The best brainstorming tool I’ve found yet

I love the idea of brainstorming sessions. In my mind, they’re creative, collaborative, and empowering, and they generate better ideas. 

But in reality, the brainstorming sessions I’ve led have very rarely checked all those boxes. In fact, this is one of the areas where I’ve struggled the most in my journey as a leader. I can recall many meetings in the past where I’d explain an idea or challenge and then turn it over to the team by saying something like, “What do you think? What ideas come to mind?” only to be met with . . . crickets.

Okay, maybe not every time. But in general, our brainstorming sessions would go something like this: I would ask for ideas, and only one or two people in the group would begin to engage. Shortly after, we’d be in the weeds, exploring pros, cons, and hows of the ideas we brainstormed while everyone else just sat there, seemingly disengaged, and rightfully so: They were essentially watching people have a conversation that they weren’t inspired to contribute to.

The more I’ve learned about empowering people, the more I’ve tried to be intentional in meetings like these, and our brainstorming sessions today have greatly improved. Yet I still feel like I haven’t truly figured out how best to lead an idea-generating meeting. As the leader of a team for 14+ years and the Chief of Vision for our company–whose role is essentially dreaming up our future–this is frustrating. I want to be able to lead a meeting that is inclusive, fun, and most of all, collaborative. I want everyone on our team to have the space to share their perspectives, pitch ideas, and build our future . . . together.

Over the holiday break, I stumbled upon a company called Pip Decks. Truly can’t remember how I found them, but next thing I knew, I was adding their “workshop tactics” resource to my cart, which promised inventive ways to lead meetings. As I began to read through, one in particular caught my eye: It was called “Crazy 8s,” an exercise that helps with brainstorming.

Now, you might be familiar with Crazy 8s. I’ve told a few people about it, and apparently, it’s been around for a long time–well before Pip Decks. But because it was brand new to me, maybe it’s brand new to you, too. And let me tell you: Game. Changer. 

Here’s how the exercise works: You pick a question related to a problem you’re trying to solve or a topic you want to dive into, and you phrase it as a question that starts with, “How might we . . . ?” Then, each person has a total of 8 minutes to come up with 8 ways to answer that question on their own, in silence, and write them down. The catch is that you only have 1 minute to come up with each idea. At the end of each minute, the meeting leader says, “Next,” and it’s time to move on to the next idea. It’s called Crazy 8s because no idea is too crazy–and you don’t have enough time to second-guess yourself. You just jot down your idea and move on to the next one. Once the eight minutes is up, each person shares their eight ideas with the group.

My team and I tried Crazy 8s for the first time a couple weeks ago, and I was blown away by the results. Every person participated. Every person had 8 ideas to share. And in a matter of just 8 minutes, we had 32 ideas to build from.

Here’s how we did it: First, we decided on a topic. One of our goals for the quarter is to host the best version of our Human Leadership Program to date. One of our key results within that goal is to see an increase in our survey scores from our attendees. I wanted to generate ideas for how we might accomplish that, so I phrased it as a question to the team in our meeting: How might we improve survey scores?

I then asked each person to get out a blank piece of paper, and I explained the rules of Crazy 8s: They would have 8 minutes to come up with 8 potential answers to that question, with a maximum of 1 minute spent on each idea. I told them that the goal of the time limit was to help us avoid overthinking or talking ourselves out of an idea.

Eight minutes later, the four of us were talking through 32 answers to our question–so many more than we had ever come up with in such a short time. We didn’t use every idea, of course, and there were some duplicates, but that list was a great start. We came up with things we may have never thought of otherwise, such as strategically sorting people into breakout groups based on potential synergy and sending a survey before the program to learn about our attendees’ biggest leadership challenges so that we can customize our content.

All Crazy 8s really does is provide a structure for brainstorming, but that’s why it’s so helpful. It offers every person the chance to give input on a question or challenge. It sets a limit on how long you can think about each idea, so there’s no time to think about what would or wouldn’t work, and because you have to come up with eight things, you're less likely to talk yourself out of an idea. There’s no time to judge your own ideas before you share them. And because everyone else is participating in the same exercise, I think it creates an environment where it feels more comfortable to share ideas that aren’t fully fleshed out, which might normally prevent someone from speaking up.

Crazy 8s also helped me provide the collaborative brainstorming environment I’ve been craving for our team. As the leader and visionary, I truly want all of our perspectives to be represented when we start something together. I know how powerful it is when all of our strengths and ideas come together, and I want to make sure we all have a chance to be involved, especially at the very beginning of a project when anything is possible. It’s a great environment for me, too: I thrive when we’re talking about things out loud, and I get inspired by other people’s perspectives. Working together always leads us to better ideas.

If you are the leader of a team or if you’re leading brainstorming meetings, my questions for you are: How are you engaging your team during these sessions? How are you encouraging everyone to share their perspectives and ideas? What could you do to create a more inclusive, collaborative environment? Crazy 8s might be a great place to start.

Or maybe you’re in a role where you feel isolated, and you need to collaborate with someone to get some inspiration. Could you ask one other person to do Crazy 8s with you? Even if they don’t work on the same things as you, ask them if they have eight minutes to spare to lend you their perspective. You could end up with so many more ideas to work from than just your own!

To help, we’ve created a simple PDF that you can use as a template to do the Crazy 8s exercise. And if you want more, a quick Google search will lead you to all kinds of helpful brainstorming info.

I hope this gets you thinking. Literally!

Big hugs,

Kristen

P.S. Our next Human Leadership Program is coming up on March 16 +17!! Join us and learn how to become a more authentic, human leader. Tickets and more info here!

P.P.S. Looking for a way to invest in yourself in 2022?! We’d love to invite you to join our monthly coaching group. You can find all the deets here!