When you brainstorm ideas with other members of your team, you might be up for a fierce battle. You are facing people, who also have strong views, and they will insist on what they want; you may start to even see people talking over each other and in some cases even screaming.
Despite how stressful the environment is, you need to remain calm. You can’t allow the situation to prevent you from having a clear mind. It is also a sign of maturity if you can power through the brainstorming session without ending in a fight against a fellow employee.
Hold your thoughts
Every brainstorming session has a facilitator. The reason why it might get messy is that the facilitator fails to control the people in the group. Nevertheless, if you have someone managing the conversation, at some point you get the chance to speak. Therefore, you need to hold your thoughts and say them all out loud when given the opportunity to talk. You would rather talk when everyone is listening to you, than jump into the screaming game when no one understands each other.
Always remember that you are in a brainstorming session
When you feel like you want to jump into an argument, you need to take a step back and think that you are only in a brainstorming session; nothing will be final at the end of the meeting. This gives you the chance to sit together to discuss different issues, so it doesn’t help if you keep on insisting on doing what you want since there will be no decision anyway. The goal is to keep throwing ideas around until something interesting comes out.
Look at the people around you
When you see how people around you react, you will know that you can’t add fuel to the fire anymore and you will only be in even bigger trouble even if you allow yourself to be a part of the problem. You don’t have to calm them down since people react to stressful situations differently, but you can’t be a part of the escalating problem either. Take a step back and hold your horses.
Don’t be the mediator
Unless you are the assigned facilitator for the discussion, it isn’t your responsibility to calm people down. In the process, you might become a part of the problem. You need to let people speak and allow the facilitator to control them. Besides, you might be overstepping if you take a role that is not yours and the facilitator may feel offended, creating a new fight amongst the other one.
Take notes
It might start to get confusing when people are talking over each other, and responding on the spot might only make things worse. You need to take notes so that you know when to react and what issues to consider.
When discussing ideas for offline marketing campaigns like the use of a pull up banner, it can be stressful for everyone. Despite that, you need to understand that the goal is to promote the business using your marketing campaign, and that you need to be level-headed if you wish to succeed.
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