BY SANDY SMITH

Brainstorming. Ideation. Speed storming. Mind mapping. For a creative endeavor, perhaps it only makes sense that we keep trying to redefine the concept of pulling creativity deep from the recesses of our minds.

When a team comes together — whether leaders or front-line employees — to tackle a problem, the adage about strength in numbers certainly can come into play. But it is no longer enough to buy a box of doughnuts and lock employees up in a room until creative genius strikes.

The very concept of brainstorming is changing, looking very different than when advertising executive Alex Osborn first defined the technique in the 1950s. He determined that brainstorming would involve throwing out a bunch of ideas, no matter how crazy, without criticism. (No such thing as a bad idea, except putting a group of people into a room with a goal of brainstorming.)

According to the Harvard Business Review though, that method of brainstorming just doesn’t work. Researchers found that these types of sessions produce fewer ideas, and even fewer good ones, than people could develop working on their own.

Working alone is something that Mic Noe, service manager at 7 Flags Car Wash in Northern California, often does. With a lifelong career in designing mechanical systems, he is used to looking at problems and solving them. Before coming into the car wash industry, Noe worked at Mare Island Naval Shipyard. When that closed down, he moved on to self-employment and then another electronics company.

That vast background of experience, all rooted in electronics and mechanics, allows him to bring a creative approach to any challenge. “I’ve always had the ability to troubleshoot,” he said. “You can go to school for a lot of stuff, but you can’t really understand it until you see it all in action.”

It didn’t hurt that as he came into the industry, 7 Flags was in the process of overhauling one of the washes. “That was a learning experience for me,” he said.

Car wash technologies have improved dramatically in recent years, he said, but “the original technology is all pretty basic. It’s just putting the different pieces together.”

With Noe often on his own, it’s up to him to brainstorm solutions to challenges for 7 Flags’ five conveyors and seven self-serve washes. While he may be able to figure out building circuits, piping and how to organize the technical side of a new car wash, creative problem solving often works best when done in a team approach.

For small-business expert Barry Moltz, brainstorming can be a way of getting a business unstuck. “Every field is constantly innovating,” he said. “But people in the field don’t do the innovation because they’re too close to it.”

Ridesharing, he said, did not come from the taxi industry, and Blockbuster didn’t create the streaming and on-demand industry.

- Barry Moltz, small-business expert

“If you’re not innovating, someone else outside is going to do it,” he said.

That is truer now more than ever, Moltz said. “People in this world no longer want to buy your stuff or services. They don’t just want to get a car washed. They want to have a customer experience. What can you do to make a memorable customer experience so they talk about it? They go online to give you a recommendation. How can you really blow these people away?”

That might take some creative thinking, allowing staff to talk about ways that another type of business blew them away with an experience or service.

So many times, it is a missed opportunity because owners are so focused on “the operational and tactical kinds of things that they don’t take time to explore new ideas,” Moltz said. He recommends that companies brainstorm at least annually, if not twice a year.

He suggests bringing the staff together, perhaps with a handful from outside the company, to come up with “out-of-the-box-type ideas or outrageous things that work in another place. Then, you boil it down to what are we really doing here?”

It means getting to the root of why a customer comes to have her car washed or detailed. “Car wash companies realize it’s not just about cleaning the car but about the experience,” Moltz said.

One beneficial exercise might include thinking about all the customer touchpoints, from when they call to ask about hours of operations to greeting the customer onsite. “We have to map that out and realize there are so many points we can improve,” Moltz said. “They want to have an authentic relationship with you. They want to brag about you to their friends.”

Outsiders might include others with small-business experience “so that they can transfer what happens in other industries,” Moltz said. But it should not be someone who has much knowledge of car washes. “You can get too specialized and too deep into those technical areas.”

Before any brainstorming begins, start with any relevant data. “Most small-business owners aren’t looking at analytics,” Moltz said. “They think they know what’s going on. But by looking at data, they can see what’s happening. Then you explore; if you change one thing, the possibilities of what can happen in the business.” Data important at this step might reveal the busiest times or the typical size and type of vehicles.

Moltz often works with family-run businesses and finds that businesses operate just like the family did. “Whatever role they had in their family growing up — whether they were the leader, the troublemaker or the jokester — they play those same roles in the business.”

Family-run businesses in particular can become too insular, where opinions of those outside the family aren’t sought. But that is another missed opportunity. Creating the kind of environment where ideas and input are encouraged — and valued — can help draw people into the industry, Noe and Moltz both said.

“For problem-solving people, I would play the industry up,” Noe said. “It’s everything from the sewer to the computer and everything from the top of a telephone pole into the ground.”

Moltz said job listings should focus on “why you want to be a part of this company. That is something that Millennials especially really want. You have to articulate the mission and vision, why are we doing this. So many describe the mechanics of what a person is going to be doing and what their responsibilities are. If you can make a company rather than a collection of individuals, you’ll be a much more appealing place to work.”

And if that company capitalizes on all the brainpower that those individuals bring, all the better.