Hello, and welcome to English for Marketing and Sales. In the scene at the beginning of this lesson, you saw Jake inviting some of the team to a brainstorming session. This instructional video will focus on how brainstorming techniques can help you to generate new ideas and to find innovative solutions to difficult problems. Brainstorming meetings, when done well, open up possibilities and break down assumptions. Because everyone participates in the building of ideas it promotes buy-in. Buy-in in this case refers to getting agreement to support a decision. Because brainstorming meetings can often be fun. They can also have the added benefit of bonding a group of individuals together. Unfortunately, this benefit can be undermined by criticism that's offered too early or one powerful voice that unfortunately quiets others. My next instructional video, we'll go over those positive and negative roles in more detail. But for this video, let's simply agree that the best ideas come from brainstorming meetings where everyone feels safe to throw ideas into the mix. So let's go over some key strategies for making your next brainstorming session effective. Some people think a brainstorming session as this free for all, outside the box crazy idea generation and it can be. But for it to be most effective, you need to set some parameters. So first, you define the problem the brainstorm is supposed to solve or you set the criteria that the idea needs to meet. For example, Jake clearly identified that the goal was to brainstorm what makes BioDent toothpaste and breath mints standout products in the Asia/Pac market and for the second meeting, to brainstorm as many names as possible. You also need to consider who should attend. Smaller groups tend to work better than large groups. If you do have a large group, consider creating smaller breakout groups. Factor in diversity when creating your group. People of different backgrounds and experiences offer a wider variety of ideas. Also think about how much time to devote to the brainstorming session. We don't call it brainstorming for nothing. The mental work required of brain storming means such meetings are best kept short. I know for myself like an engine that's been reved for too long, after a rigorous brain storming session my head feels like it's on fire. It's great but it's exhausting. It can be a challenge to know when to close. A good rule of thumb is if you're generating ideas, keep it to 30 to 40 minutes long. If the session begins to lag or slow down, just wrap it up. On the other hand, if you're making connections and creating frameworks and the creative sparks are flying, make it longer. There's nothing worse than breaking the concentration in the middle of the creative process. Now, we come to the actual brain storming session. Let me ask you a question. When you have brainstormed, do you usually do it as a group and discuss ideas as they come up? Or do you start brainstorming alone and then come together with others who have also brainstormed alone to share and discuss your ideas? Which method do you think is more effective? Let me ask another question. When brainstorming for innovation, would you rather have an outcome of one outstanding idea, along with several pretty bad ideas, or would you rather have many average to good ideas? A recent study explored the difference in quality of idea generation from the traditional group brainstorm versus a hybrid brainstorm that combined individual idea generation with group discussion. They found the hybrid model to be more effective at not only generating a greater number of ideas but also more importantly at generating ideas of better quality, as determined by outside evaluators. The average quality in the hybrid model was 30% higher than the average in the traditional group model. And the quality for the top five ideas in each group as well as the quality of the best idea were both higher than the hybrid model. They found that initial independent thoughts were unbiased and unaffected by external circumstances. In other words, people were less likely to censor themselves, to go along with a superior or to leave the heavy lifting, or hard work, to others. You can implement the hybrid model in one of two ways. First, you can have people brainstorm independently before the meeting. Offer some guidance to ensure enough ideas have been generated. For example, you can tell them, come up with at least 10 ideas by Wednesday. Another option is to give time in the brainstorm meeting for everyone to silently write down ideas before discussing them as a group. Regardless of the method you choose, you should follow certain guidelines for the brainstorming session to ensure success. Establish the ground rules. For example, discourage criticism of ideas. The purpose of brainstorming is idea generation. Evaluating the merits of the ideas can come lighter. Encourage building on other ideas. This is not about ownership of an idea at the same time, you don't want to focus too much on only building one idea. Enlist the help of a scribe to capture all the ideas in a visible location. You can use a flip chart, a white board, or even better, an online brainstorming tool, even something as simple as Google Docs. That allows everyone to contribute at once, whether they are in the room or across the globe. This can sometimes also allow means for anonymous brainstorming, which can help encourage participation. Use mind maps to show connections between your ideas. Whatever you do keep the mood the positive and the energy level high. Break the process up into several shorter meetings if things start to lag. Let's take a moment to sum up the takeaways for this lesson. To generate the highest quality ideas, incorporate a hybrid model of individual and then group brainstorming. Bring together a diverse group of people so that you have many different perspectives. Define the problem or set the criteria, document the ideas, postpone evaluation, and keep the energy level high. Thanks for watching English for Marketing and Sales. See you next time.
