Ways To Handle A Complete Stop

Sometimes brainstorm sessions come to a complete stop. There are many ways to handle this. One is by establishing a deadline. Every brainstorm session should have a time limit, at first not more than twenty minutes from beginning to end. The deadline must be observed, unless ideas are flowing hot and heavy, of course. Sometimes it can be extended, for example, “We have eighty-seven ideas, let’s see if we can break one hundred.” Generally, however, the session should stop on schedule. Willard A. Pleuthner reports that BBDO found that with experienced brainstormers they can run a 30 to 45 minutes session at coffee break and a 45 to 60 minutes session at a soup-and-sandwich luncheon.

There is a most serious hazard in not having a deadline. If there is a lull, it’s natural to assume that the period of productivity is over and to call it quits. I have found that periods of silence are followed by great bursts of ideas; a premature ending can sacrifice these ideas.

Some brainstorm leaders try to produce a contagious enthusiasm, acting as a cheerleader. Some root during silences, “Come on, team, let’s go.” They may even wave their arms, come up with their own ideas, and encourage tentative ones, carrying the group with them. Others are auctioneers, chanting, “We’ve sixty, let’s try for seventy, who’ll make it eighty?” It actually works in some cases. But I think it is unnecessary.

I’ve found that silences may naturally occur, even in the most productive sessions. After a spate of ideas the silences may be sudden and disconcerting, but actually, although they may seem to last long, they don’t. Don’t be afraid of dead air. Wait patiently, and if the group appears restive, you may say, “We’re doing fine. We’ve got plenty of time.” But if the group doesn’t worry about the silence, the leader shouldn’t. The subconscious is an undisciplined animal, and soon it will dart off and the session will be rolling again.

Sometimes when a session does seem to come to a real dead end, however, the chairman can throw in an idea he has saved to trigger the group. If I don’t do that I have the secretary slowly read every second or third item on the list to start the session going again on new categories. Everyone is invited to interrupt with ideas, and usually the session goes charging off again before the secretary is finished.

To prime a session or get it warmed up, some outfits have each member write ideas on separate slips of paper, then they are in the mood-and they have ammunition to use if the session bogs down.

One of the best ways to perk up a really stalled session is to go over the rules for having new ideas, or at least new variations on ideas. I will deal with that list in detail later. But here, briefly, is my technique.

First I ask everyone to add something to the problem, then to subtract from it, finally to multiply or divide. This encourages members to look at the problem in a new light. It is an artificial trick, of course, but it is surprising how often this technique can be used to spark a chain reaction of new ideas. For example, the session might be trying to solve the problem of how to sell a kneehole desk for the home. By adding to it you might come up with some ideas such as these:

You might throw in a chair on a sale, or a desk blotter, or an attractive student lamp, or give the desk to purchasers of a special typewriter. In other words, you might solve the problem by adding to it. Then you might solve the problem by subtracting. The desk may have been promoted as part of a set of furniture for a teen-ager’s bedroom. You might subtract it from that set and promote it as a single unit to be used by a student at college, or for a housewife’s home record center, or for Dad’s den. Then you might try to multiply the problem, for example, how many desks can one home use? This can be used by Junior for his homework, another desk might be used in the comer of a kitchen by a housewife, or in Grandma’s room, who keeps the family together through voluminous letter-writing, and so on, so that you could get ideas on how to sell a second or third desk to a family. Then again you might divide the problem. How many uses can a kneehole desk have? It can be used as a chest or checker table in the corner of a living room, as a hobby center in the family room, for sewing materials in Mother’s alcove. As you divide the problem you will see many new possible solutions of the single problem of how to sell a particular kneehole desk.

If adding, subtracting, multiplying, or dividing the problem doesn’t work, then you can try what I call the “else” type of question. You can ask yourself “who else,” “where else,” “why else,” “when else,” “what else” would solve it. For example, you might say “what else” would get the suburban housewife into the service station, and come up with other lures-recipes, dress patterns, or kitchen decals-which would be given away with a lubrication job and oil change.

Finally, if none of those things work, I try to think of “alikes” and “unlikes” to start a chain reaction of thought. I might run through a list of things other businesses have done to attract women customers, or even things that have been done to attract men customers. What I am trying to do in every case is to stimulate my subconscious so that it will hit on new categories.