DaJobSucks

Brainstorming can be a very useful tool, however, if it is not used properly, it can be as useless as some of our elected officials who seem to make decisions without much thought and pain staking, brain throbbing deliberation.

The business world seems to have taken the approach mentioned above with Brainstorming. The key deficiency I have noticed and which is usually the 800 pound gorilla in the room, is ensuring that all is prepared for brain storming sessions, that is, all should know what is to be discussed so that they can have time to put their ideas together before the meeting.

Persons should be given at least a day to do their own deliberations so that all will come to the table with ideas that have gone through their own personal cerebral grinders. This would avoid knee jerk decision making which I swear has taken over our business universe. We have abused brain storming to the point where it sometimes runs contrary to its intended purpose, which is to resolve pressing issues quickly, through combining the ideas and thoughts of all the persons involved in the meeting.

I know, the idea of having a brainstorming session is to resolve issues quickly so time may not be available, however, if decisions are rushed then you may require more time in the future to fix issues caused because you wanted to make decisions quickly.

For your next brain storming meeting, give your staff more time to come up with ideas so that you can get higher quality resolutions that add value to your business processes and overall operations. Trust me, the wait is worth it.