By Kevin Eikenberry

The scene is repeated in meeting rooms around the world every day. A problem has been identified and a group has gathered to solve the problem. When ideas are needed, the group decides to brainstorm. And all too often this exercise leads to a short list of not-that-creative ideas.

We know that if we generate more ideas we have a better chance of finding better ideas. This leads us to the logical conclusion that if we can find techniques to create more ideas, we will find better ones. No one technique however will guarantee the perfect solution. Instead your goals should be to have a variety of approaches to help stimulate idea creation in your repertoire. By doing this you will improve the overall quality of ideas by virtue of having more to choose from.

Whether you are unhappy with the current creativity of your group or are having good success with brainstorming sessions, but would like them to be even better, any of the eight suggestions below can help.

Look at problems in different ways. Get the group to change their perspective on the problem. Once people “lock into” one way of looking at things the idea flow will slow to a trickle. Have people take a new persona. Ask them to look at the issue from the perspective of another group – accounting, HR, or sales for example. Ask them to think about how their grandmother or an 8 year old would solve the problem. These are simple ways to force people into a new perspective and the new perspectives will generate more ideas.

Make novel combinations. The ideas that land on the flip chart or whiteboard in a brainstorming session are typically considered individually. Have the group look at the initial list and look for ways to combine the ideas into new ones.

Force relationships. Once a group is finished with their initial list, provide them with words, pictures or objects. The objects can be random items, the words can come from a randomly generated list or from pictures in magazines or newspapers. When people have their random word, picture or item, have them create connections between the problem and their item. Use questions like, “How could this item solve our problem?” What attributes of this item could help us solve our problem?”

Make their thoughts visible. Have people draw! Too often the brainstorming session has everyone sitting except the person capturing the ideas. Let people doodle and draw and you never know what ideas may be spurred.

Think in opposites. Rather than asking your direct problem question, ask the opposite. “How could we ensure no one bought this new product?” could be one example. Capturing the ideas on “the opposite,” will illuminate ideas for solving the actual problem.

Think metaphorically. This approach is similar to forcing relationships (and is another way to use your words, pictures or items). Pick a random idea/item and ask the group, “How is this item like our problem?” Metaphors can be a very powerful way to create new ideas where none existed before.

Prepare. Too often people are asked to brainstorm a problem with no previous thinking time. If people have time to think about a topic, and let their brains work on it for awhile, they will create more and better ideas. Allow people to be better prepared mentally by sharing the challenges you will be brainstorming some time before the meeting whenever possible.

Set a Goal. Research shows and my experience definitely confirms that the simple act of giving people a quantity goal before starting the brainstorming session will lead to a longer list of ideas to consider. Set your goal at least a little higher than you think you can get – and higher than this group typically achieves. Set the goal and watch the group reach it!

While these suggestions have all been written from the perspective of a group generating ideas, they all work very well for individuals too. The next time you need to solve a problem by yourself, use these techniques and you will be astounded by the quantity of ideas you will generate!

Kevin Eikenberry is a leadership expert and the Chief Potential Officer of The Kevin Eikenberry Group, a learning consulting company that helps clients reach their potential through a variety of training, consulting and speaking services. www.kevineikenberry.com Reprinted from innovationtools.com

Training Solution: Free Radicals of Innovation: Everyone wants to be creative, but most people fear change. This program shows the nine principles of innovation and how to make them work for your team.

By Linda Galindo, President, Versera Performance Consulting.

Nothing is more energizing than having great ideas fly around a meeting room and everyone is engaged in solving problems and getting things done. In tough economic times, seeing employees express ideas about how to keep the business booming is especially rewarding. “We should put this on the website!” “We can get advertising to highlight this feature in the next marketing campaign!” “Customers will love the ability to download this information!”

You want to keep these great expectations moving from one meeting to the next and ensure that the best ideas are not allowed to stall. It’s important that the great ideas “we” need to act on are not lost. Those ideas are gold and the miners of that gold are in the room.

The Problem with “We”
To get to the gold, you must eliminate the Nothing Has Been Done with the Great Ideas We Had in the Last Meeting syndrome. And why does nothing get done? Because “we” were going to do it.

To harness the power of every employee you must remember that the pronoun “we” doesn’t do anything or get anything done. When a person says “we” should do something, that’s great! What’s even greater, though, is when everyone is led to move a “we” to an “I”… with an accompanying “by-when”.

Imagine how the results of your team will skyrocket when individuals begin saying things like…“We have come up with some great stuff! I am especially excited about customers downloading this information. I’ll own that, and by the next meeting I will have an outline for you.”

Grab and Go
Full-out brainstorming is fun and productive so long as “we” know that each “I” will have an opportunity to grab onto something they can be enthusiastic about and follow through on. This requires leaders who possess an ownership mindset and take responsibility for a successful end result before the meeting begins. They must encourage employees to listen for things they can “own” and ensure that the best ideas (the ones that generate enthusiasm, energy and a winning set of strategies) are snatched up.

The skill is to recognize the potential in the room and not shut people down with a You Say It, You Own It approach. Employees are much more likely to emerge with their best thinking when they know they’re not going to get stuck doing something they don’t want to do. (And, you can always circle back to address any un-owned “we” or missing “by-when”.) A meeting becomes a gold mine when employees can pick the idea they see the most potential in, grab it and say the three golden words: “I’ll own that!”

Versera offers a top-down consultative approach to building accountability within organizations through a powerful assessment process, one-on-one coaching and facilitated accountability workshops.

Training Solution: Accountability That Works! The accountability model in this video will help you create a workplace where employees take ownership and achieve results.

I have a theory that if I listen well enough, everything I need to know about business I can learn from my kids.

The latest example involved a simple truth about why adults hate business meetings, and it inspired me to share some thoughts on how to take the pain out of corporate get-togethers, including training sessions, and turn them into gatherings people leave saying, “That was a fabulous use of our time, money and energy.”

When my daughter started high school, she came down heavy on one of her teachers in critiquing one of her classes for me: “All he does is talk. He never lets us do anything.” Keep in mind this is a course she wanted to take and a subject she wants to master. The pain is complicated by disappointment.
I’ve felt the same way when leaving many seminars and training sessions – well-intentioned affairs with too much talk and too little do.

So I developed a process I call LOOP Learning (Linkage, Obstacles, Opportunities, Plans) because it helps create sessions designed with real-world business issues in mind, and because it actively involves people learning about and dealing with those issues.

First, I abide by the need for good meetings and training sessions to be built around a well-developed agenda, an agreed-upon schedule and a group commitment to keep on track. But I’ve discovered four things more fundamental that, if accomplished, create high-energy, highly productive meetings:

Linkage. A vital early step is to make sure the session creates a sense of ownership in the participants about why they are together, and to assure the agenda connects to a specific business issue. Help people answer the question, “Why is this important – to me, to our team and to the company?” Linkage lifts responsibility for the challenge off the shoulders of “the boss” or the trainer who called the session and shares it with everyone in the room.

Obstacles. Sometimes the most important thing you can do in a meeting or training session is identifying what´s blocking your goals. Acknowledge there are barriers, and examine the risk in not overcoming them and of not challenging the status quo.

Opportunities. Once people understand the challenge and the barriers, turn them loose on generating ideas for improving, changing and innovating current successes and creating new possibilities for growth and success. An important element of identifying opportunities is to challenge the mindset that there is only one right way to do things. It’s critical to keep asking questions, knowing that solutions always will be a moving target.

Plans. The final step is to clarify priorities and to make plans and commitments for what must be done to achieve the desired business results. Determine who will do what and by when, to move toward the goal. Commitment and accountability built into the learning process help to achieve sustainable results.

The length of a session influences what can be accomplished and how, but in almost all sessions this model allows for a blend of interactive exercises, stories, activities, video vignettes, music, metaphors and illustrations related to the business objective. Perhaps the only “rule” for using LOOP Learning gets back to my daughter’s lesson: Give people plenty of chances to talk to each other and share ideas about how to deal with the challenge.

The objective in designing worthwhile meetings is to create an environment that encourages people to think differently, build on each other’s ideas and develop high levels of communication, commitment and collaboration. Think about a classroom full of teenagers. Energy and intelligence abound, as in every work team. When we bring people together, the challenge is to tap them, not to turn them off.

Reprinted with permissions from effectivemeetings.com