Brainstorming sessions can generate many solid ideas, but they can also end up being far from productive. How, as a business owner, can you ensure your next session delivers more than a few “just-OK” ideas? We’ve gathered top tips from experts to help you get the most out of this type of meeting.
1. Throw your anchors away
Bringing a group of people together to toss ideas around sounds simple enough, but traditional brainstorming can fall into a well-worn trap. In many cases, the first ideas expressed lead to more ideas that only relate to the first, which hinders further creative thinking. This situation is called “anchoring.”
Leigh Thompson, a management professor at the Kellogg School, knows why anchoring is so commonplace. “When [I’m] talking, you’re not thinking of your own ideas,” she wrote in an article for Fast Company. “Subconsciously, you’re already assimilating to my ideas.”
