See if this sounds familiar.
You’re in a meeting, and a leader asks, “How are we going to grow?”
And suddenly, you’re brainstorming.
Ideas start flying. New programs, new partnerships, new campaigns, new retention initiatives, and the list goes on. Sticky notes cover the walls.
Everyone contributes because nobody wants to be the person who isn’t “thinking creatively.”
Then the meeting ends.
Everyone walks out with three more things to do, more meetings on an already full calendar, and a quiet sense of anxiety about how any of this will get done.
This is a recipe for soul-crushing burnout.
The problem isn’t brainstorming. It’s brainstorming before you know what problem you’re trying to solve.
Years ago, I attended a seminar at Stanford with Bernie Roth, one of the founders of Stanford’s d.school.
One of his rules for problem solving stuck with me:
Don’t ask a question in the form of an answer.
Consider the question, “How do we grow the university?”
It sounds like an open question, but it assumes the answer is growth.
Roth would ask:
“If we grew, what would that do for you?”
“We’d have more revenue.”
“If you had more revenue, what would that do for you?”
“We could give people raises.”
“If you could give people raises, what would that do for you?”
“We could retain more of our people.”
Ah. Now we may have found the actual problem. How do we retain more of our people? Now you’re ready to brainstorm.
You already have one possible answer: Give raises. But what else causes people to leave?
Maybe they don’t feel supported.
Maybe the systems make their jobs unnecessarily difficult.
Maybe they don’t feel connected to the community.
Maybe they don’t know what’s happening across the institution.
Maybe they don’t believe leaders listen to them.
Suddenly, the possibilities look very different. Some of them may cost almost nothing to address.
You could give everyone a raise and still lose good people if you never address the reasons they’re frustrated. We’ve all seen that happen.
This is why I tell leadership teams something that sounds strange at first:
You should feel really good about your problems.
Not because problems are fun, but because a clearly defined problem is freeing.
You stop throwing ideas against the wall and piling random initiatives onto exhausted people. You know what you’re trying to solve.
Clarity creates focus. Focus creates alignment. And when a team aligns around a problem that matters, people get energized. They get hopeful.
An aligned team working on the right problem is formidable.
Before your next brainstorming session, don’t start with ideas. Start with the right question.
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Leadership teams don’t always need more ideas. They need clarity on the problems that matter most. At TG Three, we help Christian college leaders ask better questions, focus their efforts, and align their teams. If your leadership team could use that kind of clarity, let’s talk.