Change Your Thinking, Change Your Life: How to Unlock Your Full Potential for Success and Achievement

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CHANGE YOUR THINKING, CHANGE YOUR LIFE
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Six Steps to Brainstorming
Step One:
Assemble the group. The ideal number of people in 
a brainstorming session is four to seven. Below four, you don’t
have enough minds to generate a large enough variety of different
solutions to the problem. With more than seven people, the group
becomes too large for participants to get sufficient opportunity 
to contribute.
Step Two:
Do not permit criticism or ridicule. The essential part of
brainstorming is that no evaluation of the ideas takes place during
the brainstorming session. The entire focus of the brainstorming
session is on generating the greatest 
quantity
of ideas possible within
a short period of time.
Nothing kills a brainstorming session faster than the tendency
of people to criticize the ideas as they are generated. As soon as one
person’s ideas are criticized, the brainstorming session comes to a
halt. No one wants to be criticized. No one wants to be humiliated
or ridiculed in front of others. That is why you must concentrate on
the quantity of ideas and leave the evaluation of them to another
time, or to other people.
Step Three:
Set a specific time limit. The ideal length for brain-
storming sessions ranges from 15 to 45 minutes. One of the jobs of
managers and team leaders is to sit their staff down on a regular ba-
sis to brainstorm certain problems. Call everyone together and an-
nounce that you are going to brainstorm a particular goal or
situation for 15 minutes and then everyone is going to go back to
work.You’ll be amazed at the results.
Step Four:
Select a leader for the group. The leader’s job is to en-
courage everyone to contribute as much as possible. One of the best
ways to lead a brainstorming session is to go around the table and
encourage each person to contribute an idea—almost like playing
cards, where you encourage each person to bet or pass. Once you
have gone around the table a couple of times, people will start gen-
erating ideas at a rapid rate.