HBR Guide to Unlocking Creativity

CHAPTER 11

A Smarter Way to Wrap Up Your Brainstorm

by Angus Fletcher

Almost every business, of every size, across sectors, employs creativity training, from whiteboard brainstorming sessions to design thinking. It’s a billion-dollar industry. But there’s a problem: The training doesn’t work. Instead, it perpetuates expert bias and pseudo-innovation. And although it can temporarily boost morale, it does little over the long haul to reduce burnout. On the whole, research has shown creativity training to be at best inadequate and at worst counterproductive.¹

To understand what’s broken and how to fix it, my lab partnered with teams at a variety of organizations, among them Silicon Valley startups, U.S. Special Operations, the University of Chicago ...