Why brainstorm?
Storms are often a bad thing, but not when it comes to brainstorming! (Pic by Freepik)
The benefits of brainstorming
Welcome to another post in this series that dives deeper into the Brainstorming Playbook’s content.
What if work was more fun? What would it look like if your team was fired up? And what if that led to more more collaborative teams and innovative solutions?
Using creative thinking techniques opens the door to fun and laughter, respectful and productive debate, and – ultimately – innovation.
“We found a 12% spike in productivity among happy workers and a 10% drop among unhappy workers”
When people have fun, they feel less stressed, more motivated and engaged, and happier about staying in their job.
It’s been said that children laugh an average of 300 times a day. Adults? An average of 17 times a day. Isn’t it time to bring more play into the “workplayce”?
Here’s a reminder of other benefits of brainstorming from the last post in the Brainstorming Playbook series on change:
Brainstorming leverages team members' diverse experience and adds to the richness of ideas, which means you often find better solutions to the problems you face.
Brainstorming can help get buy-in from team members for the chosen solution because they were involved in developing the approach.
Since brainstorming encourages open and ongoing collaboration to solve problems and generate innovative ideas, it helps foster stronger teams. This, in turn, can increase employee commitment and reduce employee turnover.
Brainstorming helps team members feel more comfortable bouncing ideas off one another outside of a structured brainstorming session.
Preparing for Productive Brainstorming
Google’s 10-year “Aristotle” project into how people work together highlighted that the number one factor contributing to successful brainstorming is psychological safety. When the brain stops worrying about dangers it can then shift into “connection” mode, or psychological safety. To keep everyone feeling safe, your job as the brainstorming facilitator is to put factors into place that signal safety. These include:
Connecting with each individual
Listening intently
Eye contact
Humor and laughter
Lots of questions
Few interruptions
Common courtesies
Let the fun begin!
Till next time,
Ellia
I believe that, with the right support anyone can learn creative ways to solve problems. If you’d like to see what tapping into creative potential could look like at your place of work, contact me at Ellia@ThePotentialCenter.com to arrange a call.