Morning Brew - ⛈️ A perfect brainstorm

Bring back the classic pandemic sheet pan dinner, with a set of four trays that let you cook dinner and dessert at the same time.

🛒 Put a stop to your excessive Uber Eats ordering, and download Jow. The app considers your household size, kitchen appliances, and dietary preferences to whip up a personalized meal menu—complete with a grocery list.

A gift for the chronic over-apologizers who read (and write, and edit) this newsletter: Check out this Refinery29 article for four thoughtful alternatives to saying “Sorry” at work.

A head start on your hustle.

Picture this: You’re sitting in a brainstorming session that you called. The pressure is high, but the output is low. The team is trying, but you’re getting blank stares and ideas that are more basic than an order of French onion soup at Panera (and not nearly as delicious).

Brainstorming is an important part of leadership and setting strategy. The tricky part? Innovation isn’t something you can schedule: There’s no guarantee your best ideas will show up from 3–4pm next Wednesday during your scheduled brainstorm.

So what should a leader do? Here are a few ways to increase the likelihood of effective brainstorming.

Set the stage well in advance. Ideas come to us while we’re in the shower or stuck in traffic. Work with, not against, spontaneous idea generation:

• Encourage your team to ponder the brainstorm topic well in advance of any conversation.
• Recommend that folks write down the ideas when they pop up.

Break it up. When the time comes to bring people together, consider breaking a larger group into smaller groups first.

• These smaller groups should include people with similar experiences or knowledge of the problem. This prevents brainstorming with a few dominant (usually more senior) voices that can unintentionally discourage others from participating—when that happens, you can kiss creative solutions goodbye, according to McKinsey.

Ask questions. If you get stuck, consider shifting the perspective. Instead of putting the pressure on the team to solve the challenge, encourage them to ask thoughtful questions about the challenge. This slight reframe can “unstick” thinking and enable new ideas and perspectives.

Brainstorming is a wonderful management tool if it’s used effectively: It can be the source of big gains for a team. Bonus? No more blank stares from the team during a brainstorm session!—Karen Hebert-Maccaro, GM of education at Morning Brew

Tech tips and tricks.

Good news! It’s not necessary to send a calendar invite with a Zoom link every time you want to brainstorm with a colleague. Try a more casual approach and share your screen through FaceTime instead.

On your iPhone, call the person you wish to speak with on FaceTime and click the Screen icon on the top right. Click Share my Screen and navigate to the page you want to present. You’ll then see a purple icon on the top left of your screen. To stop presenting, click the same button and the icon will disappear. But caution: Your notifications will be visible, so you may want to mute them before any NSFW texts come through.—SS

Burning questions of our time.

On company involvement in intimate health benefits:

How about just plain PTO? No sick or vacation time, just time off to use as you please. That was my favorite benefit. Part of it could be rolled over if you didn’t use it. Up to a week paid out in cash if unused. No reason required for taking the time off, just request it and you’re done. And it would be nice if insurance was handled outside the company. HR doesn’t need to know your personal business.—Michele

Without your employer having to know too much (or anything) about what’s actually going on, having the flexibility to take at least one or several unplanned work from home or leave days without explanation when a period starts or if someone is dealing with debilitating PMS should be standard. The idea of menstrual leave is nice, but I wouldn’t want my employer to have a record of my menstrual cycle entered on a timesheet.—Julie

A recruiter’s dilemma

As talent wars continue across the workforce, companies have turned to waiving degree requirements or minimum years of experience in order to fill empty roles. Instead, corporations like American Express have launched apprenticeship programs aimed at training and developing nontraditional (non-college educated, or field-adjacent) candidates for skilled roles. Still, lots of hiring managers want years of experience for entry level positions. What do you think is more valuable to a company—experience or talent? Is it better to train new employees for skills-based roles, or bring in someone who checks all the boxes of a traditional career arc?—SS

Your punch list for when you punch out.

Read: Find your inner creative using this guidebook that’s filled with thought-provoking questions and exercises, all targeted toward building better creative processes.

Watch: Food Network stars Alex Guarnaschelli and Eric Adjepong play Truth or Dab, where they have to answer questions like “Which Food Network star has the worst restaurant?” or face the fiery Last Dab hot sauce.

Follow: In need of some PTO-spo? Follow TikToker @dashakofman, who has traveled across Europe, Central America, and South America, all while clocking into her 9–5.

A tidy mind: Evernote combines note-taking, project planning, and “putting a pin in that” into a clean, intuitive platform that syncs with allllll your devices. Meet deadlines, maintain focus, and take control. Get started here.*

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