Working With Your Brain
By Peter LloydThe ironic question, “Why is there only one word for thesaurus?” reminds me of another. Why is there only one way to brainstorm? You’d think a process designed to generate a lot of ideas might work a lot of different ways. Okay, maybe there are two ways—the right way and the wrong way—but that’s all.
Some time ago, experimenting with Google Wave, I ventured into the brainstorming area and saw “Some Rules for Brainstorming.” No surprise. They read just like the rules I’ve seen over and over again.
- Defer judgment: Don’t dismiss any ideas. Nothing can kill the spirit of a brainstorm quicker. You can even delete negative feedback.
- Encourage wild ideas: The whole point of brainstorming is to come up with new and creative ideas.
- Combine and improve ideas: No “buts,” only “ands.”
- Go for quantity: Aim for as many new ideas as possible.
More recently I googled “how to generate ideas.” Here are the first ten results:
- Top 10 Ways to Generate Brilliant Ideas
- 6 Tips to Generate Outstanding Ideas
- New & Improved: How to Generate Better Ideas
- How to Generate Ideas
- Ideas, Ideas, How to Create More Ideas
- How to Generate Hundreds of Writing Ideas
- How to Create Ideas: 11 Proven Lessons from Idea Generators
- Zen Power Writing: 15 Tips on How to Generate Ideas and Write
- Generating New Ideas
Naturally the top two and a few of the other listings were so full of trashy ads, it took some time to find the text, but all of the articles contained, in one form or another, the same basic brainstorming rules. Not one even suggested that there was some new way to brainstorm. The best article by far is the tenth, by Michael Michalko, in Psychology Today.
Why Just One Way?
To understand brainstorming is to understand why there’s only one way to do it. Your brain, of course, is your principal brainstorming tool. It’s a product of nature and nature does things her way. You can’t get around the way she wired your brain, no more than you can stand with your heels and legs flat against a wall and touch your toes.
Creative tools can assist you and help you generate more ideas and wilder ideas. They can help you combine ideas randomly, but you have to defer judgment in order to recognize and improve the ideas. Unfortunately some tools and processes aimed at helping you brainstorm can just as effectively hinder your free flow of ideas.
For example, I was taught to make an outline before writing. Naturally I deliberately and defiantly refused to work that way and managed to write my own way. Later a teacher recommended jotting notes on index cards, which could be displayed on a table, rearranged, and combined. Getting the idea cards in the sequence that worked best ended up being my version of an outline.
Outlining is unnatural. It’s linear. Your brain doesn’t think linearly. Mindmapping, like shuffling index cards, takes advantage of the way the human brain works. It encourages random input and makes it easy to make connections. Other tools, like TRIZ and Animal Crackers lead you to solved problems similar to the problem vexing you. They can reduce search time, but again, you have to recognize how the found solution applies to your problem.
Our ability to make tools practically defines us humans. Just as our best hand tools work with, rather than against, our prehensile-thumbed hands, brainstorming tools work best when they enhance the natural creative process rather than fight it. When they work with the brain, rather than against it.
Peter Lloyd is co-creator with Stephen Grossman of Animal Crackers, the breakthrough problem-solving tool designed to crack your toughest problems.