Osborn (1953) came up with a technique for groups that would allow them to come up with better ideas; this technique became known as brainstorming. Brainstorming can be defined as a group of people who are interacting with each other to come up with creative ideas for a task. This method of thinking encourages members of the group to speak openly and and freely without fear of judgment. Brainstorming requires that the group express all ideas that come to mind because the more ideas the better. In addition, there should be no criticism and ideas can build upon each other because the ideas belong to the group (Osborn, 1953).
In theory, brainstorming sounds like it would be a really useful technique to implement; however, research has shown that brainstorming is not a helpful a method as Osborn claimed. Research shows that groups are not as productive than individuals working alone (Mullen, Johnson, & Salas, 1991).
This concept can easily be applied to our University Programming Council (UPC) meetings. Last semester, we used to start all of our meetings off with a brainstorming activity. The chair would ask us to brainstorm PR ideas for next week's Friday Night Live (FNL) event. Our PR consists of all the banners and gimmicks you see around campus that advertise our upcoming event, just to help illustrate what we're being asked to do. Therefore, it is a good idea to get a council of 40 plus people to think about ideas, perhaps someone will come up with a PR idea that we have never done before that just sounds amazing. This unfortunately, has never happened. I think our chair was able to observe how inefficient this brainstorming activity was, so we cut that out of our agenda. However, when we did use to do it. It would waste a good fifteen minutes of our meeting where maybe a few people would contribute their ideas, sometimes people would communicate with others and come up with decent ideas, but there hasn't been any stellar ideas resulting from this activity. Most of us do not pay attention to "unimportant" parts of the meetings, whereas others are too quiet to share their ideas.
Without the council sharing or paying attention, brainstorming activities were identified as inefficient and not helpful, so we took them off the agenda. Most people socialized during their brainstorming time, so people were not contributing, which is a factor in this technique's lack of effectiveness. Brainstorming can also be good because it can build cohesion, but it did not do that for our group. Our group is already really cohesive because we spend out Thursday nights and Friday nights together planning and executing all kinds of events.
The way we have solved this problem now, is that the small group that is in charge of the week's event emails ideas to their chair or talk about it on PR work days. When there isn't as much pressure from people watching and they have had time to think about it.
Mullen, B., Johnson, C., & Salas, E. (1991). Productivity loss in brainstorming groups: A meta-analytic integration. Basic and Applied Social Psychology, 40, 659-665.
Osborn, A. F. (1953). Applied imagination. New York: Scribner.
I've seen this same thing happen in several organizations I'm in. As president (or Student Advisor) I am constantly asking people for some brainstorming idea to make our sisterhood or organization stronger. I have made the mistake of asking people to brainstorm together and it really turns out to be a social time to chat and catch up. I learned quickly that it was wasting time and nicked the idea. Even when I was in a brainstorming group during an officer meeting, we sat around “brainstorming” and we all said nothing! Now (as I did last night during an officer meeting) I asked my fellow officers to come up with at least one idea each and email it to me at some point this week! I’m hoping we’ll all be productive and think of some wonderful “willing down” activity! Do you have any ideas to share with me?!
ReplyDeleteWe have had the same problem in my sorority. We get together and brainstorm for ideas about events, programs, and ways to advertise them, and it is completely inefficient--we usually just end up socializing and no one has any new ideas, or they are too afraid to suggest them in case they are seen as stupid ideas.
ReplyDeleteIt's interesting to see what goes on behind the scenes for all that event planning. Y'all usually come up with some really clever stuff for those banners. We have the same problem in my fraternity. We try to come with ideas through brainstorming and it just doesn't work (especially with a bunch of guys who aren't very creative).
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