Silent Brainstorming to Draw out Everyone

Posted by Sarah Hobbs

You want to hold a meeting to get everyone’s ideas – but some people always dominate the discussion while others are crowded out and contribute little. How can you get a full contribution from extroverts, introverts, senior and junior people?

Whether you want a selection of peers, your whole team, or a cross-section of people from the organisation to help you, you will have a mixture of introvert and extrovert thinkers to manage. To get the best from them remember:

• Introvert thinkers focus internally – they like to work out a coherent response in their head, before sharing their views, and then to have time to fully explain their thinking. They are very sensitive to distractions – they find it almost impossible to form a view while others are talking animatedly, and get frustrated with interruptions. They benefit from the chance to think quietly about the issues before talking about them.


• Extrovert thinkers focus externally – through discussion, sharing their half-formed ideas and bouncing off others to develop a view. They enjoy talking to (and possibly over!) others as the stimulation of debate increases their ideas. They are enthusiastic, and create lots of energy.

Put them together without warning and introvert thinkers will hate the noise and wonder how extroverts ever make a decision given they don’t appear to know what they think from one moment to the next! Extrovert thinkers will feel frustrated at the lack of interaction and input from the introverts, and may ignore them or talk over them in their enthusiasm. As a manager, you may find that the extroverts dominate discussions, and find it hard to tease ideas out of the introverts. And if you have junior people in the room – they might withdraw rather than compete with ideas – but they may bring fresh thoughts that could shift the discussion completely!

Take the following steps to balance out everyone’s contribution:

1. Set aside time in everyone’s diary for your brainstorming event and book a quiet space where people can think and adorn the walls with post-its and flipchart paper.


2. Send an outline of the problem or issue to everyone telling them what you want to achieve. Attach any briefing notes or background reading which may be useful.


3. Begin the meeting by explaining that you are going to use silent brainstorming. Display the problem statement on a wall and give a short introduction about what you want to achieve. Ask for questions so that people are clear about the problem, but don’t let the discussion begin here. You can always park the question for later. Give everyone pens and post-it notes and ask them to write down every idea that occurs to them, without judging its usefulness or potential, in silence.


4. As people write things down, circulate quietly collecting the notes and putting them on the wall. Let people know they can review the notes, in silence, if this helps them to generate more ideas.


5. Once everyone has finished, thank them and introduce the next section. Ask them to review everything and start to group the notes as they think appropriate. Everyone has the right to regroup any note or set up a new group and move notes in or out. Again, all this should be done in silence. Once everyone has stopped moving the notes about ask if they are happy with the display and thank them.


6. Now you can let loose the debate! Set your rules – no talking over each other, no ‘assassination’ of other people’s ideas. If enthusiasm erupts and people start talking over each other, try having a ‘speaking object’ – only the person holding the object can talk, before handing it on to others. If people start to critique ideas, focus them on www.ebi (what works well – even better if) and gradually hone down the options to those that are most feasible.

TAKE AWAY
In order to get the best from a brainstorming session, make sure to structure it so that both introvert and extrovert thinkers can give their best ideas. Have clear rules of engagement so no voice is crowded out and your junior colleagues can contribute with confidence. Silence really can be golden.