Kitcatt Nohr Digitas

Take a quick poll around your office: Who is more creative, a group working together or people working separately? The vast majority will say, “The group, of course!”

However, researchers have known for decades that group creativity is beset with problems. So why does “brainstorming” remain widespread, especially in the U.S. and Europe?

For good reasons: Groups tend to think of themselves as more creative than individuals, largely because people generally like social interaction and belonging to things bigger than themselves.

We like brainstorming because it feels good to think, “I had a role in the good work that we did.”

But the “good work” probably isn’t as creative – regarding both quantity and quality – as if everyone had worked on their own ideas and combined them later.

The most prominent blocks to group creativity include production blocking (people having to wait to share ideas), lack of flexible thinking (people providing ideas that are stuck within one or two categories), and social status differences (the ideas of one participant carrying undue weight).

Interestingly, the “great hope” of brainstormers – electronic interaction – yields mixed results. Many problems associated with “real brainstorming” also occur in virtual groups. For example, if someone waits for their turn to share an idea, the effect is negative regardless of whether the group is working face-to-face or virtually.

So how do we promote group creativity? Research suggests that brainstorming using the rules from the 1950s (using skilled facilitators, spending extensive time preparing and debriefing, etc.) produces more impressive results than gathering people together and having them “be creative.” Sure, but a highly-structured approach to group creativity ignores workplace realities, where routinely using facilitators, for example, is simply unrealistic.

The following guidelines can be implemented in most settings:

Allow people to share ideas without waiting. This includes keeping group size small, say 2-3 people, using electronic systems that don’t require people to take turns to share ideas, or using techniques such as Brainwriting (techniques in which people write ideas down then share them with other group members).

Provide exposure to new ideas throughout the process. If diverse stimuli are used, this strategy helps avoid inflexible thinking.

Form diverse groups, especially if people within the group are familiar with each other(diverse strangers won’t get you much value-added). This strategy also helps to avoid inflexible thinking. But keep social status differences to a minimum.

Allow for short breaks during the session, which prevents the normal drop-off in idea quality as a session progresses. Also, nothing says idea generation needs to happen all at once – stretch it out over a few days if need be.

Consider whether working as a group is necessary. After all, working together and working as a group are not the same thing. I was once asked to write a paper with someone, unaware that she literally wanted to write each sentence together. After two hours (and two completed paragraphs), I leaned closer to the screen, hoping the radiation would kill me quickly. Working independently, or working with others in non-group settings, is often exactly what the doctor ordered, creatively speaking.

Of course, human beings are complex creatures. As a result, we’ll never find the holy grail of idea generation: a technique that works for everyone, or even one that works for one person all the time. We each have different comfort levels with social interaction, we have personality clashes with co-workers, and occasionally we get annoyed because our co-worker wears a Man United scarf to the brainstorming session the day after their victory over our beloved Fulham.

But that, after all, is what makes life truly interesting, and our strategies for group creativity should be similarly diverse and flexible.

This article originally appeared in The Marketer.