Brainstorming: Is Brainstorming Really Effective?

Perhaps you have ever heard or read the following phrase: "nobody is as smart as all of us together". This Japanese saying, very popular today, is frequently used in environments where the creativity it must be combined with group work.

Specifically, it is usually pronounced by the brave person in charge of energizing a session of brainstorming or brainstorming, a very popular work tool both in companies and in educational settings. In brainstorming, the person in charge of facilitating these working groups will try to keep motivated to all members of the team for the sake of collective productivity, while ensuring that none of the ideas of its members is ridiculed.

A collective brain

Many brainstorming advocates tend to think of brainstorming as a kind of collective brain, a prodigy capable of offering the best possible answer to any problem thanks to the teachings of each participant. These people think: "surely, despite all the efforts invested in it, the experience is worth it and we can all generate the best possible idea... not?".

The truth is that, although some people embellish the concept of brainstorming ("a source of wisdom generated organically by the common ", etc.) it seems that group work does not creativity. In fact, there is reasons to think that we come up with more ideas when we work alone than when we do it in a group, although we misleadingly believe that the method followed in brainstorming enhances our creative side.

Why is this happening? Basically because our brain is not prepared to work like this.

Brainstorming, or questionable group creativity

The relative low efficacy of the brainstormingseems to be explained due to a bottleneck phenomenon, that is, each contribution made by each member of the group "slows down" the rest in their elaboration of plans: which means, on the one hand, that people do not stand out for coordinating very well when it comes to thinking about a solution together, and on the other hand, for thinking about a solution and at the same time listening to colleagues it is costly in terms of productivity. In a group, the ideas are presented sequentially, which forces us to constantly readjust our discourse, while a only one person is able to shuffle several ideas in an orderly way, discard from the beginning those that seem unimportant, and give an answer clear.

In addition, it has also been proposed that the anxiety produced by the presence of others, who judge both us and our interventions, can act as a brake on a task that has to be characterized precisely by promoting disinhibition and creativity. The creation of a relaxed atmosphere, one of the premises of the method, is compromised by our propensity to direct attention to totally venal or, at least, non-work-related aspects of the social to try.

Despite all this, we still believe that the group presentation of ideas enhances our inventiveness and, in general, allows us to reach good solutions. Some psychologists refer to this under the illusion of group effectiveness. This deception can be due to three possibilities. The first consists of a memory failure in which people attribute to themselves ideas that other participants have contributed (fountain), which could be good for self-esteem.

The second reason is that during group work, each participant has the opportunity to rest while another participant speaks. person, which reduces the probability of being blocked, without this having to mean a better result final (fountain). The third component of this illusion could be the fact that, when comparing our performance with the average performance of the group, the most likely is that we believe that we feel at the same level as the rest even with little effort (in terms of creativity or productivity) and that this generates wellness (fountain).

Not everything is buts

Of course, all this does not mean that brainstorming can be an interesting option in some cases. The effectiveness of this type of method is difficult to measure, and statistical analyzes are blind to the subjective appreciation of the ideas that are born with the brainstorming. Brainstorming may not be the appropriate means to generate many ideas in a group way, but perhaps it does influence the quality of this.

You may even have a therapeutic effect about the members of a group or that, who knows, even improves the work environment at a certain time by breaking with the routine and promoting mutual knowledge. In this type of question, as always, the experience of each one must count.

A little mental trap

The illusion of group efficacy is another example that, within the psychology of organizations, the priority is not always rationality. Brainstorming, despite not being much more effective than other forms of group work, has in this kind of mental trap a help that makes it reach the organizations to to stay.

So now you know: if you've ever wondered why multiple people with different interests, different ways of thinking, and responsibilities While different people may come to appreciate a method such as brainstorming despite its questionable effectiveness, the answer could be that it is simply they love to do it.