For a clever collaboration, start on your own – and then listen to Steve Jobs

I really love building and delivering pitches. But I have a dark secret: I hate brainstorming them.

Not because brainstorming isn’t a good idea, or can’t be great fun, or doesn’t lead to some spectacular outcomes. It’s because brainstorming ideas is rarely done well.

Fuzzy rules of engagement. Over-enthusiastic participants rushing to the pitch execution before they have a good idea. The ever-present risk of rogue personalities, sensitivities and insecurities derailing things just as they are getting on a roll. All these dynamics can make brainstorming pitches frustrating and ineffective.

For many years I took the pragmatic coward’s path and avoided convening these get-togethers, preferring to do my own thing. I’d only come together with my team late in the process, when we’d do our best to align our individual offerings for a seamless pitch.

Unsurprisingly, there were always glitches; different pitchers arriving with different looking slides or differing takes on the same problem. And often questioning each other’s approaches.

Fortunately, I grew up, and we grew better at coming together properly, practising a number of the tips presented in a recently published Harvard Business Review piece by Yaroslav, Danylchenko and Stocksy, “3 Common Fallacies about Creativity”.

Their key recommendation for coming together?

Split up.

Not like I did, in my lone wolf isolation from the pack, but as a self-aware team looking to maximise its productivity in the lead up to its big day.

Research suggests if we want to increase our group productivity, we should first break out as individuals and come up with our ideas separately. Only once our ideas have been captured should we then come together to discuss them.

According to one Yale study, groups in which individuals come up with their own ideas first, can produce twice as many ideas as a group-only method, especially for diverse teams.

For anyone who has participated in focus group research, this technique might ring a bell. Researchers regularly employ it to protect participants from having their ideas drowned out by the loudmouth at the end of the table (the one who somehow also manages to eat the best sandwiches).

This approach now has me looking forward to conceiving all sorts of ideas with my team.

But it’s only half the equation. We still have to avoid a free-for-all when all the ideas flow back into the room.

Yaroslav, Danylchenko and Stocksy offer us a Steve Jobs remedy.

They tell how when Jobs took over Pixar, it had been struggling to produce a blockbuster despite being home to some of the smartest people in the business. And how, after noticing that excessive criticisms were too often shooting down creative ideas, Jobs instituted a policy of “plussing,” where one could only offer a criticism if it included a potential solution.

Criticisers suddenly became collaborators, team dynamics changed completely, and a string of successes followed, starting with the development of the movie Toy Story.

At Pitch Camp we shamelessly copy this advice.

Our internal team workshops start by sending members off to ideate on their own, and then bringing them back together to build on each other’s ideas, using techniques such as plussing. It’s led to some of our most satisfying outputs, including our One Percenters and Book Club.

So, at your next ideation workshop, consider bringing productivity and creativity together by first channelling your inner lone wolves and then hunting as a pack for the best spoils.

It could remove unwanted pain and add some welcome polish to your process.

Happy pitching - together!