Lateral thinking

Compact Oxford Dictionary Definition - noun chiefly Brit. The solving of problems by an indirect and creative approach.

Dr. Edward de Bono is the originator of the term "lateral thinking." His book, Lateral Thinking, was first published in 1970.

Lateral Thinking Tools/Methods/Techniques

Techniques that apply lateral thinking to problems are characterized by the shifting of thinking patterns away from entrenched or predictable thinking to new or unexpected ideas. A new idea that is the result of lateral thinking is not always a helpful one, but when a good idea is discovered in this way it is usually obvious in hindsight, which is a feature lateral thinking shares with a joke.

There are a number of mental tools or methods that can be used to bring about lateral thinking. These include the following:

Random Entry: Choose an object at random, or a noun from a dictionary, and associate that with the area you are thinking about.

For example imagine you are thinking about how to improve Wikipedia. Choosing an object at random from an office you might see a fax machine. A fax machine transmits images over the phone to paper. Fax machines are becoming rare. People send faxes directly to known phone numbers. Perhaps this makes you think of providing ways to embed wiki articles in emails and other websites, as is done with YouTube videos. Does it stimulate other Wikipedia ideas for you?

Provocation: Declare the usual perception out of bounds, or provide some provocative alternative to the usual situation under consideration. Prefix the provocation with the term 'Po" to signal that the provocation is not a valid idea put up for judgment but a stimulus for new perception.

Challenge: Simply challenge the way things have always been done or seen, or the way they are. This is done not to show there is anything wrong with the existing situation but simply to direct your perceptions to exploring outside the current area.

For example you could challenge coffee cups being produced with a handle. There is nothing wrong with coffee cups having handles so the challenge is a direction to explore without defending the status quo. The reason for the handle seems to be that the cup is often too hot to hold directly. Perhaps coffee cups could be made with insulated finger grips, or there could be separate coffee cup holders similar to beer holders.

Suspending Judgment: Do not try to be logical with information at every step of the way. This allows for the formation of different patterns.

Generate Alternatives: By creating a quota of ideas, one can overcome the natural blocks of adequacy to create different ways of looking at things. Since one is suspending judgment, as well, the ideas do not need to be judged immediately.

There are many other techniques ranging from Focus methods through to Harvesting and Concept Shaping. All these tools are practical matters for circumstances where our normal automatic perceptions and pattern matching tend to keep us trapped "within the box".

Lateral thinking and problem solving

Problem Solving: A level of performance is being met. Something happens which creates a problem - performance drops. We need to find out what caused the problem and then figure out ways to fix the problem. The objective is to get performance back to where it should be.

For Example: A production line has an established run rate of 1000 books per hour. All of a sudden the run rate drops to 839 books per hour. Something happened, we don't know what problem caused the production rate to drop by 161 books per hour. We need to find out and fix the problem so we can get back to producing 1000 books per hour. Problem solving is focused on closing this performance gap.

Creative Problem Solving: The objective is to find ways to create new levels of performance that we haven't reached before.

For Example: We routinely produce 1000 books per hour on our production line. In this example creative problem solving could be directed at: finding ways to produce 1500 books per hour; finding other ways to use the production line; finding ways to reduce the cost to run the production line, etc.

Lateral Thinking is a method/tool kit that can be applied to both problem solving and creative problem solving to help come up with possible workable solutions.

Lateral thinking and critical thinking

Critical thinking is primarily concerned with judging the truth value of statements and seeking errors. Lateral thinking is more concerned with the movement value of statements and ideas. A person would use lateral thinking when they want to move from one known idea to creating new ideas. It can also be put as, critical thinking is like a post-mortem while lateral thinking is like diagnosis.

See also

• Thinking outside the box
• Provocative operation
• Lateral thinking puzzles, also referred as situation puzzles
• TRIZ
• Systems thinking
• Creativity

Books

• Lateral Thinking, Edward De Bono, 1970. Penguin Books. ISBN 0-14-021978-1
• Po: Beyond Yes and No, Edward De Bono, 1972. Penguin Books. ISBN 0-14-021715-0
• Serious Creativity, Edward De Bono, 1992. Harper Business. ISBN 0-88730-635-7
• Lateral Thinking Puzzlers, Paul Sloane,(Sterling Publishing, 1991), ISBN 0-8069-8226-8
• Test your Lateral Thinking IQ, Paul Sloane,(Sterling Publishing, 1994), ISBN 0-8069-0684-7
• The Leader's Guide to Lateral Thinking Skills, Paul Sloane, (Kogan Page, 2006), ISBN 0-7494-4797-4

Websites

Simplified explanation of Lateral Thinking [1]