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In the end, technique can’t substitute for courage.

Take, for example, brainstorming. By now, most of us in business have learned how to brainstorm properly. We sit at the table, politely waiting our turn while the facilitator asks for our ideas in strict rotation, writing them down verbatim while we all take great care to avoid offering even the slightest appearance of criticism lest it intimidate the flow of creative thought.

Then we get our milk and cookies and take a nap.

Not only can’t technique substitute for courage, but it can prevent the very benefits you’re trying to achieve. Brainstorming, or at least the form of brainstorming most of us have been taught in facilitation school, not only doesn’t work but can’t work.

Let’s start with the standard practice of presenting ideas in strict rotation. The reason for doing so is to make sure everyone gets a chance — important among children; ridiculous among supposed adults who by now ought to grasp how to converse in public. Forcing adults to take turns in a brainstorming session is a superior way to drain the energy out of a group. Jill makes a point that Fred wants to embellish. Fred, however, has to wait until three other people have presented entirely different ideas, not because they especially wanted to, but because it was their turn. By the time Fred’s turn arrives, any remaining shred of continuity has fled the room and the effort Fred must expend to restore it greatly exceeds the value of the embellishment, so Fred doesn’t bother.

Nor does Fred bother to do anything else. His mental energy has been used to repress the expression of his idea.

Meanwhile, Ralph has made an off-the-wall suggestion. Rather than offer her critique, Kayla bites her tongue because it isn’t time for critiquing right now. That’s too bad, because had she been allowed to do so her comments would have caused a mental light bulb to turn on in Zack’s mind.

So here’s a suggestion on how to make brainstorming work: Rather than spend a lot of time and energy preventing the flow of ideas so as to cater to the timid, why don’t we spend a small fraction of it counseling the timid on the nature of professionalism.

My parents’ generation charged pillboxes on Guadalcanal. Compared to that, is asking someone to speak up in a team meeting too much courage to ask for?

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|In: Business Ethics|Last Updated:

Usually, I get the joke.

I don’t always think it’s funny, but at least I get it. Not always, though — in a recent column I reported on the antics of a certain “Dr. Richard Paley, teacher of Divinity and Theobiology, Fellowship University,” who exposed all of us in IT as Darwinians, atheists and pagans. As a number of readers were kind enough to explain, “Dr. Paley” is a satire. In my defense, The Register reported the story as fact, a Hoaxbusters search came up empty, and I did find it hilarious. I just didn’t realize it was supposed to be.

Darwin’s theory of evolution through natural selection appears in this column on a regular basis. This isn’t because “Survival Guide” is related to “Survival of the Fittest.” The latter phrase, never used by Darwin himself, comes from Herbert Spencer’s ludicrous theory of “Social Darwinism” — ludicrous because it considered fitness to be absolute, justifying hereditary aristocracy as the consequence of natural superiority.

In Darwinian theory, fitness is contextual, measuring how well a heritable trait fits specific conditions. That’s a concept you can take to the bank when managing your career: Success comes from how well you adapt to circumstances. There are no panaceas, which means we can all ignore the 90% or so of all business pundits who sell “the answer” without first hearing the question.

This same philosophy can help you plot a course for your IT organization. I’ve read various authorities expound on the proper role of IT in business. Some call for strategic partnership, some consider IT’s proper role to be a service provider, while yet others think we’re an “information utility.” If they understood modern evolutionary theory, they’d spend less time advocating one or another as the right answer, and more assessing which circumstances each of these very different models is best suited to.

Evolutionary theory applies to all situations in which entities compete, which means we in business can benefit from a century and a half of scientific research. To take just one example:

The estimable Richard Dawkins has argued that natural selection is a competition among genes, not whole organisms — that an organism is just a gene’s way of succeeding. This insight simplifies the apparently mystifying behavior of companies that self-destruct while creating “shareholder value.” Substitute gene for shareholder and organism for company and everything suddenly makes sense –plenty of bodies are designed to die in order to help their genes succeed.

The lesson for you: Shareholder value and your own best interests don’t necessarily coincide. Plan accordingly.

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