How to Conduct a Successful Creative Brainstorming Session

"Brainstorming is an integral part of the business process at all organizations. It can lead to a dynamic and valuable exchange of ideas and exciting new initiatives.  Poorly executed, however, it can foster resentment, internal tension and be counterproductive. All participants in a brainstorming session need to remember, it's not personal-it's business."

• Establish the role of the leader. The leader acts as facilitator, monitoring the flow of ideas to ensure that everyone has a chance to speak and no one interrupts another, and that discussion stays on track and doesn't veer off on too many tangents. The leader should encourage challenge and debate-they're productive. Hostility is not.

• Define the task at hand. All group members must clearly understand what the ultimate business objective is. Before solutions are suggested, all available facts, trends and challenges should be reviewed and discussed.

• State the goal of the brainstorming session. The role of the brainstorming session needs to be clear. The purpose is to generate ideas, initially without consideration for their merit.

• Create a positive culture. Members should feel free to communicate openly and honestly. It helps to select a neutral setting. Find a room where the team members can slip off their jackets, grab some refreshments and get to work.

• Record ideas. A flipchart or a blackboard enables members of the group to see each idea and build on ones that interest them. Rotate note takers to enable all to actively participate in the ideation process.

• Encourage the flow of ideas. There should be no evaluation early in the process. Members should not look for the elusive "right" idea immediately. The goal of the team is to generate lots of ideas. The right one will eventually emerge-almost always from one idea built on another.

• Carefully monitor verbal and nonverbal communication. Listen to all members of the group. Also, watch for nonverbal communications. This will often tell you, even more than words, how members feel about the group's progress.

• Select the best idea. Periodically summarize the group's progress. Once the group winds down, review the ideas. Focus discussion first on positive attributes of each idea. Only then focus on the negative aspects. Through a process of elimination, identify the top ideas and then make a final selection. Choose an idea that fully meets the task objective and that all members of the team are willing to support.

PASS

• Leadership takes courage and initiative. Both Bradford and Pamela volunteered to take up the challenge of leading a team of the opposite sex, no easy task. Initiative is a critical component of good leadership. Both project managers in last week's show should be commended for stepping up to the plate.
   

• Self-awareness and self-correcting leadership. Bravo to Bradford for being able to take a step back and be self-aware enough to recognize that his previous dictatorial style was not working well with the women. One remarked, "If I could get my hands around his jugular, I would absolutely take him out." He self-corrected (a great sign of emotional intelligence that is critical to successful leadership) by leading from a more democratic stance. Of course, maybe he was just wise enough to know when his life was being threatened!
   

• Customer empathy and awareness. In business, to succeed, you have to put yourself in your customer's shoes. Again, Bradford showed he understood the importance of this business lesson when considering toy designs for boys. "I love that kid," he remarked while watching a child tester. "He is like me when I was a kid." Bradford led the winning female team whose design of a transformer racing car appealed to young boys' desire to race, smash, crash and burn.
   

• High energy. A great leadership rule: if you want it, model it. Both Pamela and Bradford modeled high energy for their teams. Trump has already clearly shown a preference to hire candidates who demonstrate this high energy as his first sack of the show, Rob, was fired due to his lack of energy and involvement in the team.

  FAIL

• No direction (clarity of roles and expectations), protection or order.  According to Ronald Heifetz, Harvard professor and author of "Leadership Without Easy Answers," followers want three things from their leaders: direction, protection and order. From what we were able to observe, neither candidate scored a touchdown in this arena. Yet, these are the basics of good leadership. Like blocking and tackling in football, setting up clear expectations is vital to effective leadership and teamwork. A successful leader with a new team needs to set the stage for success by facilitating an initial session (order) to determine how the team will work together most effectively to achieve their task or goal. A leader should inspire confidence by creating a safe container (protection) for the team to elicit the highest of collaboration, creativity and effective strategy. Last week's project managers skipped this important step. Both looked like deer caught in the headlights and allowed their teams to run ad hoc and amok. Neither gave team members specific tasks or roles (direction) nor facilitated a session to determine which idea was best using a SWOT (Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats) analysis or any other kind of facilitation technique to allow the "best and the brightest" to strategically pick the best idea presented.
   

• No clear decision-making style. Neither project manager was clear in communicating up front to the team a preferred decision-making style as the leader. Was the project manager using an authoritarian style with ultimate decision-making authority? Consensus? Majority vote? Who knew? Last year's candidates continually met Donald in the boardroom and looked blankly at each other when he asked the question, "who made the decision...?" Donald asks the teams repeatedly, "How was the decision made? Did you agree?"  The only way team members understand if they have any influence, authority or a vote is if the leader communicates how decisions will be made in the team. Leaders can choose from authoritarian (best for crisis or military), consultative, majority rule, delegation or consensus (great for buy in and commitment but time consuming). Leaders who don't clearly communicate decision-making styles risk mutiny by understandably disgruntled team members who resent not being part of the decision-making process. Or worse yet, they risk being led to believe they did have influence when, in fact, the leader had decided already.
   

• Professional tact, judgment, discernment.  Pamela demonstrated that she understood the importance of being accepted by her new team members, but she did so by uttering an off-color remark at the outset that proved that professional tact is not one of her strong suits. She later remarked in front of the Mattel toy executives as they watched child testers from a two-way mirror, "He looks like a mini dumb or dumber." Dissing your target customers is never a good idea. What happened to the customer is king (Business 101)? Has this woman had any sales experience? Attention future candidates and those in leadership, think before you speak!

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