Why Brainstorming Meetings Suck and How to Make Them Better
Subscribe to the audio blog on your favorite podcast app: Subscribe If you want to see eyes roll, tell the team you planned a brainstorming meeting. The hope is to practice innovation, foster teamwork, or prop up low morale. Motives, whether sane or desperate, propel such a meeting to the calendar. The effectiveness of these types of meetings is another story, however. Be honest. They suck. Let me jog your memory. The dreaded no-idea-is-bad on the whiteboard turns into three people dominating the meeting while the rest watch the clock, hoping to get to the break room microwave first to warm the leftovers they brought for lunch. After an hour’s work, the whiteboard has the thoughts of these three people, and the no-bad-ideas promise fails. Passing objections and restrained snickers frustrate the goal of non-judgmental civility, however. The leader writes lists of ideas on the board, filtering, categorizing, and labeling them in…