The word “brainstorming”, which sounds unclear and unsettling at the moment, has changed a bit. It was originally intended to stimulate the team’s creativity, but often the less the creativity is discussed, the mention of “brainstorm” only makes the brain hurt. Rest assured, you are definitely not alone with this feeling. A new survey shows that most people who are engaged in creative work think that brainstorming is a waste of time.
In the eyes of the public, writers, musicians, photographers, advertisers and other occupations are all closely related to inspiration and creativity. Many people should have sparked together when they came together, but the Dutch file sharing company WeTransfer commissioned a consulting company to consult with A survey of 20,000 creative workers in the region showed that many of them found that this mode of discussion was basically not helpful in finding ideas The fact that there are many people does not mean that there are too many ideas.
Brainstorming is a concept put forward by the legendary American advertiser Alex Osborn in the 1950s. It advocates allowing individuals to freely express their opinions and trigger the association of others, creating as many as possible in a short period of time. idea.
However, nearly 80% of creative workers say they trust their intuition and research more when evaluating ideas, and only 18% ask their colleagues and friends for advice.
▲ What is scarier than work is a meeting. Picture from: WeTransfer
In addition, not everyone can be inspired anytime, anywhere, and independent thinking without outside interference is also the beauty Osborne strongly advocates.Germany, but in the real brainstorming, the important part of personal preparation and reflection before the meeting is often overlooked. As a result, the topic is misaligned or simply cold, and the lengthy meeting will only consume energy. 42% of the respondents think that The work turned into a large-scale distraction weapon.
“In the creative world, we hear a lot about collaboration, but it seems that working together is essential to turning ideas into reality, but not so useful for shaping them,” the report wrote.
The brainstorming controversy has a long history. More and more studies have found that compared to attending brainstorming sessions, the same person will have more different ideas when working alone. Leigh, a professor at Northwestern University ’s business school The explanation given by Thompson is that individuals are better at divergent thinking—thinking on a large scale to generate multiple ideas, while groups are better at converging thinking—making decisions from multiple perspectives,
▲ Image from: Unsplash
Therefore, in brainstorming, individuals tend to follow the will of the group, and even if they are not the same as everyone else, they dare not speak out, let alone in your words and words.Yi lost his way and had no time to think independently.
In addition, people always have dependencies. Everyone feels that anybody else in the team will work hard anyway, and it is difficult for us to go all out ourselves, so the final result usually only reaches the lower limit of the team.
However, although brainstorming may not produce the most brilliant idea, it is not completely useless. Studies published by the University of Northern Illinois in the Journal of Communication indicate that its value lies in team building rather than tactical meetings. The principles of positiveness, openness, and reference to others can promote team cohesion and trust.
That being the case, it’s a good idea to have fewer meetings when doing creative work.
Title picture from: Unsplash