training to become more creative.

You know what research tells us about brainstorming?

It sucks.

Well, it's not really all that bad. But it is disappointing. Research consistently shows that you end up with more ideas, and more good creative ideas if you have those people all working independently on the problem.

In a business world enamored of the idea of teamwork and teamplay, this comes as a rude shock to a lot of people. Quite rude.

Why does brainstorming actually fail to deliver the best ideas? There are a number of reasons, but two points make a lot of sense ... first, face2face exploration of one's thoughts is intimidating to a lot of people, and second, for all our cultural love of teamwork, we train precious few employees how to operate within a team.

Which is all to say that training in creativity is a lot more than simply giving people a few creative-thinking tools, like experience in brainstorming. Real creative thinking is more a lifestyle, than it is a checklist of ways to think though a problem.

Teaching creativity requires that we consider people's world views and personal experience, and showing them that different is not wrong.