Conducting brainstorming sessions during meetings is easy. It’s the actual brainstorming that’s the challenge — and often ineffective. When you are the leader, how on earth do you influence your team to come up with excellent ideas on the spot, and then actually follow through with them? Here are a few ideas.
Think Fast!
Encourage quick, impromptu thinking where every meeting includes a spur of the moment prompt, where each person quickly throws out an idea that comes to mind. Crazy is OK. This action removes the fear barrier of people being afraid to say something stupid; and you will be surprised what you will find
Display Gratitude
Start off the session with a positive thought, occurrence, accomplishment or life event. This always starts your meetings off on a positive note, and is the pathway for everyone having an open mind. The results are spectacular.
Get the Best of the Worst
When creativity is at a standstill or your task is particularly difficult, challenge your team members to come up with the WORST idea possible. This is a easy way to create fun and laughter instead of what might otherwise be a stressful and dead-end meeting. Usually after a few minutes of hideous ideas, someone will have a breakthrough, because without anyone knowing it, you are still igniting creativity, which was your goal in the first place.
Have a Sense of Humor
Humor is brain fuel. Dopamine and endorphins keeps tension low, morale high, and will allow for significant engagement. Everything in a brainstorming session should be fair game; no idea is a bad idea, and set the expectation that everything stated no matter what is fair game for making FUN of. You may even bring in the class clown for these meetings just to keep the mood fun, even if they are not part of the team.
Relocate your Meetings
Get the creative juices flowing by changing your meeting locations. People might be tired of starting out the same window or painting on the wall. Try a new conference room in your office, or try going for a walk. Maybe the lobby of your office building is a beautiful area that provides comfort and aesthetics that will give your team a different mindset for creativity.
Provide Some Sort of Incentives
If you really want to get people to “think outside the box”, that make sure there is something in it for them. There is no better motivation than reward, so if your meetings are not yielding worthwhile results, try showing appreciation for their creativity with an award for the best idea. Gift cards or anything related will surely entice your staff to think hard and compete for an award.
Know When To Stop
Try to stay on target with your topics. Digressions are often storytelling and get into a more personal tone than the task at hand. Keep these under control and make sure you stop when you start to see excessive digressions or other body language that dictates boredom. The last thing you want to do is set the bar for a dreadful meeting that people have to look forward to, instead of an exciting creative atmosphere where everyone walks away with fulfillment and self-worth.