Creativity Central [Marty Baker]

“Clothes make the man. Naked people have little or no influence in society.”

                                                                                                   Mark Twain

I’m talking Godiva naked. Harvey Keitel in the Men’s Club and the Piano naked.

A few months ago, I led an Inotivity session at a large company. I asked how they approached ideation or brainstorming meetings. “Basically, we just show up and we start tossing ideas around.”

Ideas should be tossed, flung and poured generously over everyone.  But there’s a smarter way. I told the group, “never go to a meeting naked.”

Generally, most groups gather. A white board or easel with a large sticky note pads is placed in the front.  A problem or question is posed and then one of the alpha members of the group offers up the first creative salvo.

So you’re already ten minutes less productive. What if each team member came with 10 ideas on small sticky notes? If you have ten people in the meeting, you'll have 100 ideas ready to go.

If you want to save even more time, have someone collect the sticky notes in advance and have that person put up the ideas up in in random order all over the room. Then, the first few minutes of the meeting, people are exploring, reviewing, and expanding on ideas. 

These ideas are unfettered by the dynamics of the meeting itself -- personalities, styles, and me-too thinking.

Now you can cluster similar or complementary ideas together, discuss, add, and ultimately vote independently on which ideas resonate the most.

It begins with a short email or note,  well articulated problem to solve, a request for 10 ideas on sticky notes, and a time limit for the meeting.

Or you could pull a full Keitel and go naked.  That might be very scary.