The science is clear: “People in brainstorming sessions produce fewer and lower quality ideas than those working alone.”

A recent post on Psyblog reports on research that confirms what I have long suspected. Group brainstorming sessions don’t work. Oh, they give the participants a nice, warm feeling. Being part of a consensus does that for you. But there’s a problem with consensus, and Margaret Thatcher summed it up thusly: “To me, consensus seems to be the process of abandoning all beliefs, principles, values and policies. So it is something in which no one believes and to which no one objects.”

I do think it’s possible for a couple of people to “think together” productively. But a roomful? Almost never. Thinking is an individual sport, not a team sport. Committees don’t get ideas; they make compromises. If you’ve got an advertising concept that everyone created together and everyone agrees with, you should be deeply suspicious of its quality.

Now if you absolutely must have a group brainstorming session–and some of you will insist on it–Psyblog does offer a few suggestions that may help make it slightly more useful. Of course, most of them involve going off and thinking by yourself either before or during the session itself.

You can have a good idea or you can have everyone feel good about a lesser idea. Which is more valuable to your organization and your client? For most advertising professionals, the answer isn’t as obvious as it would seem.