Has this ever happened to you? Last week, I was watching a team brainstorm a solution to a problem. After a few minutes one of the people in the room proposed an idea and instead of working with the idea or building on it, the manager bursted out with, “I have a MUCH better idea!” Then went on to tell everyone his ‘great idea.’
Now, the manager’s idea could’ve been perfectly valid, but that’s not the point. As soon as he shot out with his 'great idea', can you guess how many more ideas the team came up with? Zero, zilch, not a one. Brainstorming session over.
Afterward I talked to one of the teammates and as expected she said that if he’s just going to jump in with his own great ideas, she’ll never share a new idea with this manager ever again. "What's the point?"
When brainstorming we could all take a page out of the improv comedian’s playbook. Brainstorming is a time for people to share ideas and then you build on them with a
“Yes… and …” The goal here is to take your teammates' ideas (whether good or bad) and build on it. Watching a great improv group is a work of art, they're able to take any starting idea and through a series of "Yes ... ands" they create an amazing show that's better than anything any one of them would have performed on their own.
To wrap up, when you do end up building on someone else's original idea, make sure that you give credit - and thanks - to everyone that helped contribute to the process. The goal with brainstorming is to get the best ideas on the table, regardless of source, so make sure that everyone that helped gets credit for their contribution.