IN THE PAST FEW YEARS, much has been written about ways to foster creativity in individuals. But groups of people—at the office, in church committees, among volunteer organizations—may need just as much help finding a collective spark. Here are some tricks, beginning with a word of caution.
Forbid criticism. No group will generate brilliant insights if participants are hostile to crazy ideas. Collective imagination can flourish only if everyone feels free of anxiety and full of trust. Before brainstorming begins, a group must insist that no one can criticize anyone who throws out an idea, makes a mistake, or lets his or her imagination run wild. Comments such as “That makes no sense!” poison a creative environment.
Indeed, one of the ground rules set by facilitators who run professional brainstorming sessions is expressly to forbid criticism. Meetings convened to come up with new concepts fail as soon as participants begin to pass judgment or prematurely discard ideas. By banning criticism, a group creates a space that even the most reticent members will recognize as safe to suggest half-baked ramblings. Ideally, a brainstorming session should have two phases, separated in time and composed of different participants: people in the creative session would be responsible for coming up with ideas, and a second group would apply critical analysis to separate wheat from chaff.
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Hide the problem. Most brainstorming techniques advise that group size be five to seven participants, each of whom has a different expertise, and that sessions last at least 30 minutes. An interesting variation on the straightforward swapping of ideas is called didactic brainstorming, in which the problem is known only to a moderator. He or she starts the group's exercise by setting a much broader topic for discussion and then, over the course of the session, narrows the topic, getting closer to the real issue. For example, a session could begin with the general question “What do we find attractive?” even though the final goal is to fashion new packaging for a food item.
The advantage of this technique is that participants do not immediately focus on the obvious suspects—the relatively small number of ways to package foods that people see every day in stores. Obscuring the problem allows unusual twists to arise from different perspectives.
Hand off partial solutions. Another variety of brainstorming is called brainwriting. Six participants each receive a piece of paper with 18 blank boxes, arranged in three columns of six squares. Each column represents one aspect of the problem—for packaging, perhaps “attractiveness,” “novelty” and “cost.” Each person is told to jot down one idea in the top box of each column. After about five minutes, each “player” passes his or her sheet to the person on the left. This person must use the second box to develop or elaborate on the point made in the preceding box. And so on. In the best possible world, 108 ideas will result in half an hour (six pages of 18 boxes).
“Brainwalking” is a different form of the same exercise. Two or three people gather in front of a flipchart or a big page posted on the wall that represents one aspect of the problem. Several pages, one for each aspect, are spread around a room, each with several people ready to tackle them. Members of each small group spontaneously write down every idea on that topic that pops into their head. Then the groups move to the next chart, where they will see the notes left by their colleagues and add new associations. As the exercise proceeds, concepts grow step by step and often branch out in unexpected directions. An additional advantage is that physically moving around stimulates thinking.
Induce intuition. Sometimes it can pay to put the cart before the horse—such as when the goal is conjuring up a new product. Start by proposing product names and only then try to imagine a worthwhile innovation. This method is called semantic intuition. Say the goal is to conceive a kitchen gadget. Create a list of concepts taken from cooking and eating (pan, lid, jar, plate, grill). Now join the words in every possible combination. You might just discover a term, such as lid grater, that could become a novel product: a jar with a grater in its lid, for making fresh nutmeg.
Force different points of view. The basic principle of separating the conception of ideas from their evaluation has been embraced and promoted for 30 years by well-known creativity expert Edward de Bono of Oxford, England. His “six thinking hats” game is widely used to help groups generate ideas yet also critique them.
Five people, say, gather in a room. There are six sets of (five) hats on a table. Each set is a different color, which represents a different perspective. A problem is announced, then the five players put on the five hats of one color and discuss the problem only from that point of view. The white hat represents facts and figures. The red hat stands for intuition, feelings and emotions. The black hat is for judgment and caution. Yellow looks only at an idea's advantages. Green is for alternatives and free associations. And blue is to moderate the proceedings.
Once the exercise begins, the group switches hats in any order. Perhaps, after some red hat feeling out, someone will say, “I think we need some white-hat thinking.” The people put on those hats and consult their database or survey results or some such information. If the process stalls, the group might put on the blue moderator hats to decide what step to take next.
The crucial point is that a given hat focuses the group on one task. It blocks arguments between opponents and proponents of an idea because everyone must look at ideas only from one perspective at a time. Yet as the participants rotate through all the hats, the system allows them to concentrate on an idea's strong points (yellow) or its disadvantages (black). And they can keep going back to the green hat for fresh inspiration.
Separate roles. It is said that one of the most creative minds of the 20th century worked in a similar way. Walt Disney, famed animator and entertainment giant, was known to assume one of three roles whenever he held meetings about a new project. He could be the dreamer, the realist or the critic, depending on which function he thought, on the spur of the moment, was most needed.
Anyone wishing to play all these roles should physically separate them—for example, by putting a chair in each of three corners of a room. Disney reportedly built a separate room for each role: one was big, bright and attractive for the dreaming; another had the necessary technical equipment for realization; and the third was a narrow little space for ruthless criticism.
Group creativity can be greatly enhanced with the tips mentioned here as well as with other excercises. The key is to separate the needed types of input, so that each stage can proceed unfettered. First, it is necessary to be visionary. Then the visions can be confronted in the light of reality. Then, and only then, should the ideas be opened to criticism. If they are truly creative, they will stand up to rigorous review.