A Way to Get New Ideas

First Learn How to Brainstorm

Before you can sell brainstorming to your company, you've got to sell yourself. You've got to know all about brainstorming, you've got to know how it works, and you've got to know it does work. You can't just stroll into the boss's office and say, "Hey, I heard about a way to get new ideas, called brainstorming."  You can predict his answer. At best it'll be a "What?" If you wander off in generalizations about brainstorming, if you don't have sharp, specific answers—and even sharper and more specific results, he won't pay any attention to you.

The best way, of course, is never to go to the boss at all, but to have him come to you and say, "I like those new ideas of yours. Where are you getting 'em?"

You can get the boss to come to you if you plan your strategy well. The first thing to do is to find out all about brainstorming. Read this book thoroughly. Read other articles on the subject. If neighboring concerns are using brainstorming, talk to them; perhaps you can even sit in on a session. Maybe the college nearby teaches creative thinking. See if they have an expert on brainstorming; ask him to let you sit in on a few classes.

Then Experiment With Some Friends or Associates

Once you know what a brainstorm session is, try it on for size. Try it with your family and friends. Use it as a parlor game. Train yourself to suspend judgment in facing a problem, and be convinced by results you yourself get that brainstorming can and will pay off in cold, hard ideas.

Even after you have tried it out and know it will work, don't drag it into the company and toss it defiantly on the boss's desk. Start modestly at your own level. You might have a brainstorm in the car pool on how to work out a better commuting schedule, or brainstorm at lunch on what to give Joe as a bowling prize. Get a few coworkers together to brainstorm in small and informal ways. Once they learn what brainstorming is, try it out on specific company problems.

This does not mean top policy problems. It means how to make better use of the new milling machine, or how to sell your product to Acme Roller Bearings, or how to pack the product in cardboard instead of plastic. Get some good ideas and act on them. The boss will hear about you, have no fear of that. Brainstorming is a potent weapon. It will turn out so many ideas that they will draw attention to you and the others you are brainstorming with. Then you'll have the boss coming to you — not about brainstorming, but about ideas. Alex F. Osborn suggests that you show examples of how other companies in your field are successfully using brainstorming.

Let Your Boss Learn from Your Brainstorming Success

What, you laugh; the bosses aren't interested in new ideas! Well, maybe not. But they are interested in three thousand dollars saved, in a new and profitable way of producing gludgets, of landing a new account, of solving shipping, sales, and production problems. They won't be seeing new ideas. They'll be seeing hard-headed profitable solutions to tough problems. They'll be seeing brainstorming at work, and they'll be interested, never you fear.

If you have a boss who is still sternly opposed to new ideas and to new ways of getting them, then the best way to sell brainstorming is to brainstorm that very problem. Establish a good spade question: "How can I sell brainstorming to the boss?" The more specific the better. Set your target up, and you'll know certain factors—that the boss likes written memos, or he listens to proposals; that he likes to solve packing problems himself, or everything has to be expressed in sales to mean anything to him. Once you have established who you have to sell, then your brainstorm will give you plenty of ideas how.

Glenn Cowan, director of work simplification at B. F. Goodrich, recommended that you pick the "burr under the saddle," the problem which is most irritating to your boss. Solve that and you'll get his attention.

Spend Time Brainstorming How to Use the Ideas You Come Up With