Adam Grant [Archive.org URL]

For more than half a century, brainstorming has been the go-to method for teams to surface new ideas. But there’s ample evidence that shows it rarely works well. Research shows that individuals working separately tend to generate more creative ideas than groups brainstorming together. Good ideas get lost due to pressure to conform, fear of looking foolish, and the difficulty of breaking through the noise. A more effective option is brainwriting: team members come up with ideas on their own, share them anonymously with the group, and evaluate them separately before the whole team chooses the most promising ones. Collective intelligence requires individual creativity and group wisdom.

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