Building New Boxes: How to Run Brainstorming Sessions That Work

For example: Instead of asking, “How can we improve our brand image in the Indian market?” try asking,” How can we get a 25-year-old woman in Mumbai to rave about us to her friends?” Rather than wondering, “How can we come up with new marketing ideas for our airline?” try asking, “How can we ensure that our airline is the first thing that every businessperson in Los Angeles and New York considers when booking a trip?” 

Consider the environment before starting a brainstorm session. Gather a range of people with diverse expertise, different perspectives, roles, and perhaps some customers or experts. 

You can encourage full participation and ensure juniors and seniors feel comfortable sharing their ideas. 

The first step in the creative process entails identifying and doubting the current boxes and evaluating which one needs to reevaluate or replacement. Is there anything in the boxes that is irrelevant to the organization? 

For example, let's say we’re working with government contractors; we start by identifying some critical shared mental models that everyone held about how they worked with various government departments. 

Make sure that you have a well-prepared and effective facilitator, like a bus driver: who is well-trained, prepared, adaptive, and alert. Don’t be afraid to experiment with changing perspectives or analogies.

Often, after brainstorming and getting good ideas, there’s; bottle action towards the vision. Recognize that more ideas may come after your meeting ends, and follow up with participants once ideas are prioritized. 

Nintendo was founded as a playing-card company in 1889 and became a global leader in high-tech video and games applications that run on them. What if the executives had said -we are looking for growth, and we should probably be doing something new, so what should that new thing be?- the brainstorming session would be so classic, and Nintendo wouldn’t go this far. 

Remember that brainstorming in a creativity session is not a “blue sky.” Considering the dark clouds on the horizon takes energy and time to identify and question your existing models and assumptions. This will lead the classic brainstorming to va results.