As I mention in my opening post, we come together as a group for many reasons. You may be hosting a book club with friends, running a meeting at work, holding a family discussion, or teaching an art class for senior citizens. Whatever you are leading, an opportunity often arises to solicit input (“What book should we read next?”). Here’s something I know to be true about myself: As soon as the brainstorming starts, I find myself automatically evaluating each idea as it arises (“Oooooh, I love that one!” “Oh, no way, that will never work”). This is something I have to continuously be mindful of, because when we turn on our evaluation brains, we are, by definition, narrowing down the possibilities of embracing truly innovative thoughts. And that is not what a transformational facilitator wants to do at all.

So, next time, before you start any kind of idea-generation session, prepare yourself and your participants by naming the dilemma. As in, “We’re going to brainstorm a bunch of ideas. My challenge to us all is to not judge the ideas as they arise, but, instead, think of one question you have about each idea. Let’s stay curious!” This is, obviously, easier said than done, so here’s a fun process to help everyone stay in “open mind” mode a little longer.  

Start by asking everyone to brainstorm just one key idea. Using our book club example, each person would be asked to write a suggestion for the next book on an index card, anonymously. As facilitator, collect the cards and read off the first one. Now allow participants a few minutes to write down a question they have about that choice on a new index card, encouraging everyone to come up with the most creative and open-ended questions they can think of. (“Why do you think that would be a good choice for our group?” “What interesting things have you heard about the book or author?”). You can also reverse these two steps, and have people generate the questions first. Try it both ways and see which works better for you and your group.

Collect the question cards and read one out. Note that everyone will have an opportunity to answer the question, not just the person who suggested that idea. Since we already know that posing questions for the whole group to answer simultaneously is not the best strategy if you are trying to get 100% participation (which, in transformational facilitation you always are!), invite participants to turn to a partner to share their response to the question, rather than answering out to the whole group. (“I’ve read that the author wrote this book while on her honeymoon and that it is actually part auto-biographical.” “I know that the author published this book, his first, when he was 85 years old.”) If someone really doesn’t have a response, of course, they can pass, but encourage people to dig deep. If your group is very small (i.e. just 3-4 people), and you have the time, then go ahead and let everyone share a response. Otherwise, keep it to pairs with no large-group share out.

After a few minutes of partner sharing, move on to the next card and repeat the process, choosing a different question card for everyone to answer and different pairings for the discussions. When you have gone through all of the cards, you may want to do a second round of idea-generation, with everyone thinking up a second key idea if time allows.

Getting to consensus on which idea to ultimately go with at this point may still take a while (that’s a whole other topic for a whole other post), but the practice of remaining open-minded during the idea-generation process allows participants to feel that even if their suggestion was not, ultimately, the one that was selected, they still had airtime and thought dedicated to their offering. And the responses to the questions may (and will!) generate new ideas that participants hadn’t even been thinking of originally, (“Oh, right, I loved that first book she wrote and feel that it is less heavy than the one that was just suggested, we should consider that one for our club instead!”)

It is also important to note that, especially if this is your first time doing a process like this, participants may really struggle to come up with questions. Or, frankly, you might just not have all that much time. In these cases, it is perfectly fine to come up with a set of questions in advance yourself. Three is probably enough questions, and people can choose to answer any one of the three each time an idea card is presented. DO NOT, however, come up with the idea cards yourself! That would not be in line with transformational facilitation practices at all because, at every opportunity possible, you want the generation of thought and solution to come from your participants.  

I am aware that the book club example may be too far off topic for many of you reading this post to fully bite into, so I challenge you to think of a scenario in your daily interactions where this strategy might work for you. Here are a few more to help get your own ideas going:

1. In a work setting, after asking staff to brainstorm ideas to improve “x” about your organization (let’s say, staff retention), participants may generate ideas like “Higher salaries,” “More vacation time,” “Better working conditions,” etc. The question cards may contain questions like “How do you see this idea contributing to higher employee retention?” “Have you ever seen this used as an effective strategy? How did it play out?” or “Would this encourage YOU to stay in your job? Why or why not?”
2. At home, as a parent, you may ask your children for ideas about something, like where they’d like to go/do on a day off of school. Ideas may include the amusement park, a movie, or just hang out at home with their friends. Questions that they might generate could include, “What would be fun about that activity?” “Have you done something similar before? What did you like about it?” or “Would this be fun for all of us? Why do you think that?”
3. On a fundraising committee for an organization you are on the board of, looking for themes for your annual gala. “60’s Rock and Roll,” “Lending a Hand,” or “Pizza with a Purpose” could all pop up. And questions could be “What about this theme would be fun for donors?” “How does this theme relate to our mission?” “What kinds of additional fundraising activities could we do leading up to the gala related to the theme to increase revenue?”  
4. In a class, you may find yourself (as I once did!) asking students for ideas on what they think the most popular work of art ever created is. “The Mona Lisa,” “David,” “The Scream.” And when you ask for questions, you may find yourself with, “Why do you think that is the most popular work of art?” “What about the piece do you think people like/what do you like about it?” “Are there any other artworks that you know of by the same artist that are as well known? If so, what is similar or different about the pieces?”

The basic concept here is that instead of thinking of responses (making judgements), you are encourage everyone, yourself included, to think about questions and stay curious. This index card activity can help scaffold that process, especially when you all are new at keeping your minds open. Good luck and let me know how it goes!