The OffBeat #23: Brainwriting
A radical alternative to brainstorming
I’m one of those people that needs solo marination time to come up with ideas. Some people are awesome in a live brainstorm session, their minds foaming over with concepts faster than can be whiteboarded. I need uncluttered time to focus and channel my thoughts, after which I love getting together with a group to share ideas, riff, and build together.
Turns out I’m not alone. Adam Grant coined the idea of “brainwriting”:
“[I]f you take five students and put them in a brainstorming group together, you will get fewer ideas and less original ideas than if you had taken those same five students and let them work independently, in separate rooms, by themselves….
[T]here a few things that happen that make brainstorming groups less than the sum of their parts. One is called production blocking, and it's the basic idea that we can't all talk at once. And as a result, some ideas and some students just don't get heard. Two, there's ego threat, where kids are nervous about looking stupid or foolish, so they hold back on their most original ideas. And then, three is conformity. One or two ideas get raised that are popular. Everyone wants to jump on the majority bandwagon, as opposed to bringing in some radical, different ways of thinking.
You put kids in separate rooms, what you get is all of the ideas on the table, and then you can bring the group together for what the group does best, which is the wisdom of crowds. The evaluating. The idea selecting. The figuring out which of these ideas really has potential to be, not only novel, but also useful….
That technique is actually called brainwriting. Instead of brainstorm. It's a great term and I think we should do more of it.”
I’d add a fourth challenge to Grant’s list of the problems with group brainstorms: some people (🙋♀️) just need solo quiet time to prepare thoughts before creative collaboration. It’s kind of like mise en place when cooking—I like to get everything gathered and prepped on the counter before diving into the recipe.
I recently finished Aaron Dignan’s Brave New Work. He shares my conviction around how and why, today, work isn’t working. His proposed 12-component Operating System (composed of elements like structure, resources, meetings, workflow) to transform legacy organizations into “evolutionary organizations” hinges on two concepts: people positivity and complexity consciousness. It boils down to a) treating employees like trustworthy, independent adults, and b) being flexible and constraint-free to manage changes and challenges nimbly.
Dignan’s ideas are offbeat, and OffBeat, in their nature—compassionately contrarian, future-focused, people-first—so his work naturally attracts me. As it pertains to brainwriting, Adam Grant’s concept of holding an independent pre-work phase before a group brainstorm session is an example of Dignan’s thinking in action: making a simple structural shift to acknowledge the complex dynamics of human collaboration and unlock greater creative results.
As Grant puts it, “Group wisdom begins with individual creativity.” That’s true of brainwriting, of music, of culture at large, and it’s the entire premise of The OffBeat.
Have a great week,
Allison
P.S. More offbeat business book recommendations here.