Brainwriting
Collect ideas independently before debate to reduce founder influence
- Difficulty
- Easy
- Time to result
- ~days to results
- Steps
- 5
- Confidence
- 98%
Brainwriting moves idea generation out of the live group conversation. A leader exposes a question, then everyone writes their views independently in a survey, shared document, or similar tool without seeing others' contributions. The responses are combined, ideally without authorship, and participants read the full set before debating. The mechanism dampens the founder effect: a founder's opinion carries a megaphone even when the founder believes the room is operating as peers. It also levels the field between fast and slow processors and between extroverts and introverts. By separating creation from evaluation, brainwriting produces a wider option set and lets the group react to ideas before status, speed, or confidence narrows the conversation.
Origin
Lowenhar says he first heard the idea from Adam Grant, while noting that he does not know whether Grant originated it.
Core principles
- 01A founder's voice carries more weight than they can hear
- 02Independent input reduces social and authority pressure
- 03Anonymous aggregation lets ideas compete before identities do
- 04Reading before debate creates a shared starting point
- 05Async input gives fast and slow processors equal access
How to run it
- 1
Frame the prompt
State the idea, problem, or decision clearly enough that people can respond without live clarification. Define what kind of input is useful.
Pro tip Use one bounded question rather than a broad request for thoughts.
Watch out A vague prompt produces incomparable responses.
- 2
Write independently
Give each participant uninterrupted time to record opinions, edits, options, or risks before seeing anyone else's response. Keep the contribution phase asynchronous or silent.
Pro tip Allow enough time for slower processors to develop complete thoughts.
Watch out Showing responses as they arrive recreates anchoring.
- 3
Aggregate without status
Combine the responses and remove names where practical. Include the founder's input as one contribution in the full set.
Pro tip Randomize the order so the first idea does not receive automatic priority.
Watch out Authorship can restore the hierarchy the method is meant to dampen.
- 4
Read before discussing
Use the opening minutes of the meeting for everyone to read the combined material. Begin debate only after the group shares the same information.
Pro tip A silent ten-minute reading block can improve presence and reduce repetition.
Watch out Debating before everyone reads rewards the fastest speaker again.
- 5
Debate the ideas
Compare options, surface disagreements, and decide after the independent views are visible. The founder can now weigh in without suppressing the initial option set.
Pro tip Discuss themes and evidence before revealing authors.
Watch out Brainwriting improves input quality but does not remove the need for a decision owner.
In the wild
A startup needs to choose acquisition tests. Instead of the founder announcing a preferred channel in a brainstorm, each participant independently writes possible experiments, the answers are combined without names, and the team reads them before ranking impact and effort.
→ The team evaluates a broader set of channels without anchoring on the founder's availability bias.
Common mistakes
Letting people see early answers
Visible responses anchor later contributors and recreate the conformity problem in written form.
Founder speaks before writing
Even a casual founder opinion narrows the option space because the team hears it through an authority megaphone.
Is it for you?
Best for
Teams generating options or evaluating a difficult question where hierarchy and processing style could distort discussion.
Not ideal for
Urgent operational decisions where the relevant facts are already known and immediate coordination matters more than ideation.
From the episode
How a great founder becomes a great CEO
Jonathan Lowenhar (co-founder of Enjoy The Work)