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

Unleash Your Mental Powers
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Step Five:
Select someone to keep track of the ideas. A key func-
tion in a brainstorming session is that of the 
recorder
. This is the per-
son who writes down the ideas as they are generated.
Step Six:
Be punctual. Start and stop the brainstorming ses-
sion exactly on time, no matter how well it is going. At the end,
you gather up all the ideas and take them away to be evaluated at
a later time.
■
IDEAS ON INDEX CARDS
In another type of brainstorming session involving dozens of peo-
ple, we break the group up and distribute index cards to each sub-
group. Each of the smaller groups is assigned to generate ideas in
answer to the question or problem. Afterward, the index cards con-
taining the ideas are collected. They are then shuffled and handed
out to the subgroups again, completely mixed up.
In the second phase of the exercise, each subgroup is asked to
take the ideas on the cards that they have received and evaluate
them, rating them in terms of their value prior to reporting back to
the overall group.
In a session with 20 or 30 people, two or three hundred ideas
will be generated in 30 minutes. When those ideas are gathered, dis-
tributed, evaluated, and reported back to the overall group, the re-
sults are absolutely astonishing! I have worked with companies that
have come up with so many solutions to problems that had been
stumping them that they did not have enough hours in the day, or
enough people, to take action on more than a small number of them.
■
THE HOME TEAM
If you are in a good relationship with another person, the two of you
can form an excellent ongoing brainstorming team. A husband and
wife, or any two people, together can generate a continuous flow of
ideas, as long as they do not attempt to evaluate or criticize the
ideas at the same time they are generating them.