The primary purposes of gathering to brainstorm are to take a flexible look at solving a problem, overcoming an obstacle, creating a plan for a new endeavor, and overall increasing power of teamwork.

With greater openness - communication and cooperation among participants tends to increase. More than one possibility, solution, or perspective is put forth which enhances probability that a better end product or service will result.

Once people are encouraged to share ideas without fear or censure, judgment, or immediate evaluation - creative abilities flourish. The quality of ideas rises and one idea tends to trigger another. This is often referred to as synergy. It is also good to include people from several arenas to gain more variety.

Too often, in work and community organizations, people who will be directly affected by a change are not asked to participate in planning stages. This could lead to an end result that may not be as effective as it could have been - or worse - may be resented because it is impractical or because of it being viewed as a forced implementation. This certainly will not lead to a smooth transition or good morale.

Dear concerned car owner,

Do you like to take your car in for repairs? Do you ever feel like you were cheated or taken advantage of by shop or their mechanics? Do you know it could be what you are saying to repair shop that could be costing you more? Most auto repair shops are run by honest hard-working people but in some circumstances you may bring out dark side at some shops.

For instance, never tell shop how much you are willing to spend without first getting an explanation of what you are going to have done. When you give shop a “spending limit” they may have a tendency to do as little as possible but will manage to spend up to your limit. For example, a woman came into my shop and told me she had $500 to spend. She did not start off her conversation with "hello", or "can you fix my car", all she said was how much money she wanted to give me.

Now granted, it is nice to have people come into shop and actually like to pay their bills, but this lady gave me a spending limit before she told me what she wanted to have fixed. She thought she had transmission trouble and assumed that it would cost her a fortune to repair. While on a test drive with her I concluded that problem was not transmission-related, but that car probably needed a tune up or something along those lines.