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CHAPTER 15: LEADING CHANGE 467
2. Freewheeling is welcome. People should express any idea that comes to
mind no matter how weird or fanciful. Brainstormers should not be timid
about expressing creative thinking. As a full-time developer of ideas at
Intuit said, “It’s more important to get the stupidest idea out there and
build on it than not to have it in the first place.” 35
3. Quantity desired. The goal is to generate as many ideas as possible. The
more ideas the better. A large quantity of ideas increases the likelihood
of finding excellent solutions. Combining ideas is also encouraged. All
ideas belong to the group and members should modify and extend ideas
whenever possible. 36

Brainstorming has been found to be highly effective for quickly generating a wide
range of creative alternatives. After all the ideas are expressed and recorded, the
group can have another session to discuss and evaluate which ideas or combi-
nation will best solve the problem. Marissa Mayer, Director of Consumer Web
Products at Google, has eight hour-long brainstorming sessions each year. At each
session, six concepts are pitched to 100 engineers and discussed for 10 minutes
each. The goal is to build on and modify each concept. 37
Recent improvements in the brainstorming process are to have people write
down their ideas before coming to the brainstorming session, and to go back and
write down ideas immediately after the session. Taking advantage of each person’s
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before and after thinking will increase creative output. Another recent approach, Electronic brainstorming
Electronic brainstorming
bringing people together in
called electronic brainstorming, or brainwriting, brings people together in an interac- bringing people together in
an interactive group over a
an interactive group over a
tive group over a computer network. One member writes an idea, another reads computer network sometimes
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computer network sometimes
it and adds other ideas, and so on. Studies show that electronic brainstorming called brainwriting
called
brainwriting
generates about 40 percent more ideas than individuals brainstorming alone, and
25 percent to 200 percent more ideas than regular brainstorming groups, depend-
ing on group size. Why? Because each person is anonymous, and the sky’s the
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limit in terms of what people feel free to say. Creativity also in-
creases because people can write down their ideas immediately,
As a leader, you can expand the creative
avoiding the possibility that a good idea might slip away while Action Memo
the person is waiting for a chance to speak in a face-to-face group. potential of yourself and others by using
Social inhibitions and concerns are avoided, which typically allows the techniques of brainstorming, lateral
for a broader range of participation. Another advantage is that thinking, and creative intuition.
electronic brainstorming can potentially be done with groups made
up of employees from around the world, further increasing the diver-
sity of ideas.
Lateral Thinking Most of a person’s thinking follows a regular groove and
somewhat linear pattern from one thought to the next. But linear thinking does
not often provide a creative breakthrough. Linear thinking is when people take
a problem or idea and then build sequentially from that point. A more creative
approach is to use lateral thinking. Lateral thinking can be defi ned as a set of system- Lateral thinking
Lateral thinking
a set of systematic techniques
atic techniques used for changing mental concepts and perceptions and generating a set of systematic techniques
for changing mental concepts
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new ones. With lateral thinking, people move “sideways” to try different percep- for changing mental concepts
and generating new ones
and generating new ones
tions, different concepts, and different points of entry to gain a novel solution.
Lateral thinking appears to solve a problem by an unorthodox or apparently
illogical method. Lateral thinking makes an unusual mental connection that is
concerned with possibilities and “what might be.”
To stimulate lateral thinking, leaders provide people with opportunities to use
different parts of their brain and thus to make novel, creative connections. When
people take time off from working on a problem and change what they are doing,