” to identify potential real solutions

Next, take each suggestion one by one and ask the team to identify potential real solutions by considering the opposite of the wacky idea.

Pressure employees to cut corners to save costs/Punish employees for taking safety measures

·      Ensure all employees have documented safety related annual goals

·      Develop a quarterly employee recognition program for “safest employee”

·      Institute a safety suggestion box, review ideas regularly and award winner for best idea monthly

·      Create a special discretionary fund to support new safety initiatives (no questions asked)

One of the many reasons why I love this technique is that it automatically revs up the energy level in the room. I don’t think I’ve facilitated a reverse brainstorming session that didn’t have lots of laughter. Wildly speculating about how to lose customers, decrease revenue, destroy employee morale, etc. is just an interesting, fun activity. The technique gives the team permission to break all the rules and say the most ridiculous ideas, then something magical happens once those wacky ideas are flipped around—really innovative, out of the box ideas emerge.

Great leaders know that creativity is absolutely necessary for true, sustained innovation, but too often we just expect creativity to happen by osmosis. Skilled facilitators however know that techniques like reverse brainstorming can be powerful tools in a leader’s arsenal to not just generate creative solutions for the problem at hand but also to help the team build its creativity muscle over time. Indeed, if you have a tendency to get the same results, consider changing the process.

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Forget Traditional Brainstorming— Instead, Try This Technique To Spur New Levels Of Team Creativity - Forbes
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