MODERN BUSINESS people do not work so effectively in these types of situations . And in addition , Groupthink , in which group members start to think in behave in similar ways , can significantly reduce the effectiveness of a brainstorm .
To overcome the huge shortcomings of brainstorming , try adopting a technique called Shifting . Shifting involves firstly getting people to generate ideas on their own for 5 or so minutes . And then , after people have had enough individual idea generation time , get the group to remerge , give everyone a turn to share their ideas , and then as a group , flesh out the ideas that have the most potential .
Over at Harvard University , researchers found that groups using Shifting generated significantly more and significantly broader ideas , compared to traditional brainstormers . So if you do decide to use this technique , you can expect a whole lot more ideas , and more diverse ones at that .
2The happiness hangover
Our emotional state in fact has a big impact on our ability to be innovative . Researchers at Pennsylvania State University conducted a study which examined the impact of happy and sad moods on idea generation . To put them into the required mood , participants were first asked to describe a recent life event that made them feel happy or sad . Following the mood manipulation , participants were asked to write down as many things they could think of that could fly . On average , participants in the happy group came up with almost 50 % more ideas than the sad group . The happiness hypothesis was also explored by Teresa Amabile at Harvard University . Amabile asked several hundred people to keep a work diary that detailed their daily activities , moods and other workplace events . An analysis of these diary entries showed that people were more likely to come up with breakthrough ideas when they were feeling happy , even if this happiness was experienced the day before the idea was generated .
When we are happy , the level of a brain chemical called dopamine increases . In the frontal lobe , dopamine controls the flow of information to other parts of the brain . When people feel happy , information flows more freely , thus opening up connections between concepts that are only remotely associated with one another .
In contrast , when people feel sad , they become more detail-oriented with their thinking which means that they often will not see the greater possibilities . In other words , they get focused on the trees to the
exclusion of the forest .
3Recognise , but don ’ t reward Think back over the past few years and consider how your performance at work has been rewarded – or how you have rewarded others in your organisation . Has cash or recognition featured more strongly ?
Many universities and researchers around the world have studied payfor-performance reward systems . In one such study , researchers found that individuals who were rewarded in this manner tended to avoid risky behaviour . People got so caught up in achieving their targets , they focused on repeating what they had done in the past and tried not to do anything that might mess up their rewards .
When people try to avoid risk , creativity is one of the first things to fly out the window . Creativity and innovation , of course , require a degree of risk and often a large number of failures before the
November 2016 ModernBusiness 41