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Do You Have A Brainstorming Partner?

Written by: Adam Sonnhalter

Article Overview: Most small business owners don't have a person or a group of people to effectively brainstorm with. Quite often, it's simply the business owner throwing his or her ideas on the table and the staff just nodding their heads in agreement without really bringing too much to the discussion. Or the owner simply talking to himself or herself. If you are a successful business owner or if you know any successful business owners, chances are pretty high that they'll have a brainstorming group they meet with regularly. They may refer to it as a mastermind group, a sounding board, a partner, a business coach, or just someone to bounce ideas off.

Do You Have A Brainstorming Partner?

Most small business owners don't have a person or a group of people to effectively brainstorm with. Quite often, it's simply the business owner throwing his or her ideas on the table and the staff just nodding their heads in agreement without really bringing too much to the discussion. Or the owner simply talking to himself or herself.

If you are a successful business owner or if you know any successful business owners, chances are pretty high that they'll have a brainstorming group they meet with regularly. They may refer to it as a mastermind group, a sounding board, a partner, a business coach, or just someone to bounce ideas off.

One of the things I'm most thankful for is that I have a great brainstorming partner. The best part is that he's also my business partner, Jack.

Recently, I was preparing for a presentation so I decided to bounce some ideas off Jack. As is usually the case, the first time I verbalized my ideas they didn't sound as succinct or coherent as they did in my head.

So Jack does what any good brainstorming partner will do. He begins to ask questions and offer suggestions about different ways to think about things. After about an hour of debating back and forth, we had laid out some good ideas, but things weren't quite finalized yet. But within the next 24 hours, everything came together in the form of a very short and simple outline.

What's great about a good brainstorming session is that it moves things along. Whether it's preparing for a presentation or for a meeting with an important prospective client or a troubled employee. This brainstorming thing is something we do all the time with our business coaching clients. Quite often, it is one of the most valuable services we provide for our clients.

Here are a couple of keys to a great brainstorming session:

1. Check Your Ego At The Door: the focus of a brainstorming session should be to move things forward and get closer to or form a solution to the problem or opportunity that has been identified. Checking your ego means you shouldn't get caught up in whose idea it is. Your focus should be on the result. Don't worry, as you do more and more of these sessions, you'll add more and more to the discussion and resulting solutions.
2. Uninterrupted Time: make sure you allow for at least 30-60 minutes of uninterrupted time to do the brainstorming. This means turning off cell phones, no checking email, no texting, etc. A big part of brainstorming is the "flow" you get into as ideas begin to build on one another. One caveat here, it's sometimes good to take a minute to visit the inspiration room (that's the name Jack and I use for the bathroom). It's amazing how ideas start to meld together in your head while taking a break to visit the inspiration room.
3. Free Flow of Ideas: a good way to get into a flow or rhythm is to continue to throw out thoughts and ideas without judging them. A good rule to follow here is, if you're thinking it, say it. Get it out because what often happens is the person you're brainstorming with will build off that idea or use it as a springboard to go in a totally different direction. This is where the "mastermind" comes in. There are ideas created by the two of you that neither of you would have come up with on your own.
4. Role Playing: as you continue to bring up new ideas and formulate your strategy, do some role playing. If you're preparing for a negotiation, each of you take opposing sides of the table and see how it holds up. Try to poke holes in your approach. Role playing is a great tool to refine your thoughts and strategies. It's always better to refine these strategies ahead of time vs. in real time.
5. Don't Worry About Getting "Done": again, let me stress that this is a process. You're trying to continue to make progress. Some items can be brainstormed and solutions reached within a few minutes. Others will take several hours over multiple meetings. You want to be sure you're making progress from where you started. It's often very beneficial for each of you to step away from the session and let the ideas and thoughts swirl around in your head and then come back to it the next day or next week to continue making progress.
6. Keep The Group Small: I'm a fan of keeping these groups to somewhere between 2-4 people. As you start to get more people involved, the process can become a bit cumbersome and not everyone has a chance to participate (some of the more dominant personalities might hijack the discussion as well).

I would love to hear some of your success stories with brainstorming. Also, some additional thoughts on what not to do during these sessions. I'm convinced that if more small business owners had these type of groups, more small businesses would succeed.

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  Top Ten Reasons to Partner with Someone
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  Accountability Partners For Internet Marketers
  Improved Brainstorming With Introspection

Article Tags: business coach, mastermind group, small business owners, sounding board, successful business



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