By John Arenas | June 25, 2014

Brainstorming Doesn’t Work. Try Brainswarming.

When a team is given a project to tackle, companies naturally lean towards ‘group think’ or ‘brainstorming’, but individual flexibility may be more effective in accomplishing goals as a group.

Long winded brainstorming meetings where social pressures and office politics discourage discussion from quieter team members can cause the team to miss out on some great ideas.  Instead businesses should consider project-task flexibility, allowing workers to gather ideas and accomplish sub-tasks on their own, and then bring them together in a more systematic, all-inclusive fashion.

This new concept of brainswarming has been determined to be more effective than traditional brainstorming. Research showed significantly more ideas being captured within a specific time frame using brainswarming versus brainstorming. From businessman and writer, Max De Pree:

“We need to give each other space to grow… so that we may give and receive such beautiful things as ideas, openness, dignity, joy, healing, and inclusion.”

For more information on brainswarming, check out this video by Dr. Tony McCaffrey of Harvard Business Review.