One of the most enjoyable aspects of working in marketing and advertising is brainstorming. Everyone knows that It should be done with the right investment upfront in making sure that everyone knows the objectives of the session and always be done in small groups. What is often overlooked is the need to include the right range of thinker types.
I’ve found that the best ideas come from one person in a team at a time. Others on the team then either latch onto that idea or ignore it, they build upon it or somehow kill it. So how does a great idea thrive? In my experience it’s by ensuring that when it comes time to shape the idea, you find the right critic.
The critic must be a person who appreciates how hard it is to come up with a good idea, be a master of the objectives of the brainstorming session, and know how to foster a good idea to brilliance, capture a good idea that’s not best for this solution for another time, or kill an idea overtly (with strong rationale).
A room full of people who all agree with every idea is unnerving and unproductive. I have actually been in sessions like that. I have also been in painful sessions where I came up with a brilliant idea that was killed for the wrong reasons, and it zapped my ability to want to contribute. By far, the most productive sessions I have had involve having the right critic– the person with the sensibilities to understand my idea for all its positives and negatives and make an assessment that keeps the best moving forward.
It’s important to be the right kind of critic to others when the time comes, and find the one for yourself when you are truly dedicated to making sure your ideas are defensibly brilliant.
Insights & Utterances by Jeff Sternstein 