I’ve been reading a few books lately related to creativity. Two in particular while I was on vacation last week were “Orbiting the Giant Hairball” by Gordon MacKenzie and “Play” by Stuart Brown.
From these books there was something I found very interesting that they both touch on. Brown talks about a study that shows, in lots of instances, brainstorming meetings are ultimately no more effective than going to each individual person from that meeting privately and asking what to do. You get roughly the same results either way. But Brown, and countless other experts say that brainstorming and creative meetings are the key to truly ingenious creativity.
Both Brown and MacKenzie address the greatest enemy of brainstorming–Critics, both the attendees of the creative meetings as well as our own internal critic. As I have attended meetings at North Point I have definitely seen this play out, from people shooting down ideas to people keeping their ideas to themselves.
I am always encouraged to see a concerted effort to keep this from happening here, but I know it is something that must stay consistently at the forefront. There must be a spirit of “play” among the creative team. People shouldn’t be afraid of messing up or putting themselves out there. In a sense, it needs to feel like “just a game.” A fun thing North Point does is have nerf balls at creative meetings that can be thrown at a person who is shooting down someone’s idea. That way you disapprove of the action, but you even do that in a fun, playful way.
It is natural for any group, no matter how close, to tend toward this critical style. It’s part of all of our personalities. We’re our own worst critics and there has to be a system in place to keep any group from going this direction.
What do you do to help keep this from happening? I’ve been looking for resources out there that can help, and would be very curious what you do to keep your team (or yourself) from self-editing and criticizing.
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Also, I learned about Stuart Brown’s Book from finding the below video at Ted.com.
He has some great thoughts on the value of play in life and work. Enjoy:
July 29th, 2009 at 11:49 pm
In my own personal experience, brainstorming is definitely more effective than gathering opinions individually. I’m waaaay more creative when feeding off of other people’s ideas (and they off mine). But, you’re absolutely right, critics have to be kept at bay or that will ruin the whole experience.
A lot of creating a culture that likes having fun is limiting stress and creating healthy boundaries. Employees that feel respected and appreciated will naturally be more creative. So what happens the other 23 hours a day and 6 days a week really affects what happens in a brainstorming meeting than anything else, in my opinion.