Why Your Creative Brainstorm Is Ho-Ho-Hum

By: James Ninness, Creative Director

It’s December.

Creative folk have a bit of time on their hands with the seasonal lull. And maybe a slight unwillingness to use PTO until the very last minute as an excuse to spend just a little less time with extended family. So, creatives at agencies and corporate marketing departments across the globe are participating in a long-reviled ritual: the 2025 brainstorm.

You know it. Someone books a 90-minute meeting in a room with “war room” or “studio” hopefully written on the door (it’s probably just conference room B). Someone (likely the same "someone") orders a box of stale pastries. There’s a whiteboard, three dried-out markers, and one that still has some red ink.

A senior-level person stands in the front and says, “Okay, people, we need to come out strong in Q1. No bad ideas. Let's…brainstorm!”

Then, for the next 89 minutes…a silent night, indeed. An I-take-it-back-I’ll-use-PTO-and-argue-politics-with-Uncle-Tripp boring night.

I question this broken custom. I’m here to perform an autopsy on the creative brainstorm. This collaborative cadaver has been stinking up our industry for 70 years.

Yes, the creative brainstorm (the way 99% of businesses practice it) is a problem disguised as a solution. It's not a creative alchemy, it's a creative eulogy. It's a meltdown of a process: a room full of smart people, all given the tools to succeed, who somehow, collectively, create the worst possible outcome. It’s where wild ideas go to be tamed and where genius insights get watered down by committee.

It is, in short, a complete waste of time. 

Let's look at the science and unpack why this sacred cow of creativity is better served as beef osso buco.

The Curious Case of How We Killed Osborn's Baby

The term “brainstorming” was coined by Alex Osborn, the “O” in the Mad Men-era ad agency BBDO. Osborn is an ad icon. The dude knew what he was talking about. So when, in his 1948 book, “Your Creative Power,” he laid out a creative system for group ideation, people paid attention.

He saw that in typical corporate meetings, crazy ideas were being “shot down” (his words) by “bright” (as in analytical but boring) bosses. The brainstorm was designed to stop that nonsense. And for a while, it worked. Somewhere along the way, though, we lost the plot…

His original process had four simple, courageous rules:

1. No Criticism: This was the cardinal rule. Judgment was forbidden. You couldn't say, “That's too expensive,” “The client will hate it,” or “That's dumb.”
2. Welcome Wild Ideas: Osborn, a true mad genius, believed it is easier to tame an idea than to think up a new one. He wanted the unhinged concepts à la Dr. Frankenstein.
3. Go for Quantity: The science was simple: quantity breeds quality. The goal wasn't one good idea; it was 400 ideas. Get all the art on the page and analyze it later.
4. Combine & Improve: This was the collaborative part. The goal was to build on each other's ideas. Fusing art and science, if you will.

Look at that list. Sounds great, right? 

Now consider the last brainstorm you sat in.

Today creatives tend to do an exact, literal, 180-degree opposite of every single rule.

We don't welcome wild ideas, we punish them. Typically, the person who suggests the truly mad idea—something utterly out of bounds—is met with silence. That awkward cough. That, "Okay…what else?" from the moderator. Instead of building on the intent, we make space to avoid being associated with them. We nurture conformity, not craft.

We don't go for quantity, we go for the one that the boss likes. This brings us to the insane psychology that kills the entire process before the first pastry is eaten. The person in charge smiles or laughs at a thought, and everyone in the room tries to be the person who builds on the approval. (More on this in a bit.)

Four Horsemen of the Idea-Pocalypse

Decades of psychological research have proven that the traditional, Osborn-in-name-only brainstorm is less effective than just having the same number of people sit in separate rooms and…think.

Why? Because the modern brainstorm is a perfect petri dish for cognitive biases and social dysfunctions. 

1. Production Blocking (the one-mouth-at-a-time problem): This is the most scientific and unavoidable flaw. A brainstorm is a one-at-a-time verbal process. While Joyce, the account executive, is passionately questioning the budget for five minutes, your unhinged, brilliant idea—that unexpected solution—is dying. As is, perhaps, your soul.

Creativity is not a polite, single-file line. It's a noisy, jolting pinball machine of fused thoughts. But production blocking forces you to wait your turn, and by the time you get it, your genius idea has faded, or you've forgotten it because you were forced to analyze whatever Joyce was rambling about for five minutes.

2. Evaluation Apprehension (the fear-of-looking-stupid problem): This is Osborn's no-criticism rule-killer. This is a courage vacuum.

The room isn't buzzing; it's shivering. The new designer isn't hungry for opportunity; they're hungry for not getting fired. They have a wild idea, but they observe the room, analyze the hierarchy, and test the air. The genius stays in their head.

This is social survival, not collaboration. People are self-censoring. They aren't trying to deliver the unexpected (Mad Genius’s literal vision); they're trying to deliver safe and easy so they can later deliver groceries to their family.

3. Social Loafing (the let-the-intern-do-it problem): This is the competitive killer. In a group, our individual hunger for excellence dissipates. We're driven by the assumption that someone else will pick up the slack. I frequently see this. Like, all the time. 

“Why should I be creative and courageous when the chatty copywriter is filling the meeting with a million (mostly terrible) ideas?” This is the tragedy of the creative commons. When an idea belongs to everyone, it belongs to no one, and the individual effort plummets.

4. Anchoring Bias & Groupthink (the HIPPO problem): This is a nasty issue. The HiPPO (Highest-Paid Person's Opinion) speaks first.

“I was thinking,” the VP says, “something for the holidays. Maybe…red.”

It's over. That idea, “Red,” is now the anchor. Every idea for the next 45 minutes will be a variation of red. What about dark red? What about red, but with tinsel? “Red’s always been my favorite color.” Thanks for the input, Joyce.

This is anchoring bias: the first piece of information anchors the entire subsequent conversation. And while it can occur when anyone speaks, it is woefully more common when the person in charge of the hiring, schedule, or paychecks speaks up.

And this immediately triggers its mad cousin, groupthink. Coined by psychologist Irving Janis, groupthink is a pathology of collaboration where the group's desire for harmony and conformity (i.e., agreeing with the HiPPO) courageously overrides any creative, analytical, or rational appraisal of alternatives.

No one passionately questions the red idea. No one delivers the unexpected. The entire session becomes an exercise in collaboratively restating the boss's boring bad idea in 40 different ways.

Zooming Into the Void (the Remote Section)

“Okay, James,” you say, “but what about remote brainstorms? We have genius digital tools now! Virtual whiteboards! Breakout rooms!”

As if this silent ritual wasn't unhinged enough, we decided to literally put everyone on mute. The remote brainstorm is a silent night on steroids.

All the science problems remain, but now they're fused with new, unexpected technical ones:

• Production blocking is now the unmute button chicken.
• Evaluation apprehension is now my-camera-is-on-and-my-boss-is-staring-at-my-nose-hair-while-I-pitch-this-half-baked-idea.
• Social loafing is now I-am-answering-emails-on-my-other-monitor.

The brilliant tools (like Miro, Mural, or FigJam) are analytical marvels. They are fantastic for observing and analyzing ideas that already exist. They are, however, sterile environments for creation.

Real creative alchemy has human energy. It’s chaotic. It's mad. It’s art. It’s infused with laughter, courageous (and often loud but almost always respectful) disagreement, and the competitive energy of a shared space.

Recent studies have analyzed this. One 2024 study noted that while remote work is great for analytical tasks, it can stifle the spontaneous idea generation that comes from unstructured, in-person collaboration.

The spark of art gets lost in the grid of the digital whiteboard.

Stop the Ritual. Start the Alchemy.

Am I saying all collaboration is bad? Am I saying we should all become hermits? No. That's the false alchemy the brainstorm sells you: either group chaos or solo genius.

The real alchemy—the real art and science—is a fused process.

The brainstorm is a problem because we're using it for the wrong thing. We're asking a group to do creation when groups are only truly great at refinement. The data is clear. The science is in. The most creative, mad, and unexpected ideas happen in one place: a genius human brain, working alone.

Patch the process together.

First, the art: This is the individual piece. This is where you are creative and curious alone. It's brainwriting, not brainstorming. Go feral. Be unhinged. Nurture your craft. Fill a notebook. Connect almost any two dots. And do this before any meeting.

Second, the science: This is a collaborative meeting. You don't come in with a blank slate. You come in hungry, competitive, and armed with 20 outrageous ideas apiece. The group's job isn't to create; it's to observe, question, test, and analyze.

The goal is to unite art and science. To take one person's wild idea, collaboratively infuse another's genius insight, and analyze how they can perform as one.

It’s December. 

If you’re creative, and you haven’t already, you’ll likely get asked to brainstorm for the coming year. Don’t run away to Uncle Tripp. You hate that man. Instead, cancel the disaster and double down on yourself and your team.

Tell whoever scheduled the meeting that you want to work alone first and find the wild for an hour. And that the rest of the team should, too. Then, you’ll get together and collaboratively build something worthy of Alex Osborn’s baby.

For what it's worth, I truly hope Joyce brings the goods.

Happy holidays, y'all. And good luck in Q1.