3 ways to turn your team into an ideas-generating machine

Putting a group of smart people together does not make a smart team you have to design them using tested principles that bring out the best in people.

How you shape a team to deliver depends specifically on what you want to deliver, so that needs to be clear.

Ask – 

1. What are your objectives?
2. What are your desired outcomes?
3. What’s in and out of scope for this discussion?

You’re going to take a different approach brainstorming new thinking from when you’re delivering a project under tight deadlines.

Let’s say you want to bring your people together to generate a range of ideas.

Just sitting around the table isn’t going to do that.

Instead - 

1.    Get the team out of their usual rhythm

2.    Combine the team in smaller groups, then recombine them

3.    Set the tone by avoiding platitudes  

1.    Get the team out of their usual rhythm

There’s a reason why habits are comforting. When we do something again and again it changes the neural pathway in ways that make information flow quicker (the myelin or protein sheath around a neuron gets thicker, like insulation). That’s how we go from learning to drive to driving effortlessly.

Our brains develop quick recall on the most common activities – using the pedals, indicating, changing gear -so we don’t spend juice on things that stay the same.

It’s a clever tool for daily life that helps the brain preserve energy so that there’s enough to focus on things that need attention.

But it works against you when you need new ideas or solutions. If the environment provides familiar triggers the brain can easily slide into the well-worn grooves.

That’s why taking a team offsite, in particular to a curated design environment is powerful. In these settings we can invite different mental and emotional states through lighting, placement of furniture, sound, graphics, ambient colour and the physical movement required to get things done.

In a new space all the ‘rules’ are open to be negotiated again and this disruption to ‘the norm’ invites a curious or open mindset which will support the generation of ideas. Ask yourself – what mindset do you need people to be in to give their best to the challenge? How can you use the physical space to enhance that mindset?

We can create a sense of equality by removing heirarchy from the seating arrangement. Chairs set in a semi circle have no ‘head’ nor ‘tail’ and provide parity in eyeline connection.

We can invite trust and honesty by removing physical barriers between people - the meeting table, open laptops, cellphones, sunglasses – and facing each other openly.

We can accelerate understanding through visual playback of what we’re saying. Simply writing the key points or questions on a whiteboard during discussion allows us to consider the language being used and expose misalignment or misunderstandings early. We process the words differently through our eyes than our ears.

We can use the environment to shift people very quickly from one space that leads them to daydream and wonder ‘what if…’, to another that brings them gently back to earth to assess the impacts of their ideas.

If you don’t have the resources for a design workshop you can create a new environment by coming together in a different location at a time where energy is high. A park? A walk? Even a local café.

2.    Combine the team in smaller groups

People seek social cohesion so in a big group there’s a tendency to move towards groupthink. There’s an advantage to cohesion. To get behind and deliver an idea we need to believe in it individually and collectively. If we cohere too quickly because we’re afraid of disagreement or standing out then we don’t flesh out the risks or come up with the best solutions.

To fully leverage the knowledge and experience of the individuals in your team, break a large group into smaller groups. Let everyone struggle with the problem individually first and then share the challenge as a group.

Doing this produces more diversity in ideas and more perspectives for the team at large.

Even with a team of three you can create pairs who spark differently off each other.

Once your small groups have come up with a range of ideas, break them up and recombine them with others. This prevents small groups forming alliances and again, cohering too quickly.

For example, ask each person to draw 3 ideas on a segmented A4 sheet that ‘solves’ the challenge you have (5 minutes).

Pass their sheet to someone else to generate 3 more ideas building on the first 3 with a ‘yes, and…’ approach, they in turn will build on someone elses ideas.

This method takes no more than 30 minutes, extracts a great diversity of thought and feeds 6 ideas per person into the small groups to spark the next round of brainstorming.

3.    Set the tone by avoiding platitudes 

Nothing shuts people down faster than criticism.

Setting ground rules sounds like a cliché but they’re essential if you want people to open up and share.

You can make them simple and fun. The Stanford D.School have a useful set that I regularly use.

We used to say there’s no such thing as a bad idea, I don’t think that’s true and that kind of a platitude can make people cynical because we all know that ideas have different merit.

However, while it’s not true that any idea is a good idea, it is true that any idea is a good place to start building from. Avoid saying “no…” or “yes, but…” – both of these create emotional blocks in others. Instead, say “yes, and…” which is reinforcing and will help you build on an idea both consciously and subconsciously.

If you take this mindset into a brainstorming session you free people to come up with options without needing to call them ‘good’ or ‘bad’, just starting points. 

This forms a better basis for non-judgement.

Shaping for creativity

So if you need to generate creativity change the space, mix people up and create a non-judgemental environment that is not going to get the eyes rolling.