Thank goodness someone finally said it. To me “brainstorming” and “groupthink” are analogous to eating a raw oyster: I’m supposed to like it, I want to like it, but it just doesn’t work for me.
It may work for you but, personally, I do my best thinking in solitude—alone in my office, out for a walk, in the shower, and such—I’ve never been good at coming up with campaign ideas with a copywriter or brainstorming them amongst a group at an agency or studio. To me, thinking through things at the level necessary to develop something original, initially requires back and forth within my own head. And adding other voices and ideas on the fly interrupts my train of thought.
Please be clear, I’m not saying my ideas are the best or that ultimately sharing and digging deeper into ideas is not necessary or useful, I’m saying, in that early development stage, I am unable (or at least not good at) doing my best thinking within a group.
So a modicum of vindication came, at long last, from Susan Cain’s 2012 piece for the New York Times titled, The Rise of the New Groupthink. In part she posed, “Conversely, brainstorming sessions are one of the worst possible ways to stimulate creativity… But decades of research show that individuals almost always perform better than groups in both quality and quantity, and group performance gets worse as group size increases.”
Susan Cain’s insightful piece for the New York Times titled, “The Rise of the New Groupthink”…
In that same year she expanded that idea through a well received TED Talk about how our education and business systems seem to think that the solution to dealing with introverts is to make them into extroverts rather than figure out how to obtain the best from both.
That struck a cord with me because I’ve long felt that many folks are in the spotlight, not because they have the best ideas, but because they are simply more gregarious and better presenters.
Cain’s TED Talk:
It’s a fundamentally important discussion, about both brainstorming and valuing the introvert.
She also wrote Quiet The Power of Introverts in a World That Can’t Stop Talking. A summary:
Susan Cain’s website, Quiet Revolution…
Posted in AUGUST 2020 / Chuck Green is the principal of Logic Arts, a design and marketing firm, a contributor to numerous magazines and websites, and the author of books published by Random House, Peachpit Press, and Rockport Publishers. All rights reserved. Copyright 2007-2020 Chuck Green/Logic Arts Corporation. Contact.
There is a difference between committee group think (UGH!) and creatives group think. The size matters. 3-5 people — a good size to have. More than that? No thank you. But the mind pattern is a big part of it too. Go back and rehash in your own space? Sure. Saying something out loud, even with no response can clear up foggy thoughts. Toss the oysters, find a better smaller group to banter ideas at and have more fun with it.
Plus feel free to shoot down bad ideas!
Cheers!
~ Claudia
I guess what I don’t like is that, within a group, the solution can easily be taken in the direction of the person who best articulates their ideas.
To me, finding solutions needs to be much deeper than that. I want to emerse myself in the subject and follow ideas to their end. I find that, if you take the time, you will work your way through the logic of how others have done things and find your way into new territory.
I don’t remember a time when I did that within a group. In a group, one person has a thought and you are inclined to follow their train of thought, you have to to follow the conversation. That, to me, interrupts the very essence of the creative process. Design is opinion and group opinions are tempered by consensus.
Naturally, you will bring the team together once you’ve solidified your thinking, but early on I think you are best off allowing the individual to dream their dream.