Get everyone to contribute by having them write ideas on index cards individually before discussing as a group. This prevents a few loud voices from drowning out others and surfaces ideas people wouldn't say out loud.
So how do you get your people to brainstorm effectively or to share honest and helpful information in your meetings? Well, one of the things you've likely found is that brainstorming together is often unproductive because what happens is you'll ask a question and one or two people will share their ideas and the others will agree or will very simply remain quiet. In order to get the input of your entire team and to take advantage of all the different perspectives and insights that are available, you want to use index cards. And whether it's a group of 4 or a group of 40, you want to brainstorm alone first, even in a meeting, and then collect the index cards and go through that collection of responses that your people have shared independently in order to be able to then discuss what other people might be thinking but might be unwilling to say out loud. That's what effective leaders do.
