Start silent
Write ideas alone before anyone talks. Groups that brainstorm out loud tend to produce fewer ideas than the same people working alone first.
Resilient TeamRelational Game
Creative Collaboration: Yes, And
from defending ideas→to building, then choosing on purpose
The Goal
Generate better ideas faster by building first and judging later.
Ideal For
Cross-functional teams, innovation kickoffs, strategy off-sites, and decisions the team keeps recirculating.
The Shift
From defending ideas to building, then choosing on purpose.
The Science
Feeling safe to offer half-formed ideas tends to help people speak up, and improvisation exercises built on accepting and adding to offers are associated with more divergent thinking. Small brain-imaging studies suggest that pairs working together on creative tasks show more synchronized frontal activity, though this research is early.
Yes, And, step by step
- Silent poolEveryone writes as many ideas as they can on one live challenge, one per card, without talking.
- BuildPick a seed, ideally not the most senior person’s. Each voice opens with “Yes, and…” and adds one piece; everyone adds once before anyone adds twice.
- ConstrainRestart the build under a constraint: half the budget, half the time, no new tools, or live in two weeks.
- ContinueDrop the constraint and keep building with what it surfaced.
- Silent vote, then pick the sparkTwo marks each before any discussion. Then one idea as a test: “When [moment this week], we will [the smallest test]. We’ll know it worked if [what we’d see]”, with one owner and a date.
The techniques, and why they work
Yes, and
Build on the last idea instead of defending your own. Improvisation exercises built on accepting and adding to offers are associated with more divergent thinking.
Constrain, then choose silently
Add a moderate constraint, then vote before discussing. Moderate constraints tend to spark fresh solutions, and a silent vote keeps the loudest voice from picking the idea.
Selected research
- Nemeth, C. J., Personnaz, B., Personnaz, M., & Goncalo, J. A. (2004). The liberating role of conflict in group creativity: A study in two countries. European Journal of Social Psychology, 34(4), 365–374.
- Mullen, B., Johnson, C., & Salas, E. (1991). Productivity loss in brainstorming groups: A meta-analytic integration. Basic and Applied Social Psychology, 12(1), 3–23.
- Paulus, P. B., & Yang, H.-C. (2000). Idea generation in groups: A basis for creativity in organizations. Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes, 82(1), 76–87.
- Lewis, C., & Lovatt, P. J. (2013). Breaking away from set patterns of thinking: Improvisation and divergent thinking. Thinking Skills and Creativity, 9, 46–58.
- Acar, O. A., Tarakci, M., & van Knippenberg, D. (2019). Creativity and innovation under constraints: A cross-disciplinary integrative review. Journal of Management, 45(1), 96–121.
- Rietzschel, E. F., Nijstad, B. A., & Stroebe, W. (2006). Productivity is not enough: A comparison of interactive and nominal brainstorming groups on idea generation and selection. Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, 42(2), 244–251.
- Xue, H., Lu, K., & Hao, N. (2018). Cooperation makes two less-creative individuals turn into a highly-creative pair. NeuroImage, 172, 527–537.
From the research
The thinking behind this lab, published in full: