Creating a club, devising an original project, or generating a college essay, often begins with ‘brainstorming’. Brainstorming originated in the late 1940’s when Alex Osborn, a partner at the advertising agency BBDO, wrote his groundbreaking book Your Creative Power. In it, he introduced his creative juggernaut, “using the brain to storm a creative problem—and doing so in a commando fashion.” (p. 22 “Groupthink” by Jonah Lehrer, The New Yorker, 30 January 2012: http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2012/01/30/120130fa_fact_lehrer)
The four general rules of brainstorming are generate a quantity of ideas, accept unusual ideas, combine and improve ideas, and banish all criticism of ideas, which is the cardinal rule. Osborn believed, “creativity is so delicate a flower that praise tends to make it bloom, while discouragement often nips it in the bud.” (p. 23) Brainstorming, consequently, seems a great means for generating creative solutions. There is only one problem: it doesn’t work.
Studies performed at Yale University in the late 1950s, along with decades of corroborative research, confirm, unequivocally, that brainstorming muffles individual creativity. In one such study Professor Charlan Nemeth of UC Berkeley asked 65 female undergraduates for ideas to address traffic congestion problems in the Bay area. She then divided her undergraduates into three groups that used the uncritical brainstorming approach, no instructions at all, and open debate and criticism. The debate and criticism group, on average, generated a fifth more ideas. Even after disbanding the groups, the members of the debate group generated 7 ideas for every 3 coming from the brainstorming or random group. (p. 24) Dissent and debate ‘invigorate’ the creative process.
Osborn’s work, however, did discover that the best ideas are more often generated by groups rather than individuals. Virtually all scientific research done today is collaborative. Published works with over a hundred citations, the ‘platinum’ research papers, are six times more likely to be the product of a group than an individual.
That being true, the next question is what mix of people generates the best creative solutions? A study of successful Broadway plays, over a period of four decades, found that a team composed of a range of people, both experienced and inexperienced, is best. Broadway shows require a mix of talents from costume makers and set designers, to lyricists and composers; the best Broadway production staffs are composed of both seasoned partners along with a generous portion of new talent. Without a mix of both, productions tend to get stale or lack the necessary structure to function well.
To generate the best collaborative creative efforts, it’s essential that team members meet often, and even better, informally. This is exactly why, when designing the Pixar Film Studio offices, Steve Jobs wanted to ensure everybody would run into each other a lot. The best ideas, the best meetings, happen by accident. Another example is Building #20 at MIT, an architectural disaster. Nevertheless, during its life, it generated innumerable ground-breaking inventions including the first video game, the physics behind microwaves, the original Bose speakers, and Chomskyan linguistics. The reason? It contained, within its flimsy walls, “a particle accelerator, ROTC offices, cell culture lab, the MIT linguistics department, and various other stragglers from a variety of undergraduate departments. The denizen of Building #20 met often, informally, and they talked about virtually everything.
When you begin to brainstorm on writing your essays, starting up a club, or creating a project, don’t worry about criticism or debate; furthermore, if you run into an odd teacher or the class computer geek accidentally at the drinking fountain, talk to them about different solutions. Subject your ideas to boundless criticism and “clashing perspectives.” The end result will be exceptional creativity and any bruise to the ego will quickly mend.