It used to be common to have brainstorming teams at radio stations to help sales departments innovate solutions for a client, programming teams to develop new programming concepts and features, and promotion teams to design the next big promotion. This isn’t always possible in radio’s new environment when the existing staff is already pulled in many directions.

Believe it or not, in terms of the quality of the ideas generated, this could be a good thing!

Have you ever noticed how idea meetings often seem to turn up similar ideas? Have you noticed that it tends to be the same people in the ideas meetings that generate these ideas? Neurologists tell us our brain holds every thought and experience we have ever had in our lives. This subconscious imprint influences the way we think and act and the experiences we call on for insight and ideas are all bi-products of our lives and thoughts. In other words, “we are all unique … just like everybody else.”

A popular definition of creativity is “the lateral connection of thoughts to create new possibilities.” Harnessing the different thoughts, experiences and ideas of a varied group of people is therefore the real opportunity for creating new big ideas.

Bringing a group of people together with different experiences, thoughts, and ideas can sometimes be more productive than bringing people together that share the same history. With the right structures and facilitation you can effectively bring together a presenter, the receptionist, the sandwich guy, a client, journalist, friend and sales person and because of their varied life experience and perspectives to generate ideas that might have been unimaginable with a team of similar thinking team members.

The key to bringing your potentially genius (but initially misfit) group together is understanding that the core driver of successful innovation is our ability to separate having and building ideas, from judging them.

Very rarely does the fully formed, perfect, original idea leave someone’s mouth straight away. The big ideas come from building up the half formed thoughts of many people’s input. Allowing people to suggest anything without fear of looking stupid or being criticized allows us to see possibility in the thoughts of others and build on them with our own unique perspectives. Setting up ground rules so no one in the group judges ideas by saying “that won’t work”, “it’s a good idea, but we can’t afford it” or “that’s not what the client wants” frees people to say things they would otherwise hesitate to and those flawed suggestions will lead to bigger, better ideas, as Ray Bradbury said “life is trying things to see if they work”.

This seems obvious though, right? And it is, so why don’t we just do it naturally? It’s because we associate knowing what’s wrong with things with intelligence, and more importantly to being perceived as intelligent by others, because at school we learned there is a right and a wrong answer to things and because we don’t dare to dream for fear of disappointment. In reality, life is a myriad of possibility and by freeing people to suggest anything and building on what’s good or interesting in their suggestions we are able to create a large number of big ideas, very quickly. As Edward De Bono the granddaddy of lateral thinking reminds us “It is better to have enough ideas for some of them to be wrong, than to always be right by having no ideas at all.”

Hearing and harnessing the insights and ideas of a diverse, unconventional group will create bigger and more original results.

Here are 6 steps to a successful creative meeting:

  1. Set an OBJECTIVE: Start by stating a clear desired outcome framed positively and accountable by measurement. Example – We want a benchmark feature which will increase the breakfast peak by 10,000.
  2. “RIDICULOUS” Ideas – Think of really big ideas with NO thought for practicality at all. Example –a different “A list” movie star every morning will tell us the funniest thing that has ever happened in their lives. It is vital there is NO judgment of ideas, just say anything and get it down, one idea on one piece of paper, just enough to remember the idea. Should be an energized and funny session.
  3. JUDGE – Go back through each of the ideas generated and give it a mark from 1 to 10 for how good you think the idea is at getting “what you want” as stated in step 1, and giving just a little thought to practicality. Don’t worry if you don’t think that exact idea can work or you don’t really know how to do it, but mark an idea highly if you like it and you think maybe, just maybe something like it might be possible. Have each person just shout out a number out of 10, no need for discussion or justification of your score.
  4. BUILD – Pick the very top few ideas (max 5) and look for common ground where ideas can be grouped together. Then, in a group discussion, build the ideas up making them better and adding a little more practicality.
  5. JUDGE – Mark those built up ideas again out of 10. Again score ideas based on how strong you think they are for getting you “what you want” as agreed in step 1. This time score more highly ideas you think can be practically delivered.
  6. Keep it REAL – Turn the single best idea into a practical, actionable plan with agreed responsibilities and deadlines.

“Creativity is allowing yourself to make mistakes, art is knowing which ones to keep” – Adam Scott