Group Size
- Any Size
People brainstorm the best ways to fail at achieving their real objective. This is important because too often we think in routine ways, which blocks creativity; this activity helps people come up with new solutions they might never have seen before.
Ask the participants whether they came up with any innovative solutions that might have eluded them when they were doing more conventional brainstorms. Ask them why such an unorthodox approach might lead to more innovations.
This activity might seem silly, but it’s actually powerful and based on evidence. For example, take hospital infections. They are the #1 killer of patients in America; people can enter the hospital and end up even more sick than when they came in! Moreover, this is costly, hurting the health care system to the tune of $35 billion each year. According to Michael Gordon, Professor of Social Innovation at Michigan Business School, one hospital did a reverse brainstorm: “If we wanted to create the most hospital infections possible, what would be do?” When they did the activity, they realized that they were actually doing many of the terrible practices in the hospital, even though they were supposed to be in the business of saving lives. This activity was able to shine the light of awareness for them to be able to dramatically reduce the number of patient deaths.
Transformative Action Institute, based on improv