Perhaps you have ever heard or read the following phrase: “no one is as smart as all of us together.” This Japanese saying, very popular nowadays, is frequently used in environments where creativity It must be combined with group work.
Specifically, it is usually pronounced by the brave person in charge of energizing a session of brainstorm either brainstorming, a very popular work tool both in companies and in educational environments. In brainstorming, the person in charge of energizing these work groups will try to keep all team members motivated for the sake of collective productivity, while ensuring that none of the members’ ideas are ridiculed.
Many proponents of brainstorming tend to think of brainstorming as a kind of collective brain , a prodigy capable of offering the best possible response to any problem thanks to the teachings of each participant. These people think: “surely, despite all the efforts invested in it, the experience is worth it and we can create the best possible idea together… right?”
The truth is that, although some people embellish the concept of brainstorming (“a source of wisdom generated organically by the common people”, etc.) it seems that group work does not have to promote creativity. In fact, there are reasons to think that we come up with more ideas when we work alone than when we do it in a group, although we deceptively believe that the method followed in brainstorming enhances our creative side.
Why is this happening? Basically because our brain is not prepared to work like this
Brainstorming, or questionable group creativity
The relative ineffectiveness of brainstorming seems to be explained by a bottleneck phenomenon, that is, each contribution made by each member of the group “slows down” the rest in their preparation of plans: which means, on the one hand, that people do not stand out for coordinating very well together. the time to think together about a solution, and on the other hand, thinking about a solution and at the same time listening to colleagues is costly in terms of productivity. In a group, ideas are presented sequentially, which forces us to constantly readjust our speech, while a single person is capable of shuffling several ideas in an orderly manner, discarding from the beginning those that seem unimportant, and give a clear answer.
Furthermore, it has also been proposed that the anxiety produced by the presence of others, who judge both us and our interventions, can act as a brake on a task that must be characterized precisely by promoting disinhibition and creativity. The creation of a relaxed atmosphere, one of the premises of the method, is compromised by our propensity to direct attention towards aspects of the social that are totally venal or, at least, not related to the work at hand.
Despite all this, we still continue to think that the group presentation of ideas enhances our inventiveness and, in general, allows us to arrive at good solutions. Some psychologists refer to this under the concept of illusion. group effectiveness This deception can be due to three possibilities. The first consists of a memory failure in which people attribute to themselves ideas that other participants have contributed (source), which could be good for self-esteem.
The second reason is that during group work, each participant has the opportunity to rest while another person speaks, which reduces the probability of being blocked, without this necessarily leading to a better final result (source). The third component of this illusion could be the fact that, when comparing our performance with the average performance of the group, we most likely believe that we feel at the same level as the rest even if we put little effort (in terms of creativity or productivity) and that this generates well-being (source).
It’s not all buts
Of course, all this does not mean that brainstorming can be an interesting option in some cases. The effectiveness of this type of methods is difficult to measure, and statistical analyzes are blind to the subjective appreciation of the ideas that arise from brainstorming. It is possible that brainstorming is not the appropriate means to generate many ideas in a group way, but perhaps it does influence the quality of this.
It is even possible that it has a therapeutic effect on the members of a group or that, who knows, even improves the work environment at a given moment by breaking the routine and promoting mutual knowledge. In these types of issues, as always, each person’s experience must count.
A little mental trap
The illusion of group effectiveness is another example that, within the psychology of organizations, individuality does not always prevail. rationality Brainstorming, despite not being much more effective than other forms of group work, has help in this type of mental trap that makes it come to organizations to stay.
So now you know: if you’ve ever wondered why multiple people with different interests, different ways of thinking, and different responsibilities can come to appreciate a method like brainstorming despite its questionable effectiveness, the answer might be that, simply, they love doing it
