TODAY’S IDEA:
There is no such thing as a shortage of ideas!
This idea is a segue from yesterday’s post on practicing proactive procrastination to generate ideas. Yet instead of procrastinating and getting bored, today we are going to do the opposite: take action.
How many times, when we need an answer, do we ask “hey, do you have any ideas on…?” only to hear our teammates, or even ourselves, say “no, I really can’t think of anything…” This answer naturally leads us to call for a brainstorming session. But more often than not, during brainstorming sessions everyone tends to agree with a few of the first ideas tossed out and that’s it, we’re stuck again with a less-than-desirable solution.
This happens because, usually, the most vocal people in the group toss out the first ideas and the rest of the group either agrees or keeps quiet, leading to groupthink (“the practice of thinking or making decisions as a group in a way that discourages creativity or individual responsibility” – Google Dictionary). To avoid this, the concept of brainwriting can be used. It’s very simple: have everyone write their ideas down in paper before either saying them out loud, or passing the list on to the next person as a way to spark more ideas. That’s it.
The process then can follow many different courses (examples here and here). Yet it ultimately follows the course of whatever the moderator wants to do with the many ideas generated.
I recently put this to the test with several friends where the task was to generate as many business ideas as possible in 10 minutes. We came up with over 130. Of course, not all of them were good or viable, but they were all valid for what we wanted to prove to ourselves: that anyone is able to able generate many ideas at once with this method, and that it’s better if you do it as a team because you’ll produce many, many more ideas than as as individual. And once you start discarding the crazy, unviable ideas, you’ll be left with a handful of good, actionable ones that you can start putting into practice right away. As Seth Godin says, “you can’t have good ideas unless you’re willing to generate a lot of bad ones.”
So there you have it. Use brainwriting instead of brainstorming, and you’ll never be at a loss for ideas again.
“The way to get good ideas is to get lots of ideas and throw the bad ones away.”
— Linus Pauling
ACTION:
TODAY: Play along with the idea of brainwriting for yourself. Take 10 min and write down as many ideas as you can think of for an issue you want to solve or for a goal you’d like to achieve. Don’t judge the ideas, simply write them all down and let your brain loose while you’re doing this exercise. You’ll see that you can come up with a great amount of ideas and you’ll be pleasantly surprised at yourself. Then discard the bad ideas, take the good ones and implement them.
FUTURE: Get together with a group of friends, colleagues, or family and brainwrite answers to a challenge or problem that you are facing. Alternatively, set a goal (e.g. write down 50 ways to improve a process in your company, or 100 places where you’d like to go on vacation, etc.) and give yourself a finite amount of time, say 10-15 minutes. Then be in awe as to how many ideas you come up with! Vote for the best ones, discard the bad ones, and happy implementing!
Enjoy learning this new process, it’s easy, fun and VERY helpful in all aspects of business and life. Let me know how you did in the comments!