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Creativity is the most in-demand soft skill of 2020 according to LinkedIn. But in order to come up with something new, you need to look at the situation from different angles and trust chance. We tell you how to do it
What is lateral thinking
Lateral thinking is the ability to come up with creative solutions, considering a problem from different angles, even the most non-obvious ones.
The term was coined by psychologist Edward de Bono in The Art of Thinking: Lateral Thinking as a Way to Solve Complex Problems in 1967.
Edward de Bono contrasts lateral thinking with logical thinking. With the help of logical thinking, we draw a reasonable conclusion from the premises that we have. We rely on evidence, rationality and prudence. According to the author, logical thinking is not suitable for inventing new ideas, because it limits itself to terms, definitions, patterns and historical authorities.
From the point of view of Edward de Bono, the need to think laterally arose precisely because of the limitations of logical thinking:
“Logic is a tool to help deepen and widen holes to make them better overall. If the hole is not dug where it is required, no tricks and improvements will transfer it to the right place. And although it is clear to any digger, it is much easier to continue expanding an old hole than to start digging a new one somewhere else. Vertical thinking is a deepening of the same hole; lateral – an attempt to dig in different places.
Lateral thinking helps to overcome logical boundaries due to a radical change in points of view on a problem or subject. At the same time, both types of thinking complement each other. Using the techniques of logical thinking, you can develop and deepen the idea that you came up with using the techniques of lateral thinking.
For example, Gunpei Yokoi was not a gifted engineer and initially got a job at Nintendo as a playing card assembly line fitter. But he was very observant: the idea of uXNUMXbuXNUMXbcreating a portable game console came to Yokoi when he noticed how a businessman was playing with his calculator. This is how the Game & Watch first appeared, and later the Game Boy – the best-selling game console of the XNUMXth century.
And some scientists deliberately forced their students to use lateral thinking. For example, students of the Nobel Prize winner in physics Lev Landau recalled that the professor forbade them to use the standard Euler substitutions to calculate integrals. For their use, the professor could even drive the student out of the exam.
How to develop lateral thinking
Almost anyone can learn this type of thinking. The more you practice, the easier it will be to overcome the boundaries of direct logic.
The main principle of lateral thinking is that any particular attitude to a situation or object is only one of many other options. Here’s how to develop it.
Consider a problem from three or more points of view. This principle underlies the author’s method of Edward de Bono’s “Six Hats”. Each hat is a way to disrupt the brain’s usual state of mind, an opportunity to look at the same issue from different perspectives: facts, emotions, advantages, disadvantages, and resources for creativity. The sixth “hat” is used to set the goal of reflection and summarize.
Change or flip the original problem. This exercise helps to break habitual mental constructions. The main thing is to break away from the original. And the further the gap, the more non-standard proposals can be. For example, you can imagine that waiters are not supposed to be polite to customers, the product itself is not shown in the commercial, and HR is not interviewing job candidates.
Find simpler and more understandable analogues of the problem. An analogue is similar or exactly the same. You need to come up with a solution for the analog, and then return to the original problem and compare which solutions from the analogy fit it.
For example, a situation in the economy, when the value of an asset is very different from the real one, is compared to blowing a soap bubble. It can be inflated to enormous sizes, but no one can predict when it will burst. And it will burst for sure, because it is a soap bubble. Perhaps an analogy will help to understand how to avoid inflating a bubble so that it does not burst.
Focus on different parts of the task. Sometimes, in order to solve a problem, our brain focuses on only one part of it, although the path to the solution lies in another. For example, instead of thinking about a thing as a whole, think about its properties: color, size, surface, weight – or about its part.
As an example, a problem from Edward de Bono.
The usurer set a condition for the debtor: if the debtor’s daughter pulls a black stone out of the bag, she will marry him, and the debt will be forgiven. If white, he will stay with his father, but the debt will still be removed. If the girl does not participate in the lottery, the debtor will go into debt. The girl noticed how the moneylender leaned over the roadside stones and put two black pebbles into the bag.
From the point of view of ordinary logic, the daughter has three options: refuse the lot and put the father in the pit, pull out the stone, knowing the outcome, or accuse the moneylender of fraud and demand that he replace the stones.
The solution to the problem is to stop thinking about the lot itself and focus on the stones inside. The girl pulled one out without letting her look at it, and, as if by accident, dropped it to the rest of the stones by the road. The pebble was immediately lost among the others. Then she asked to pull out the stone that remained in the bag. The usurer, of course, pulled out a black one, but he could not be indignant – then he would have confessed to deception.
Challenge conventional wisdom. This is a difficult exercise. Here you need to go against the opinion of the majority – give the rejected idea a chance and think about what it is based on and what it will lead to.
In marketing, this can be a rejected target audience; in development, it can be a crossed-out feature in an application. A question that you can ask yourself or the group: “Why do they do it the only way, is there another way?”
For example, let’s imagine that we are opening a fitness club. Our target audience is young people aged 25–35. We are not focusing on people from 35 to 45 years old yet, but for a warm-up, we are thinking why middle-aged men and women can suit us. Perhaps we were mistaken when we immediately rejected them. You can come up with special programs or a system of discounts to fill the halls when there are no young people in the hall. Even if the idea is not useful, it will be a spare.
Add an object from another context to the task conditions. When we think about a task and a new subject at the same time, the brain automatically tries to logically connect them together. Therefore, look for items that are at hand, and think about how to use them in solving the problem.
For example, you can use a hairpin to fix the glove compartment in a car: the hole there is small and you can’t just open it, and the hairpin will be just right.
Or take any word from the description of the problem, and choose the second one at random: in a magazine, dictionary, article. If you need to “sell a new batch of mugs,” the random word might be “fire.” This is a possible idea for a commercial – a macro shot of china on fire, or part of a slogan. Or maybe the stands themselves with new products will be red or orange – this is worth thinking about.
Make chance work for you. The easiest way is to take a walk in crowded places or where there are a lot of different objects. And already at home, organize a brainstorming session – this is when you come up with ideas, but do not criticize them. Recall what findings from the walk can be applied to the solution of the problem to reinforce the ideas. Think about how you can do it differently, is there an alternative, and what will happen if – without a plan and purpose.