作者：Art Markman
翻譯：西來(lái)意
以小組討論的形式來(lái)激發(fā)創(chuàng )意的活動(dòng)可應用于很多情形。我們通常把這種活動(dòng)形式稱(chēng)作“頭腦風(fēng)暴般的討論會(huì )”。而“頭腦風(fēng)暴”一詞，實(shí)際上起源于亞歷克斯.奧斯本(Alex Osborn)在1939年創(chuàng )造的一種只遵循簡(jiǎn)單而合理的直覺(jué)規則，將所有想法在不經(jīng)過(guò)任何評價(jià)的情況下一一列出的技術(shù)方法。
The problem with group brainstorming sessions is that the technique is often ineffective. That is, groups that get together to generate ideas often generate fewer ideas than the individual group members would generate if they worked alone. A number of scientific studies have backed up this productivity loss from brainstorming.
頭腦風(fēng)暴小組遇到的一個(gè)普遍問(wèn)題，就是這種技術(shù)經(jīng)常失效。也就是說(shuō)，小組成員聚集在一起所激發(fā)出的想法，經(jīng)常少于他們獨自工作時(shí)所產(chǎn)生的想法。許多科學(xué)研究都證實(shí)了這種在頭腦風(fēng)暴過(guò)程中“創(chuàng )造性丟失”現象的存在。
Because of the observation that brainstorming often backfires, researchers have explored ways to improve brainstorming techniques. For example, research that I did with my colleagues Julie Linsey and Kris Wood explored methods that involve having people generate ideas individually before getting together as a group. That helps to increase the number and quality of ideas people generate.
由于發(fā)現頭腦風(fēng)暴技術(shù)常幫倒忙，研究人員已經(jīng)開(kāi)始在探尋改進(jìn)頭腦風(fēng)暴技術(shù)。就像我和我的同事，朱麗葉.林斯（Julie Linsey）和克瑞斯.伍德（Kris Wood）也做過(guò)一些類(lèi)似的研究。我們提出了一些方法，其中包括在頭腦風(fēng)暴活動(dòng)開(kāi)始前，先讓各個(gè)組員獨自激發(fā)創(chuàng )意的技術(shù)。這些技術(shù)有效的增加了人們激發(fā)創(chuàng )意的數量，同時(shí)也提高了創(chuàng )意的質(zhì)量。
An interesting study by Jonali Baruah and Paul Paulus published in the Journal of Experimental Social Psychology in 2011 examined the influence of the aspect of the problem people think about on the performance of the group.
約納利.巴魯克（JonaliBaruah）和保羅.保盧斯(Paul Paulus)在2011年的《實(shí)驗社會(huì )心理學(xué)期刊》上發(fā)表了一篇有趣的研究。他們驗證了人們在團隊內部的思維表現將會(huì )受到各個(gè)方面的影響。
Many difficult problems that require brainstorming to solve are multifaceted. For example, if college students wanted to make suggestions about ways to improve their college campus, they could focus on academics, faculty, athletics, activities or dorm life.
許多需要用到頭腦風(fēng)暴技術(shù)的疑難問(wèn)題往往涉及多個(gè)層面。舉例來(lái)說(shuō)，如果要讓大學(xué)生們提出如何讓他們的校園變的更完美的建議，他們的建議往往會(huì )涉及學(xué)校的專(zhuān)業(yè)水平、科系設置、體育運動(dòng)、集體活動(dòng)或是宿舍生活等等各個(gè)方面。
Baruah and Paulus had groups of three college students generate ideas to improve their campus. For some groups, each student was asked to focus on a different element of the campus. For other groups, each group member was given all three topics and was asked to generate ideas about each one.
約納利和保羅將大學(xué)生們每三人分成一個(gè)小組，要求他們提出改善校園的建議。對某些小組，不同的學(xué)生被要求集中思考改善校園的不同方面。而相對于其他小組，所有組員都被告知他們應當關(guān)注的所有三個(gè)話(huà)題，他們需要對每個(gè)話(huà)題進(jìn)行思考。
The researchers also varied the relationship among the topics. Some facets of a problem are similar. For example, the academics of a school and the faculty are similar. In contrast, academics and dorm life are more dissimilar. Some groups were given suggestions for three related topics, while the other groups were given suggestions for three unrelated topics. All of these groups were compared to a control group that got no instructions except to generate ideas to improve the campus.
這兩個(gè)研究人員還給不同的小組分配具有不同關(guān)聯(lián)度的話(huà)題。某些問(wèn)題所涉及的內容很相似。比如，學(xué)校的專(zhuān)業(yè)水平和教員質(zhì)量很近似。相反的，專(zhuān)業(yè)水平與宿舍生活的關(guān)聯(lián)度就很差。有些小組獲得的三個(gè)話(huà)題是相關(guān)的，而另外一些小組則獲得了完全不相關(guān)的三個(gè)話(huà)題。所有這些小組都將會(huì )與一個(gè)控制組相比較，這個(gè)控制組在得到需要提出改善校園的建議這個(gè)任務(wù)之后，沒(méi)有獲得過(guò)任何引導。
In this study, the best combination of instructions was for each group member to receive all three topics as a focus and for those topics to be as dissimilar as possible. This combination of instructions led to the largest number of ideas, and the greatest variety of ideas. This set of instructions also led to ideas that were generally more original than those that the group with no instructions were able to generate.
這項研究表明，最好的引導模式組合是讓每位組員都能接收到所有三個(gè)話(huà)題作為關(guān)注點(diǎn)，并且話(huà)題的相關(guān)度越小越好。這種引導模式組合將激發(fā)出數量最多的，最豐富多樣的創(chuàng )意。它所激發(fā)出的創(chuàng )意，也通常比沒(méi)有接受過(guò)任何引導的小組所能提出的，更加新穎，更貼近問(wèn)題核心。
What do these results mean, practically speaking?那么，從可操作性的層面，這個(gè)結果說(shuō)明了什么？
When you generate ideas in a group, it is often possible to bring together people with different types of expertise. In group settings, each person will use the perspective defined by their area of expertise to guide them in generating ideas. The present results suggest that having people who come from different perspectives can be useful, but it is most useful if each group member first identifies their area of expertise and encourages other people to envision the problem from their perspective as well. In that way, the group gets the benefit of having many different points of view, but also the benefit of having many people thinking about the problem from this diversity of perspectives.
當你想在團隊里獲得創(chuàng )意的時(shí)候，最可能的做法就是將有著(zhù)不同經(jīng)驗的人聚集到一起。在這樣的小組里，每個(gè)組員都將能夠運用他們各自領(lǐng)域里的特有觀(guān)點(diǎn)來(lái)激發(fā)創(chuàng )意?，F有的研究結果告訴我們，擁有不同專(zhuān)業(yè)領(lǐng)域的人非常有用，但最有用的是，事先讓組員根據自己領(lǐng)域的專(zhuān)業(yè)經(jīng)驗識別出問(wèn)題，然后再鼓勵其他人從各自專(zhuān)業(yè)的角度進(jìn)行思考。這樣的話(huà)，小組就會(huì )得益于擁有許多不同的視角，更得益于能讓更多人從不同的角度考慮問(wèn)題。
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