Breaking Down Brainstorming

Have you ever been in a meeting where open brainstorming is encouraged and any attempt to kill ideas is denied?  If you're like me, this kind of meeting is infuriating.  Thankfully, I'm not the only jerk out there.  Todd Copilevitz at the Advertising Ourselves to Death blog makes a great point that wide open brainstorming encourages failure.

Todd, like me, is a leader at an interactive advertising agency.  He calls his process "Full-Contact Brainstorming" and makes several good points:

• "Brainstorming is all too often an excuse for a half dozen people to bill time to a job without bringing anything meaningful to the mix. Even worse they want to be coddled for the effort."
• "If you are in a brainstorming meeting, you damn well better bring your A game. That means having at least one kick ass idea. Further, once you toss out your idea there is no back peddling. You are obliged to defend it in the face of all fire until such time as it succeeds or needs to be buried."
• "You're sitting in that room because a client believes you have lots of good ideas that will improve their business. Their career is on the line. Weak ideas are going to get them fired. Half-baked, pie-in-the-sky crap will get them flushed out of a career. If you don't feel the urgency then you have no business  at the table."
• "I can't understate the value of finding someone who can call bullshit to your face and expects you to do the same back for them."
• "A good friend once called it the battle to be the smartest person in the room. I call it a requirement of a successful agency."

Todd's approach is great guidance for those of us trying to wring the next killer idea out of a group of people.  It is also an approach that is completely consistent with The Challenge Dividend theory - by encouraging a challenging atmosphere team members are better prepared, they pressure themselves to create better ideas, and they ensure that on the the cream rises to the top. 

With the marketing landscape undergoing a revolution and both client and agency jobs on the line, there is no time for group hugs and every idea equally weighted.   By looking at each meeting as an opportunity for Challenge Dividend dynamics, we just might crack the code - and improve our thinking skills along the way.