Turns out that brainstorming--that go-to approach to generating new ideas since the 1940s--isn’t the golden ticket to innovation after all. Both Jonah Lehrer, in a recent article in The New Yorker, and Susan Cain, in her new book Quiet, have asserted as much. Science shows that brainstorms can activate a neurological fear of rejection and that groups are not necessarily more creative than individuals. Brainstorming can actually be detrimental to good ideas.

What? What's that you say? I have always thought this. The best innovation n my career has been with small teams that trust each other and can argue. Arguing has such a negative connotation, but arguing without personal feelings makes for great innovation. People always talk about consensus and meeting in the middle, however that is the opposite of innovating. When arguing goes right, the result is like a pyramid shape. Instead of meeting in the middle, the middle is raised and something better comes from the debate.

But the idea behind brainstorming is right. To innovate, we need environments that support imaginative thinking, where we can go through many crazy, tangential, and even bad ideas to come up with good ones. We need to work both collaboratively and individually. We also need a healthy amount of heated discussion, even arguing. We need places where someone can throw out a thought, have it critiqued, and not feel so judged that they become defensive and shut down. Yet this creative process is not necessarily supported by the traditional tenets of brainstorming: group collaboration, all ideas held equal, nothing judged.

All ideas are not equal. I have a colleague that throws out ideas all the time, some good, mostly bad. But the good ones change the organization and if she would feel bad when the answer is no, I wouldn't be as successful as I am. Surround yourself with people who can take it when the answer is no.