It was Alex Osborn, a 1960s advertising executive, who coined the term brainstorming. He passionately believed in the ability of teams to generate brilliant ideas, provided they follow four rules: members should share any idea that came to mind, build on the ideas of others, avoid criticism, and, most notably, strive for quantity not quality. Subsequent scientific research confirmed Osborn’s instincts: groups who follow his guidelines show more creativity than those who don’t. For example, in one study, brainstorming groups given quantity goals generated both more ideas (an average of 29.88) and significantly higher quality ideas (20.35) than those given a quality goal alone (averages of 14.24 and 10.5).
Research: For Better Brainstorming, Tell an Embarrassing Story
It’ll make you more creative.
October 02, 2017
Summary.
Researchers have long studied how to make brainstorming sessions more effective — for example, by setting quantity goals, instead of quality ones. A recent study indicates that people can also be primed for more creative idea generation when they kick-off such sessions by sharing embarrassing stories, which lowers their inhibitions and, thus, improves their performance.