The business group laughed as they left the classroom at the county FFA retreat center. As they walked to their cars, Amanda turned to Corey and said, “That was fun, but, um, did we get anything done?”
How many times have the brainstorming sessions you’ve attended been mere cathartic experience not practical accomplishment? I’ll never forget meeting with one divisional V.P. who believed brainstorming was for the sole purpose of allowing everyone to be heard. He said, “I let everyone vent once a quarter. We talk about a lot of things, but our organization turns as slowly as an aircraft carrier. The ideas are always impractical to implement.”
This Vice President has 18 men and women in his division. He spends eight hours once a quarter in “brainstorming”. That’s 576 hours per year of productive time poured out in the parking lot in the same way I pour out the hot, flat remnants of a Route 44 Diet Dr Pepper from Sonic.
Do you feel like the time you invest in brainstorming should be of more value to your department or organization?
Here are three questions you should answer before convening your next brainstorming session.
If you could tackle one problem you face, what would it be?
If you’re like me, you could pontificate about this problem for an hour. However, if you spent an hour with your team standing on your soapbox pounding your fist into your open palm, you would deflate your meeting faster than stomping on a mylar balloon.
- Take 10 minutes and write out the problem as fully as you can. Edit and refine your work. How simply can you state the issue you’re facing?
- Turn what you’ve written into a question.
- Look at your agenda. If THIS problem isn’t on there, ask yourself why not. Consider editing your agenda accordingly.
What can each person uniquely contribute to your day?
You can turbo-charge your day by thinking through each contributor’s strengths and weaknesses. Chances are, you will have bounce-off-the-wall creatives sitting next to pencil-sharpening organizers. You have fast-paced people and slower-paced people. How well do you know them?
IF you know them well, look at your agenda and think about questions you can ask each person under each point.
If you DON’T know your team well enough to do so, consider postponing the brainstorming in favor of facilitating the DiSC inventory or Now Discover Your Strengths with your team. Each teammate will love the process and be grateful for the information. For you, the most important part of the evaluation will be information on how one strength communicates best with another.
When in the next three weeks is your followup meeting scheduled?
How good are leftovers on day three? Delicious. The flavors have blended together more and they make a delicious meal. How good are they sixty days later? Don’t even open that Tupperware container.
Your ideas, notes, and questions will mold with time. If you haven’t set a follow-up meeting already, do so NOW before you convene your next brainstorming session. At that meeting, invite a quiet member of your team to restate the ideas before you discuss them again. That quiet person is a processor and has probably internalized your concepts more deeply than other members.
What questions do you ask before you enter a brainstorming session?
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