Where brainstorming and introversion intersect

In the movie Dead Poets’ Society the teacher, played by Robin Williams, captivates and inspires his students with his confidence in their potential to make a difference:

You will learn to think for yourself…words and ideas can change the world.

This resonates with the emerging consensus on the limitation of group brainstorming – the danger of groupthink.

As the classroom scene unfolds, Williams tells his students to tear out a page from a textbook. The particular content focuses on analyzing poetry mechanistically which flies in the face of thinking for yourself.

The reactions of different students are hilarious. Some immediately rise to the challenge tearing out pages as Williams goads them on. Others hesitate briefly such as one student who after encouragement from his fellow classmates carefully uses a ruler to rid the textbook of the offending passage. We witness thinking for yourself in action and the different thinking styles that go with it.

The careful student is likely an introvert who needs some time to check out the merit of the action in his mind before jumping in. This isn’t brainstorming but it highlights the importance by the teacher and by the different student reactions that thinking for yourself is a sacred part of our identity.

Susan Cain in her book The Power of the Introvert in a World that Can’t Stop Talking underscores the contribution of thinking for yourself, extroverts included. People are generally more creative when they have some quiet time and freedom from interruption to let their minds search for new ideas and connections. This mind wandering gets below the surface noise of our conscious minds to enable imaginative work to be done.

Introverts thrive on quiet time to think first. A number of recent studies by researchers in neuroscience and psychology now point to the importance of this quiet time as a must for better brainstorming by any mix of people. The result is more and better quality novel ideas at the outset of the creative journey and as the process unfolds with a group or team. Team leaders and managers take note: build in this structured time for members of the group!

Electronic brainstorming tends to offset the problem of group think in real time. This may be due to the advantage of solitude in the midst of a group adventure. Crowdsourcing in large groups and teams that collaborate remotely seem to channel brainstorming well.

Taking a page from the preference of introverts as a start point, no matter the medium the principle of thinking for yourself is a useful guide for improving brainstorming. As Robin Williams says so beautifully in the movie, “The powerful play goes on and you may contribute a verse. What will your verse be?”

Beware of polically-induced "spells" as they can mess with your reasoning

What’s the difference between a campaign of ‘hard questions’ about momentous issues and a carnival of lies? Lipstick.

---David Olive (September 20, 2008). Toronto Star

As some people like to say, “There’s a reason for everything”. Maybe Sarah Palin showed up in our lives because we needed a little more levity in a generally somber political environment. Fear, violence, climate upheaval and too much suffering around the world are taking their toll on our collective middle class psyches. Sarah has certainly been a distraction and a reminder that politicians play chess with our minds because that’s the way the game is played. A few little “truthies” and corn ball metaphors here and there are needed to camouflage all problems. Do you blame them?

On both sides of the border, the campaign adage is to repeat something often enough until it becomes real even if it isn’t. Image and persuasion trump the facts because apparently that’s what we respond to.

Politicians of all stripes and philosophies have learned that to reach us they must appeal to our primal emotional instincts. Largely unconscious, our automatic “inner theatre” was formed long ago when we were kids under the “spell” of our parents, teachers, friends and the cultures in which we grew up. Our reactions are typically either positive or negative and we gravitate or move away accordingly and evaluate the policy offerings within those frameworks. Critical thinking takes a back seat to whether we like a person or not.

To override our automatic “from the past” responses is extremely difficult in the high pressure environments in which we live and lead. Sorting out fact from fiction takes time and energy. So, we resort to falling under “spells” again and hope for the best. Put another way, we search for someone who will best feed our emotions, not necessarily our reason.

A fundamental tenet of great leadership is to be on the alert to “think about your thinking”. Called the “fourth dimension”, it can save the day when chaos and complexity reign and no simple answers suffice. It can also be the tool for breaking ‘spells”.

With time, people tire of the messages of hope, the hoopla, the negative ads and the grand communication schemes. This has been demonstrated over and over again in organizations where a “white knight” from the outside has been brought in with great flourish to fix things up. Many heads roll, many promises are made and then the reality of implementation without deep expertise, without consultation and without the benefit of the facts sets in. The honeymoon quickly fades but the cost to rectify the damage is enormous.

We do wake up naturally but it takes time. The trick is to accelerate the process while we have time to avoid serious damage. It means using time-honoured leadership lessons to ensure we’re not just caught up in our emotions. Besides asking a lot of questions and gathering smart contrarians around you, look for the facts, as demonstrated by the University of Pennsylvania’s Annenburg Public Policy Center though http://www.factcheck.org/.

In Canada, more so than the United States, ideological fatigue has set it, according to Frank Graves, President of Ekos Research Associates. We’re becoming more pragmatic and eclectic and certainly less attached to left-right arguments. We’re looking for “what works”.

That’s the bottom line: look for what works. That’s how nature does it.