When doing a brainstorm session on an issue can you tell when you are in the  idea zone? In the world where every one at the meeting gets their chance to talk be prepared to write down everyone else’s  fleeting ideas. DO NOT write down your own ideas let others write it down. Ideas seem to bubble up on their own. Some individuals max out involvement early and get more silent as the meeting continues. Others take time to warm up their imagination.

ideas

Here is a tricky exercise. Do it with another individual to keep track of the time. You do NOT keep track of the time.

  1. Start a rambling idea based on where in the company you would use a specific color or choose your own subject.
  2. Discuss this aloud. Fill in the blank spaces
  3. When do you hit a wall where nothing comes out? This represents the end of your immediate idea sources.
  4. After the wall when do you hit another hot spot? This represents the start of your idea accumulation.
  5. Do you ever get to point where a ideas comes to you so unbidden you say “I didn’t need this idea.  Wait a minute I can’t figure out where this idea came from!”  If you try to get too analytical here you will fall out of the idea zone. This represents getting your unconscious mind active on the issue. Getting into this zone requires practice. There seems to be no logic in finding the idea it’s just there. Those ideas need to be blurted out immediately. Don’t clean it up or organize it. Just state it aloud.

Try this a few times taking the time for someone else. Are the times for #3,#4 and#5 similar? It’s very possible that your times are uniquely yours. Does your time remain the same? This might indicate a need for discussion to take a least that long for you to get into the zone. So if the meeting takes 60 minutes and achieving the use of your unconscious mind takes 80 minutes you are not going to be very successful in a normal ideation meeting.

When the idea output gets hot do not try to write these things down. Let someone else do it. Pausing to write things down will drop you out of the idea zone so quick you might never get back to it.

 

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