"How about a campfire outing for our snowman client?"
“There are no bad ideas.” It’s the familiar refrain by moderators of creative brainstorming sessions everywhere.
And it’s utter baloney. There are, indeed, bad ideas. You know it and I know it. Very bad, truly stupid ideas, as these costly, meandering fusterclucks prove when one or more well-meaning souls, invited for no better reason than the spirit of inclusion, comes up with a beaut that isn’t worth the marker ink used to commit it to a whiteboard.
“How about a national TV ad campaign?” someone will offer, though the product is a specialized B2B service with a total target universe of a few thousand people.
“How about a blimp at the event?” someone will pipe up, though the meager budget allows for nothing more than a few helium balloons.
“How about ‘Got Chlamydia?’” ess. em. aitch.
The Jan. 15 Sunday New York Times ran an outstanding opinion piece titled “The Rise of the New Groupthink,” in which author Susan Cain laments corporate crowdsourcing, and cites recent psychological studies finding that collaboration is not necessarily conducive to creativity.
“Solitude is out of fashion, collaboration is in; most of us now work in teams, in offices without walls, for managers who prize people skills above all,” says Cain. “But there’s a problem with this view. Research strongly suggests that people are more creative when they enjoy privacy and freedom from interruption.”
Especially when it’s the right people who are sequestered. In my years doing this independent creative thingy that I do, it’s been my experience that the very best ideas come not from a conference room full of billable employees of varying ilks and skills, but rather from a very small team of cherry-picked creative thinkers (or an even smaller team of one).
Look, everyone has special talents. Why not let the people whose primary talent is creativity do the creative lifting. The results are way better, way quicker, and you don’t have to spring for a platter of sandwich wraps.
What are your thoughts? I’d like to know.
I hate sandwich wraps, but love this post.
True dat, my friend. Were we at the same brainstorm where the blimp got mentioned?
That was a great item in NYT.
There is a place for togetherness in the workplace, like when a bunch of programmers are tackling a big problem; intraday communication can catalyze the effort.
I use ideation sessions mostly to get vision and mission from stakeholders. Never do I expect the big idea to come from these. I’d hate to commit to “paper” where I do my best thinking.
Love the post. Where can I buy a “Got Chlamydia” t-shirt?
I’m with you on the leaving creative to creatives thing. While brainstorming with the right folks can lead to great concepts, with the wrong folks it can be a major waste of time that leads you down the wrong path. I need my alone time.
A rich trove here, John. And I missed the original NYT article, so thanks for bringing that to my awareness.
Really you’re talking about two classes of bad ideas, or two ways to have ideas. Nothing wrong with bad ideas that you spawn without censorship when you are alone or otherwise liberated to think broad. A creative person has to get those notions out, they may be pinning down a truly fantastic thought, temporarily submerged! And you rightly lampoon the “enterprise” way of assembling cross-functional teams around leathery lunch to “innovate”. But it’s not the ideas that stink (in other contexts they COULD work, as when participants are interested and under less pressure to contribute), it’s the ridiculous way teams are mandated to HAVE ideas that is the problem. I agree with you, for me also, it’s the alone time – or quality time with a few trusted peers – that allows me to produce and then vet my ideas. Coming up with terrible ones (that I am excited to summarily discard) is part of finding my way.
Thanks for making me think,
-Caleb