How To Run A Successful Brainstorming Session

As an entrepreneur, it is important to know how to run brainstorming sessions so that you can expand your business and use your employees knowledge to strengthen your team environment. Sometimes, you can go into one of these sessions with the best intentions and leave realizing that nothing was really done. To avoid this common mistake, you should take some time before hand to think about and map out what you want to accomplish for the day. This will help steer you into the right direction before you begin your group discussion.

GET COMFORTABLE

First things first, make the room you will be working in comfortable enough to clearly think and become creative, but don’t make the mistake of making your discussion setting too laid back. It is a great idea to light some candles that make the room feel cozy but don’t allow your employees to sit anywhere other than the table you will be working around. It sounds obvious but it really does need to be said that getting too relaxed in meetings can cause your head to become cloudy and in less of a work-oriented mindset. So, while we want everyone to be comfortable and feel that they are in a safe space to share their ideas, we also want to make sure we are providing employees with a place where their work can be accomplished.

VISUAL OUTLINE

It is also a wonderful idea to make an outline on a white board so that everyone can see what will be discussed in the brainstorming session. Make sure to encourage ideas that people feel are outlandish because we often find the best ideas out of the ones we would normally keep to ourselves. The main goal here is quantity. We can go back later and flesh out the ones that we feel would add the quality to our business. My point is, don’t limit yourself in a brainstorming session and make sure you tell others in your meeting not to limit themselves either. Brain “storming” is a term for a reason.

WE NOT ME

Finally, remember to refer to your group as the collective “we” and not call people by names during the session if you can help it. It is very important to build a sense of trust and this is a great tactic to make people feel like they are “one”. Teamwork is essential to the brainstorming process. After all, without your brainstormers, where will all of the quantity come from? For that matter, with more brainstormers comes more quality when all is said and done!

What tips and tricks do you use during a brain storming session