From Inc.’s This Renowned Wharton Professor’s Best Leadership Advice: For the Love of God, Stop Brainstorming, featuring renowned professor Adam Grant:
With 50 years of research available, leaders should be familiar with the perils of groupthink. When people go along to get along, originality suffers, potential threats are brushed aside, and disastrous decisions result. More effective, Grant says, is a process called “brainwriting,” in which everyone generates ideas on his or her own. Only once everything is on the table does the group evaluate it. “The wisdom of crowds mostly comes when you put people in separate rooms and get their judgment independently,” he says.
Something to consider the next time your club, organization, or department considers calling a meeting to brainstorm.