 I've done a fair amount of writing and drafting presentations, putting things like that together and creating in that sense. And I can tell you the hardest part for me is always right here. This blank page, it can't handle this blank page sharing me. It's so hard for me to get started on a lot of these things and know where to go and how to get rolling. And, you know, the same thing is true, I think, in groups a lot of times. We have trouble knowing how to get rolling and how to tap into and access the creativity that exists within that group and that we need to in order to really fulfill our group function. So in this video I want to talk a little bit about how we can go about enhancing creativity in groups. So that's where we're headed. How can we enhance the creativity and really can tap into that creativity that exists in groups? So first of all, let's start at the beginning, as we often do, and define creativity. What do we mean by that? Creativity is very simply creating ideas that are both novel and useful in some context. So just coming up with something that is new, meaning novel, meaning new, that it's a new and that it's in some way useful, potentially could be useful to us or to somebody else or whatever. So creativity is just the process of creating those kind of ideas that are novel and useful in some context. Now a lot of times when we're in groups we're in what we call problem solving groups. Problem solving groups can certainly use creativity. We've got the problem, we need to do some thinking creatively to come up within that solution. So for problem solving groups, creativity is an absolute necessity and really using that effectively becomes very, very important. Now we want to distinguish a little bit between a couple of common terms. So first we have creativity, which is what we were just talking about. Coming up with ideas that are novel and useful. But then sometimes we refer to what we call innovation. And those things are related, they're connected, but innovation then has to do with applying those things, taking those creative ideas and actually putting them to work, putting them into use, not just coming up with the idea, that's creativity, but innovation involves not only coming up with the idea but then putting it into action, putting a plan into action, following through and putting that idea out into the world in reality. So that's the difference when we say creativity and innovation. Creativity just has to do with the idea itself. Innovation has to do with how are we going to put this into practice and that's where groups live as well. They have to not just come up with these ideas but they have to figure out how can we best implement this and make it a realistic idea and bring it into reality. Make that idea, that creative idea a reality. That comes through innovation. Now one of the most common types of techniques in the creative processes and one of the things we use a lot in groups of course is brainstorming. This idea of brainstorming is incredibly important in groups. It's used a lot. So let's dig into that a little bit and then talk about some of the different variations that exist within brainstorming as well. So brainstorming is very simply a group creativity technique that was designed to generate a large number of ideas for the solution of a problem. So that's the whole thing of brainstorming is you come up with a lot of ideas. And you do that in the group process by sharing ideas and maybe that's first something else and then you sort it through and we're going to talk about what that looks like. But first of all, when you're engaging in a brainstorming session, there have to be some ground rules that you follow. This is what brainstorming is. It puts this framework in place for us to share ideas and go through this process. So the ground rules for brainstorming are first of all, you focus on quantity. You worry about quality later, but at first you focus on quantity. If it's an idea, you put it out there, so we want as many possible options as possible in brainstorming. So you focus on quantity, not necessarily quality. When we're brainstorming, we need to remember as group members that we need to withhold criticism. When somebody throws an idea out there, we put it up on the board, we don't weigh it at that moment. We're not evaluating it at that moment. We're withholding criticism saying, well, that'll never work and this is the problem with that. Again, we'll have an opportunity for that later, but when we're in the initial stages of the brainstorming session, you withhold criticism. You just get as many ideas out there as possible, focus on quantity, withhold criticism so that we keep things moving forward and then we can get as many ideas out there as possible. We also want to welcome unusual ideas. Somebody says something strange. Somebody says something that you think won't work. That's okay. Or somebody says something different. It's cliche, but if they're thinking outside the box, that's good. We want those unusual ideas to spur our thinking, to expand the boundaries of our thinking a little bit and just to maybe spark something in other people, but we want unusual ideas as well as more conventional ideas and things we may think are more practical, but really anything that you have that could potentially work for that particular problem, you should throw it out there. As unusual or strange as it may sound, that could very well spur something else or in somebody's mind or be used later or something so. Anyway, throw every idea out there. Again, quantity over quality at the moment. Welcome those unusual ideas. And then don't be afraid to combine and improve ideas. If you have an idea and somebody else says something and you think, well, this could work together, sometimes one plus one equals three. Sometimes that's that synergy that we see in groups at work. So in the creative process and the brainstorming process, don't be afraid to combine ideas and to improve upon those ideas if somebody says something and you think, well, yeah, but we could do it this way to do it better. And don't be afraid to do that. Just want to hold criticism, but we want to build on each other's ideas and combine them and use them as inspiration or an idea that what we say may knock something loose in somebody else's mind. So we want to be sure that we're looking at that. So the ground rules are again, focus on quantity, withhold criticism, welcome unusual ideas, and combine and improve ideas as you have the opportunity to do so. Okay, now there is a little bit of work we need to do beforehand before we get into actual brainstorming. First of all, understand the ground rules. But then before we actually get to the brainstorming session, there are a few things we want to do beforehand. First of all, we want to make sure that we define the problem, that we have a very clear understanding of what it is we're trying to solve, that we're not just throwing ideas out for other things, but we want to specifically focus, we want to be able to define the problem and specifically focus on that problem as part of the session. And so that we need to do beforehand. We also need to select our participants beforehand, select people that we think we can add or that will add something to the conversation or that has some connection to this or may want some input on this and decide who is going to be invited to this session. Is it better for you to have the group there or is it better for you to go and observe this process yourself and select participants based on, again, who's going to have a direct impact and so anyway, select participants carefully and do you need everybody there or is it better to just bring in certain people but you don't want to limit just because you think somebody might not have something to offer, they may very well have something and you might not know that, so don't be shy about inviting people but you do need to be selective in participants as well and be sure you develop lead questions. If you're facilitating this particular meeting or this effort, be sure you develop some lead questions, meaning questions that will prompt other people. When you get stuck and people are just kind of milling around them and they're not really sure what to think or what they're doing, you need a couple questions that can kind of push people toward, would this work with your idea or have you, you know, what do you think about trying it this way? You develop those questions in advance so that you have them at your disposal if you're leading that meeting and can do so effectively then by prompting people with those lead questions. So we want to do all this before the meeting, before we get into the actual brainstorming part. This is all things that should be done, you know, in the weeks or however long you have leading up to that meeting. Now, when we get into the actual brainstorming process and it is a process, you'll see here, first of all, we want to follow each of these steps. We want to warm up the group, meaning maybe ask them a simpler question or something just to give people, just to give people talking, get people comfortable with talking about these things, right? Then we want to present the problem. Again, define that problem very clearly to define what it is we're here and present it to the group. Then you ask the group to share ideas. Just to throw ideas out there and everything is welcome. There's no limitation in this particular part of the process. You want to make sure that everybody feels that and understands that they can throw anything out there as crazy as it might be. There'll be a chance later to talk about that. But right now, you're just focusing on getting as many ideas as you possibly can up for this and that you would want up for what you're going to do for this particular thing. So have the group share their ideas. The next step is to categorize those ideas. What categories really depend on what you're working on, what you're doing, but you want to somehow categorize these as, well, these are similar. They would work the same or do the same thing. These are similar over here. They have a common thread running through them. You want to categorize those ideas. Once you've done that, then you can evaluate and eliminate ideas. Now you're going to get a chance to criticize to say, well, this is why I think this won't work or this is a bad idea or whatever. You're going to get a chance to poke holes in things and in the ideas anyway, not the actual product or whatever it is you're working on or certainly not the group members, but you should be categorizing them so that you can then evaluate and eliminate ideas. So you're going to evaluate them as objectively and fairly as possible and then start eliminating some. Say, that's not possible because of this. And if it's truly not possible, then you would eliminate that or you just start limiting and kind of prioritizing those things because then in the next step, you're going to select the idea or ideas that you think would work best in that situation and try it out. So as a group, you're going to identify, evaluate these and eliminate those that won't work. And then of the ones that are left, you're going to apply it, you're going to select that idea and potentially more than one idea. You could run depending on what you're doing. I just want to make sure it's not limited to, you can only pick one. This is not Highlanders if you're familiar with that reference, Highlander movies, but there can be more than one. It's not limited to just the one. If it's appropriate, you can select multiple ideas then, but based on that process. That's the brainstorming process in general. And that's a little bit oversimplified, but that's basically what's happening as part of the brainstorming process. Now, the brainstorming process really was developed in the 50s. And since that time, we've had a chance to, of course, come up with different variations of brainstorming and different ways to do it. And certainly the technology is a lot is to do some of these different things differently. So the first one that kind of came around and was popularized and is still popular is called nominal group technique. Nominal group technique is a variation of brainstorming where essentially, instead of just having everybody shout out ideas all at the same time and as part of this process, everybody writes down, you know, an idea or comes up with an idea and you go around and everybody has a chance to then present their individual suggestions. They present their specific idea, their one thing. And then the group discusses that as well. Eventually the group will do, you know, everybody suggests something one at a time, kind of, and then the group discusses it and then they evaluate it, rank those things and pick something. But it just is a way for more people to be involved, you know, when it is kind of the brainstorming in general turns into kind of a battle royale, right? Or a survival of the fittest type thing. Who can talk the loudest? Who can elbow their way in there to get their ideas spoken about and thought about? Nominal group technique has a better chance of everybody being involved because you're going to go around and say, okay, what's your first idea? Give us one. And then you're going to go to the next person. Okay, what's yours? And what's yours? And what's yours? This is a process where everybody gets a little more involved. In addition to nominal group technique, you have a one that's kind of a branch of that called affinity technique, where you kind of do the same thing except you do it with post-it notes. You basically have everybody write their idea on a post-it note or something like that and you know, they slap it on the wall, you collect everything, all these ideas, and then you go around and you group those things. Again, you categorize and you group the different ideas that people have come up with. And then you would label them as, you know, this is our primary option or a secondary option or the option that just will not work and we shouldn't talk about anymore or whatever. But we want to group those and so that's just a slightly different way of doing the nominal group technique. You can also do something called group passing. The group passing method or group passing technique is that everybody writes down an idea on a piece of paper or something and then you pass it to the next person and that person adds something to it or makes some significant adjustment to it to make it more effective or realistic to see if it would work and you keep passing and then you pass it to the next person and they add something or you know a comment on something there and then you pass it on to the next person and so forth. You get the idea until it gets back to the original person obviously who has one of these as well and is reviewing it for somebody else. They're adding something onto somebody else's. So the group passing technique though can be interesting because it can provide some of that synergy, can provide different perspective on what may be a good original idea and really develop it into something more significant. You can engage in team mapping where everybody brings their own kind of ideas and then you decide where it fits within this map you try and then that can be helpful in trying to identify areas where there's some crossover between ideas and things may work in combination with one another but you basically just you know come up with these ideas and branching off of one another branching off the the central idea while keeping it focused on the main premise of course and then of course with technology today we can do what we call electronic brainstorming where and there's a variety of ways you can do this people can send in their ideas and you can pass them around or you can start a google doc or something that you can edit simultaneously and people can can jump in on and collaborate in that way but we can we can do all of this anymore we can do it electronically even apart from like a synchronous zoom session or something like that would be more like a traditional brainstorming session so I'm talking about you know people communicating in a synchronous fashion but it can be you know it can be more useful for people who are in you know different time zones are just around the world or whatever and you can't meet synchronously as easily so the electronic brainstorming can give them an opportunity to be fully participant and fully participating in the process and so anyway you have different ways that you can use the different electronic devices that we have in mediums that we have in order to to conduct some electronic brainstorming so whatever method you use and however you do it it's important that we do what we can to spur creativity among our team members this is one of the really important aspects of group work and so we ought to be encouraging people to be creative and to to be innovative and to try different things and this is something though that ought to be part of our toolbox as as group leaders and group members and and having the ability to kind of you know spark that creativity for ourselves and for our group members is really important if you have questions about the creative process or or developing creativity within groups feel free to email me i'd love to hear from you there in the meantime i hope that you will maybe look at your own teams a little differently in terms of creativity and how you engage in in that process with them