Greg: Frank, Frank. How did the brain‐storm go.
Frank: Honestly, Greg, pretty poorly. It came up with zero good ideas, wasted everybody's time, and I'm pretty sure Kristin just quit.
Greg: What could you have done differently?
Frank: Greg, first of all I should've set some objectives. Before we even scheduled this meeting I should've let everybody know what we were doing, what our goals were, and how much time we had.
The clients asked us for a couple concepts on this upcoming branding project, so I've assembled Quinlan's greatest minds in this room. Hopefully, we can strike gold with a hard‐core brainstorming session. We will stay here all night if we have to. What do ya got?
Jillian: I didn't even know the client agreed to this branding project.
Ben: Frank, I have a hard stop in a half hour. I'm way too busy for this.
Michael: Me too. You told me an hour at max.
Frank: I say a lot of things. No pressure, but the client wants three concepts by the end of the day. Let's get movin'.
I need to end criticism right away. Ben walks in there, and he's just steamrollin' Kristin right out of the gate.
Kristin: I know it's a little edgy, but I was thinking we could ...
Ben: No.
Frank: Green‐light thinking, so let's not dismiss anybody's ideas. Jillian, your next. Let's go.
Jillian: I don't know. Maybe that idea we were talking about yesterday. Would something like that work?
Michael: [laughs]
Jillian: Do you think that's funny?
Michael: No, sorry. I got a text. You can say so much with emojis.
Frank: Emojis. That's good. Chevy did an emoji campaign.
Ben: Yeah. People hated that campaign. That's stupid.
Jillian: What's stupid about it? What are your ideas?
Ben: Let me tell ya about a man named David Ogilvy.
Frank: Sit down.
Jillian: Michael!
Michael: Hang on. I want to put it on Instagram.
Jillian: I'm going to HR about this.
Frank: I tell Jillian she's my second choice. It's just very disrespectful. You’ve got to make sure everybody's valued.
Greg: Respect is key.
Jillian: I don't understand why you think I would have all the concepts for this idea.
Frank: Look, Jillian. I wanted Dan in here, but he's super swamped today, so I asked you instead.
Jillian: That's a bunch of crap.
Michael: I have 80 people watching this on Periscope.
Frank:I should've seized control of the situation right away. Michael pulls out hisphone. I’ve got to tell him to get rid of it. It's bush‐league. It's distracting. My biggest mistake I think was creating a safe and comfortable environment for people to spout their ideas. Good or bad. They should feel comfortable the whole time. I just ... we’ve got a lot of work to do, Greg.
Greg: Thanks, Frank. Humble words from a humble man.
Episode 6 - Live Brainstorm Session
It only takes poor planning and a few heated employees for an internal meeting to get ugly. In this week’s episode of Casual Fridays, (a very disoriented) Frank reports to you live from a Quinlan brainstorm session. Learn from his unfortunate mistakes and keep your brainstorm from seriously getting out of hand.
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