Brainstorming is an example of a business fad with no solid evidence of value. Tuesday's "Wall Street Journal" (6-13-06) states that the "popularity of brainstorming results in part from corporate America's knee-jerk faith in teams." John Clark, a former university dean of engineering, admits, "I can't remember a single instance where a group produced a really creative idea." Paul B. Paulus, a professor of psychology at the University of Texas, conducted research that concluded: "group brainstormers perform at about half the level they would if they brainstormed alone." According to David Perkins of Harvard Graduate School of Education, brainstorming is "plainly inefficient." "The best way to get good ideas is to get people to write them down privately and then bring them in." The popularity of brainstorming, despite its lack of supporting evidence, is another example of the fads that run our businesses. Unfortunately, it is also an example of the fads that run our churches. The difference is that the fads become fully engrained in the churches about the time that the secular world has determined them to be junk. We see this especially in "Christian psychology" where the world's castaway ideas of yesterday become the "new" movements of the churches. We would be much better served by staying with Bible principles. We may learn some practical things from the secular arena, but we must base all we do on the absolute principles of God's word.
