The Brainstorming Illusion

Most teams associate successful ideation with group work. Surprisingly, that’s not true. Group brainstorming feels more productive because the social connection we experience with each other during brainstorming makes us happier and we confuse that with productivity.

In practice, nominal brainstorming (where individual team members think independently before sharing their ideas) consistently outperforms traditional group brainstorming, especially for diverse teams.

Trying to resolve things too quickly, especially for complex problems, is detrimental to innovation because you fall prey to premature closure. And resistance to premature closure — a key aspect of creativity — is our ability to keep an open mind when we already have a po...