Do not brainstorm!

This “Perspectives” is the first “panel of a triptych,” in which I attempt to examine and cast a shadow on 3 activities commonly occurring in neuroradiology, radiology, and medicine in general. This one deals with group thinking, the second will examine the way we teach and learn radiology, and the last, how we do research. Some years ago, I used to ask my division members to sit down and have a brainstorming session regarding possible research projects for the academic year. Although I am sad to report that it never worked as I thought it would, I am now beginning to understand why this happened. While one of the major principles of brainstorming is “freewheeling” (that is, the wilder the idea, the better), this process is not completely free of structure and constraints as originally thought. The basic brainstorming rules are the following: no criticism, think “up” (bigger ideas are better than small ones), combine and improve ideas (1 1 3 rule), and quantity is desirable. Paradoxically, these weak and loose guidelines prevent brainstorming from achieving it goals. First, the lack of criticism forces a suspension of judgment, which we now know is contrary to the development of good ideas. “Freewheeling” implies lack of prior preparation, and without it, the result is generally no new ideas. Improvement cannot be accomplished without some criticism. As I explained in my “Overwhelmed by Choices” editorial last month, mental priming prevents true free association from happening; thus, freewheeling is usually not achieved, and, after all, what good is quantity without quality? This brainstorming thing started in the advertising world. Batten, Barton, Durstine, and Osborn (BBDO) is a company specializing in advertising and marketing. In 1939, Mr. Alex Faickney Osborn became its president. He spent most of his life as a salesman, business manager, and statistician and later taught psychology at the Ford Motor Company and advertising at the YMCA. At the start of his tenure at BBDO, he introduced the concept of “brainstorming.” In 1942, he published his book How to Think Up (McGraw-Hill), and in 1953, another called Applied Imagination: Principles and Procedures of Creative Problem-Solving (Scribner). Both turned into bestsellers, and soon after, he became known as a “creativity theorist.” Mr. Osborn eventually resigned from BBDO and dedicated himself full-time to writing. So popular were his books that in 1954, he funded the Creative Education Foundation (motto: “Where brainstorming began”; zero users on-line the multiple times I visited it) supported solely by royalties from his publications. The Foundation spurned the Creative ProblemSolving Institute (in charge of the longest running creativity conference in the world) and the Journal of Creative Behavior (published by Wiley, no impact factor found). On the basis of Osborn’s ideas, Buffalo State College started the International Center for Studies in Creativity, which grants a master of science degree in creativity. Part of this success was the fact that BBDO grew rapidly (current number of employees: 15,000) and attracted prestigious clients such as Pepsi, FedEx, GE, Bank of America, and Johnson & Johnson, among many other Fortune 500 companies. The success of BBDO is, at least, partly due to brainstorming. So, what are the mechanics of brainstorming? Well, you get about 12 participants (both experts and neophytes) and put them in a room and ask them to address one specific question (asking multiple questions is thought to be counterproductive). Asking the correct question is essential to brainstorming and other related activities. Osborn milked about one idea per minute out of such groups, tapping into the “gold mine between your ears” (another of his books). Brainstorming spawned the Osborn-Parnes Creative Problem-Solving Process, which is still commonly used and is based on 3 principles: explore the challenge, generate ideas, and prepare for action. This method uses both divergent and convergent thinking, and when you add to it “lateral thinking,” you have the “productive thinking model,” which addresses these questions: What is going on? What is success? What is the question? It also generates answers, forges a solution, and aligns resources. The last derivative from the original brainstorming concept is the “plan-do-check-act” method used for quality control and continuous improvement of processes and products (Toyota famously used it to improve throughput and quality on assembly lines with excellent results). All of these principles sound logical and very exciting until you realize that their basic foundation, brainstorming, does not work. The appeal of brainstorming lies in our own insecurities. If you participate in a session where all you get back is good vibrations and positive feedback, I assure you that you will love it! The first blow to brainstorming came from Yale University, where researchers formed 4 groups of 12 students who were asked to follow all of Osborn’s rules to try to solve several puzzles. The control group was 48 students given the same puzzles but asked to solve them individually. The results showed that individuals came up with more and better ideas than did groups. Many other studies have confirmed this finding. Dr. Michael Mumford, a professor at the University of Oklahoma and Director of its Center for Applied Social Research, calls brainstorming and courses teaching it “garbage.” Keith Sawyer, an Associate Professor at Washington University in St. Louis, said of brainstorming, “Decades of research have shown that brainstorming groups think far fewer ideas than the same number of people who work alone and later pool their ideas.” The key point about his remark is not that http://dx.doi.org/10.3174/ajnr.A3286