Creativity Doesn't Happen on Demand
Stop asking people to come up with ideas on the spot during meetings.
You and your team have been called into a meeting. There’s no agenda. The calendar invite is vague on what the purpose is. But some higher-ups, VPs and the like, are also invited so you figure it’s important. In walks the VP of Making Things Difficult--five minutes late, of course. He sits down at the head of the table and says that they are launching a campaign for some new initiative that you are hearing about for the first time and then says...
“Any ideas on how to promote it? What should we call it? Let’s brainstorm and come up with something.”
Everyone scrambles to come up with ideas, throwing out some things that are okay, but nothing great. Finally, the VP starts to get visibly frustrated and says something like “I thought you were supposed to be the creative people?” before finally settling on one of the first mediocre ideas you suggested. And that becomes the center of the campaign you are working on for the next year.
Why does this happen? Why do people expect creativity to happen on demand?
There is a fundamental misunderstanding that all creative people work the same way and we just need a fun quirky environment and we’ll be bubbling over with ideas at the drop of a hat.
That’s not how it works. That’s not how any of this works.
Creativity is a slow cooker--not a pressure cooker.
Demanding creative work on demand fills creative staff with anxiety and blocks creative work. Want to get the best creative work out of your marketing team?
Give them time and space to work at their own pace.
Improvisation might work for a comedy troupe making skits that last a few minutes, but if you are looking for ideas for a long term project, that work deserves time and thought in order to produce the best product possible. Demanding ideas at a moment’s notice just doesn’t do that.
I’m not saying that we shouldn’t have brainstorming meetings at all.
Brainstorming meetings are useful. They allow people to collaborate and bounce ideas off of each other. But those ideas don’t happen instantly.
We need to know what we’ll be work-shopping ideas for at least one week before the meeting. (And for the love of all that is good, make an agenda for the meeting.) This will give us time for ideas to simmer. It allows teams to do research if necessary, seek inspiration, or just meditate on the idea so they can come prepared with a few ideas to get things started--a few sparks to stoke the fire.
Just as an upper-level executive wouldn’t go into a meeting with a client or board member unprepared, those doing creative work need to prepare as well. Give us the time and consideration to do so. Better work will come out of it.