The scent of stale coffee hung heavy, a counterpoint to the vibrant, almost aggressive cheer of the yellow sticky notes. A dozen of us, slumped in ergonomic chairs, dutifully scribbled our ‘blue sky’ visions. The hum of the projector fan was the loudest sound, a mechanical sigh echoing the collective internal one. Mark, the facilitator, with his perpetually enthusiastic smile, began to group our disparate ideas, clumping the neon squares into neat, meaningless categories on the whiteboard. Synergy, Innovation, Disruptive – labels like empty calorie promises. And then, as if on cue, the double doors swished open. VP Eleanor, her presence a crisp, decisive breeze, swept in. She surveyed the colorful mosaic, a faint, almost imperceptible smirk playing on her lips. Her finger, manicured and decisive, pointed. “Ah,” she declared, her voice resonating with manufactured discovery, “let’s explore

.” It was, of course, her idea, jotted down on a single, perfectly aligned pink square amongst a sea of yellow. The whole exercise felt like a theatrical production we were all obligated to perform in. Not a genuine exploration of ideas, but a slow, excruciating march toward a pre-ordained conclusion. The vibrant post-it notes, the carefully drawn Venn diagrams, the enthusiastic prodding from Mark about “divergent thinking” – all of it was just set dressing for a corporate play where the script was already written. We were not there to innovate; we were there to rubber-stamp. To provide the necessary visual evidence that a “robust ideation process” had taken place, justifying a decision that had likely been made days, even weeks, before. It’s a particularly cruel trick, this performative creativity. It doesn’t just waste time; it slowly, methodically drains the psychological safety from a room, teaching people that their unique perspectives are not valued, only their capacity to align. It’s like being asked to bring a brilliant dish to a potluck, only to find the host has already ordered 46 pizzas. Your culinary masterpiece, however inspired, becomes just another decorative item on the side table.

This kind of charade, I’ve found, isn’t unique to marketing departments trying to conjure the next big thing. My friend, Thomas R., a bankruptcy attorney with a perpetually weary but shrewd gaze, once described a similar pattern in certain court proceedings. He’s seen countless cases where the outcome felt inevitable from the outset. He speaks of depositions, hours upon hours of questioning, where the opposing counsel isn’t seeking new information but rather meticulously constructing a narrative, a paper trail designed to solidify a predetermined argument. “It’s a performance,” he’d grumble, rubbing his temples, “a necessary ritual to satisfy due process, even if the real decision was made over a golf game six weeks prior.” Thomas, a man who deals with the stark, unforgiving realities of financial ruin, has a low tolerance for anything that isn’t direct, tangible, and, frankly, legally binding. He sees through the veneer, the elaborate dance, to the actual gears grinding underneath. He finds a strange solace in the black-and-white nature of insolvency laws – at least there, the rules are generally clear, and the consequences, however dire, are not cloaked in layers of false consensus. He understands the profound difference between something that

appears to be a solution and something that

is a solution. This reminds me of how much I appreciate things that are just… straightforward. No pretense, no elaborate dance. Just a solid, dependable thing that does exactly what it says it will. Like, say, Exterior Wall Panels. You know exactly what you’re getting. A functional, aesthetic upgrade, not a promise wrapped in layers of corporate speak.

The Betrayal of Trust

It’s a betrayal of trust, this expectation of performative enthusiasm. What’s worse, I’ve been guilty of facilitating it myself, early in my career, before I fully grasped the subtle cruelty of it all. I remember one session, nearly a decade ago, where I was so eager to please, so invested in demonstrating my own “facilitation skills,” that I overlooked the growing silence in the room. I was so busy arranging the post-its into aesthetically pleasing clusters, so focused on guiding the discussion towards “actionable insights,” that I missed the slow, resigned shrugs, the averted eyes. I thought I was being productive; I was actually overseeing a collective act of professional submission. That’s a mistake that sticks with you, a quiet shame that makes you question your own intentions, even when you’re just looking in the fridge for something new for the third time in an hour, hoping for a surprise. It teaches you that sometimes, what looks like collaboration is just an elaborate way of managing dissent, of making people

heard without actually listening. This isn’t just about wasting 56 minutes of a meeting; it’s about systematically dismantling the trust that underpins genuine collaboration.

The problem, as I see it, is that we confuse the

of ideation with the

of decision-making. Brainstorming, in its purest form, should be a messy, chaotic explosion of possibilities. A space where truly wild, potentially foolish, ideas are not just tolerated but encouraged. It requires an environment of radical psychological safety, where the fear of judgment is entirely absent. But how often do we actually create that? More often, it’s a controlled environment, carefully curated, where the boundaries of acceptable thought are implicitly understood. The ‘blue sky’ thinking only extends as far as the manager’s comfort zone, or the company’s existing strategic objectives – which, by some strange coincidence, always align perfectly with the “winning” idea. It’s a trick that feels honest only 16 percent of the time, if we’re being generous. The rest of the time, it’s a carefully orchestrated exercise in validation. It’s the equivalent of asking a master chef to meticulously craft a menu, only to tell them at the last minute that you’ve decided on hot dogs for everyone. All that skill, all that creativity, reduced to a charade. And for what? For the sake of optics? To tick a box on some corporate performance review that measures ‘participation’ instead of actual output? It’s a system designed to make everyone feel like they’re part of something important, while simultaneously stripping them of any real agency. The cost of this performative bureaucracy isn’t just financial; it’s a profound depletion of human spirit and intellectual capital. I saw a report once – probably 2016 – that suggested the average knowledge worker spends at least 26% of their week in meetings that are deemed unproductive. Imagine that, a quarter of your working life, watching a theatrical play where the lines are bad and the ending is always the same.

Perhaps we are too quick to embrace these pre-packaged solutions, these corporate rituals that promise innovation but deliver conformity. We yearn for a magic bullet, a set of instructions that will guarantee success, but real innovation rarely comes from a room full of people trying to guess what the boss wants to hear. It comes from genuine curiosity, from messy experimentation, from people feeling safe enough to fail spectacularly. It’s the difference between buying a mass-produced piece of art and creating something unique with your own hands, something that might not be perfect but carries the weight of your own intention and effort. Sometimes, the most meaningful action isn’t brainstorming at all, but stepping back, observing the world, and building something substantial and lasting.

Pragmatism Over Performance

Thomas R. would scoff at the very idea of ‘ideation’ as a standalone corporate activity. For him, ideas only gain currency when they are directly tethered to a problem that demands a solution, a consequence that needs mitigation. He once told me about a client, a small business owner, who spent months trying to ‘innovate’ their way out of a mounting debt crisis, hiring consultants for ‘blue-sky sessions’ that produced reams of fluffy, unfeasible suggestions. What that owner needed was not more ideas, but a brutal reckoning with financial realities, a precise and sometimes painful restructuring of their operations. Thomas, in his quiet way, became the pragmatist, cutting through the noise to offer hard truths and direct actions. It was about facing the 26 numbers on the ledger, not about dreaming up 26 new product concepts. Thomas’s approach exemplifies a crucial distinction: problem-solving vs. idea-generation.

He’d often say, “You can put a pretty ribbon on a box, but if the box is empty, it’s still just an empty box.” This isn’t just about business; it’s about life. We all face moments when the temptation to engage in superficial activities, to ‘look busy,’ or to postpone difficult decisions, is strong. But eventually, reality catches up. And in that moment, the only thing that matters is the concrete, undeniable truth.

The Myth of Consensus

The very notion that a good idea needs to be “sold” or “massaged” into acceptance within these sessions is a red flag. A truly transformative idea often emerges not from a consensus built on sticky notes, but from a persistent individual who believes in something so strongly they are willing to push past the initial discomfort, the skepticism, the collective inertia. Sometimes the most revolutionary concepts are those that initially seem absurd, that challenge the status quo rather than reinforce it. They don’t typically arise from a whiteboard session where everyone is trying to read the room and anticipate the direction of the prevailing wind. They arise from a deep, often solitary dive into a problem, followed by a relentless pursuit of a novel solution, even if only 26 people initially grasp its potential. Or, perhaps, only 6 people even understand the problem well enough to propose something genuinely different.

This isn’t to say collaboration is useless. Far from it. But true collaboration, the kind that sparks genuine breakthroughs, feels different. It feels like a messy conversation, a passionate debate, a shared struggle towards an unknown answer. It’s not about generating a list of “safe” ideas; it’s about collectively wrestling with a complex problem until something unexpected breaks through. It’s about trust, not performance. It’s about vulnerability, not polished presentations. It’s about the raw, unedited exchange of thought, not the carefully curated display of agreeable concepts. The subtle difference is felt in the gut, a deep sense of engagement versus a vague feeling of dread. It feels like the difference between creating something new and simply reorganizing the existing 6 elements into a slightly different pattern. There’s a certain freedom that comes with knowing you can speak your mind, even if it’s an unpopular opinion, and that it will be considered on its merits, not immediately dismissed because it doesn’t fit the predetermined narrative. That kind of freedom is priceless, and it’s what these performative sessions actively suppress. We often mistake agreement for alignment, and consensus for conviction, when in truth they are worlds apart. We need to acknowledge that it’s okay not to have all the answers right away, and that sometimes, the best way forward is not through a forced march of ‘ideation’ but through a period of quiet contemplation, even a period of intense disagreement, to truly uncover the truth.

Reclaiming Our Intelligence

We need to stop asking people to pretend. To pretend their ideas matter when they don’t. To pretend they are engaged when they are bored. To pretend the process is fair when it’s rigged. This culture of performative consensus building fosters cynicism and disengagement, slowly eroding the very innovative spirit it purports to cultivate. The energy that could be channeled into actual problem-solving, into developing truly impactful solutions, is instead consumed by this elaborate charade. It’s a tax on creativity, an invisible cost that far outweighs the perceived benefits of a neatly categorized whiteboard. We are losing 106 minutes of productive time, at least, in these sessions, not counting the psychological toll. The deeper cost is the erosion of psychological safety, that unspoken contract that says, “It’s safe to be fully yourself here, to speak your mind, to take risks.” When that contract is repeatedly broken by performative rituals, people retreat, they self-censor, and the organization as a whole suffers from a lack of genuine input. It becomes an echo chamber of the loudest, or most powerful, voices. And let’s be honest, who wants to contribute their best ideas to an echo chamber? It’s like shouting into a void and expecting a meaningful reply. The enthusiasm, the genuine drive to solve problems, gets replaced by a dull compliance, a rote execution of tasks rather than a passionate pursuit of purpose.

So, next time you find yourself staring at a blank sticky note, consider what you’re truly being asked to do. Are you genuinely invited to co-create, to push boundaries, to challenge assumptions? Or are you being asked to merely provide window dressing for a decision that has already been made, to be a prop in a corporate play? The answer, I suspect, is often the latter. And acknowledging that, truly acknowledging it, is the first step toward reclaiming our collective intelligence and directing it toward something genuinely impactful, something that doesn’t just look good on a board, but actually changes something, for the better.

The real innovation, after all, isn’t about generating more ideas; it’s about solving real problems with unwavering honesty and direct action. That’s a lesson Thomas R. would stand by, probably with a knowing, weary nod. It’s not about the show, but about the substance – always.