Your Inner CEO: Excuse Me, But Your Brain Is Swarming

The phenomenon of “brainswarming” is taking hold in the business world. Old-fashioned brainstorming (each person tosses out an idea, it’s discussed, and the process repeats) is too prone to difficulty. Extroverted personalities, for example, can more easily hold sway in a brainstorming scenario, suppressing contributions from less vocal team members. As an extrovert, of course, I had no problem with the old paradigm. I could foist my egomaniacal, Machiavellian schemes onto all the people I planned to chew up and spit out as I stepped over them on the ladder to my well-deserved dictatorship. 

Okay, maybe I’ve said too much….

But another perceived pitfall of conventional brainstorming is its essentially verbal nature. Brainswarming involves a more free-form, egalitarian approach to idea generation that de-emphasizes formal conversation. There again, I am perfectly happy with the former paradigm. I am a highly verbal person and I like to use voice and wordplay to make my points. Under the new rules of brainswarming, I would not be able to assert my verbal dominance, crushing dissenting opinion with a barrage of incredibly cogent, inarguable viewpoints that leave dissenters a puddle of incoherence on the floor, thereby assuring that my vision of the company’s future is the one management should go with. 

Okay, maybe I've said too much....  

My own shortcoming aside, brainswarming is a more inclusive approach to generating new concepts in the workplace. It’s free-form and encourages everybody to dive in, contribute, and raise questions. The interaction is more like an art class than a bunch of people sitting around a conference table waiting to say something meaningful while surreptitiously flipping up the top of the donut box to see if there are any éclairs left.  By introducing an element of play, everybody feels part of the decision making process. Ideas flow from making connections, and conclusions are drawn from a variety of sources, not just the loudest or cleverest ones. 

As specific problems are presented, and the top-down thinkers attack it one way, while the bottom-up thinkers attack it another, and the workable solution usually appears somewhere in the middle. It certainly seems more efficient than asking, “What does everybody think?” in a crowded room and letting the resulting confusion carry the day.  

So here’s to brainswarming. May it lead to a more solution-oriented workplace grounded in the mutual needs and concerns of the entire staff -- even if it means that those of us who used to enjoy foisting our wills upon our colleagues with a mind-boggling barrage of circular reasoning and a big, booming voice are left in the dust. 

Okay, maybe I’ve said too much. Again...