The Importance of Brainstorming
If you aspire to achieve high results and better outcomes in your business, engaging your team in effective brainstorming sessions is crucial. In most cases, your staff knows the answers to address the challenges your business faces. They can make some recommendations that you hadn’t considered before, providing “lightbulb moments”. Every company strives for growth and to get to the next level, but sometimes we are challenged with situations that slow things down or put the business in a downward spin. In these situations, swift action is required to get the business back on track. Even when your business is thriving, conducting these sessions remains essential.
Staff engagement is everything. The more you involve your staff, the more committed they become to the success of the business, their team, and themselves, provided they have the right attitude. Many companies seek the assistance of Key Business Advisors to help create change within their business. This change is essential not only to increase revenue but also to change some of the mindsets among the staff. Let’s face it, most people don’t like change and dislike being told what to do. When you get your team members involved, you have a better chance of getting their buy-in and clarity regarding what’s best for the business.
To build a company with a thriving culture, your team requires a clearly defined path for the direction of where you want to take the business, which is where strategic planning comes into play. Encourage your team to challenge some of the decision-making processes, utilising their experience and emotional intelligence, and brainstorm what you are trying to achieve looking for the best outcomes. By doing so, your team members will become more emotionally connected to your business feeling like they are contributing, and doing meaningful work that enhances job satisfaction and retention of great employees.
What makes things difficult is when you have certain team members who are negative and not interested and are disengaged in your business. You may have staff who have stronger personalities than others or thrive on a job title where they believe they need to use their authority and dominate conversations. Therefore, it’s important to have a skilled facilitator who can effectively manage the session and ensure that everyone works together cohesively.
Here are our tips for conducting a successful brainstorming session with your team:
Be prepared and appoint a competent facilitator.
Record the conversations and take notes for future reference.
Aim for quality discussions; do not bag the company, a person, or a situation.
Include everyone in the conversation seeking different opinions and clarity.
Never assume; use case studies and examples for better understanding.
Share ideas or situations that have worked in the past or you have seen elsewhere.
Thank everyone for being involved in finding solutions.
Organise the next steps based on the brainstorming session just conducted.
Reassure everyone that their input has been highly valuable.
Manage and communicate the takeaways, as well as the next steps to be taken.
Staff engagement is essential and there are many parts of a business you can brainstorm. This is all about Business Strategy in doing what is best for the company. Business can be tough in some areas, so you need to consider customer insight, what your customers want today, and customer foresight, what your customers want tomorrow. You also need to look at competitor insight and foresight. We cannot control inflation, interest rate rises, or suppliers putting their prices up, but what you can control is how your company reacts to the market.
Some tips that might help you create change within your company:
Think about the reason for change, redefine your products and services, or systems and processes. You may need to look at staff capability and create or update your Strategic Plan. Think about why you need to make changes, and how you will communicate this to your team. What is important with strategic intent is to involve everyone by re-inducting and re-training your team on what needs to change, and continually follow up and track milestones and achievements to prevent strategic drift otherwise this could be more damaging to your business.
To learn more about creating change in your company, download our 10 Steps to Change Management:
Download 10 Steps to Change Management
Learn more about creating change in your company: https://keyba.com.au/change-management/
Key Business Advisors has a proven model built over 15 years. We have a dedicated team that delivers results, that are aligned with our mission, vision, values, and purpose. We take our clients from good to great because we become embedded in their business through the services we provide, covering all aspects of employee engagement and performance. We have a proven model that results in building strong client relationships across Australia.
To learn more about our company and access FREE resources to help your business grow and get to the next level:
- Key Business Advisors – keyba.com.au
- KBA Business Strategy & Growth – https://keyba.com.au/business-advice-strategy-and-growth/
- KBA People & Culture – https://keyba.com.au/people-culture-business/
- KBA HR Advice and Support – https://keyba.com.au/hr-advice-support/
- KBA Professional Sales Training – https://keyba.com.au/professional-sales-training/
At KBA, we are passionate about taking businesses from good to great. If you need assistance in enhancing performance through a strong organisational culture, please don’t hesitate to contact us today!
If you would like to explore our services further or require assistance, please reach out to Key Business Advisors on 1300 4 ADVICE
