Here is a brief summary of what I learned from Edward De Bono’s book, “Lateral Thinking: Creativity Step by Step”.
The Difference between lateral and vertical thinking
The simplest definition of lateral thinking is: creative thinking. Unfortunately, the word creative has many meanings and is quite vague. Thus, Edward de Bono has chosen to use the term lateral thinking to be more specific. Lateral thinking seeks to be generative and constructive, whereas our normal way of thinking is more judgmental where we decide whether an idea is good or not and end there. Our normal thinking is logical where every step of our thinking has to be right in order to arrive at a conclusion. Lateral thinking seeks only to arrive at a useful and new conclusion without the need of being right at every step.
As Edward De Bono puts it vertical thinking is like digging a hole deeper, but lateral thinking is digging holes in many places (or lateral).
Some uses of lateral thinking:
- New idea generation
- Problem solving
- Reassessment of ideas
- Prevention of divisions and polarizations
Some Formal Techniques of Lateral Thinking:
Technique 1:
The generation of alternatives. According to Edward De Bono the most basic principal of lateral thinking is that any particular way of looking at things is only one among other possible ways. In vertical or regular thinking people often look for the best alternative whereas in lateral thinking one is trying to produce as many alternatives as possible. One is not looking for the best approach, but for as many different approaches as possible. The whole purpose of generating many alternatives is to loosen rigid patterns and to provoke new patterns. Perhaps the generation of alternatives might solve the problem directly or indirectly or perhaps prove a useful starting point.
A useful technique to utilizing time effectively one sets a quota of alternatives. Once the quota is reached one stops. Another benefit of quotas is that it pushes one to come up with alternatives until the quota is filled.
An alternative could be a different point of view/understanding or a different way of doing something.
Technique 2:
Challenging assumptions. The idea here is to challenge not the arrangement of ideas but the ideas themselves. It is usually assumed that the basic ideas are sound and then one starts fitting them together to give different patterns. That is generating alternatives. But the basic ideas can be questioned. In challenging assumptions one challenges the necessity of boundaries and limits and one challenges the validity of individual concepts. In lateral thinking there is no question of attacking the assumptions as wrong. It is simply a matter of trying to restructure patterns.
The ‘Why’ technique: The why technique is used to challenge assumptions. It is a focused and directed attempt at question ideas. For example:
Why are blackboards black? So that white chalk marks can be seen easily. Why is the chalk white? or Why does one want to use white chalk? or Why not use black chalk?
In each case the ‘why’ was directed towards a particular aspect of the subject and thus developed the questioning. The usual purpose of ‘why’ is to elicit information. But, in lateral thinknig the intention is to be create discomfort with any explanation. So as to look at things in different ways and increase the possibility of restructuring the pattern.
Innovation
The previous two techniques have been concerened with two fundamental aspects of lateral thinking. However, these techniques are very similar to vertical/critical thinking. What is different is the unreasonable way in which the processes are applied and the purpose behind the application. What makes the utilization of these techniques in lateral thinking is different is the aspect of forward thinking. Forward thinking involves building up something new rather than analysing something old. Thus, innovation and creativity involve forward thinking.
In Edward De Bono’s opinion the regular critical thinking involves identifying and explaining the effect whereas forward thinking is concerned with bringing about an effect.
Suspended judgement
Suspended judgement is a prerequiste for forward thinking. One has to suspend all judgement of ideas and concepts. One is allowed to be wrong on the way even though one must be right in the end.
Our education has mostly taught us vertical/critical thinking. It teaches us to seek correct facts and make correct deductions from them. One learns to apply judjement at every step and say “no” or “this would never work” etc. This emphasis on the need to be right all the time completely shuts out creativity and progress.
In lateral thinking judgement is delayed during the generative state of thinking in order to be applied during the selective stage. De Bono thinks that a wrong idea at some stage can lead to a right one later on. He gives the example of Marconi who succeeded in transmitting wireless waves across the atlantic ocean through following up the erroneous idea that the waves would follow the curvature of the earth.
The practical application of this concept leads to the following behaviors:
An idea is not judged and evaluated. An idea is explored further.
Some ideas are obviously wrong when no attempt is made to judge them. In such cases one shifts the attention from why it is wrong to how it can be useful.
Even if one knows that an idea must eventually be thrown out one delays that moment in order to extract as much usefulness from the idea as possible.
Instead of focring an idea in a direction one follows along behind it.
Design
Edward De Bono believes that design is a good area for developing ideas using lateral thinking. The emphasis is on the different ways of doing things, the differnet ways of looking at things and the escape from clich concepts, the challenging of assumptions.
Dominant ideas and crucial factors
According to Edward De Bono, everyone is confident that they know what they are talking about, reading about, but if you ask the to pock out the dominant idea there is difficulty in doing so. It is difficult to convert a vague awareness into a definite statement. It is necessary to convert a vague awareness to a definte pattern to generate alternative patterns.
One of the main purposes of picking out a dominant ide ais to be able to escape from it. Liberation from rigid patterns and the generation of alternative patterns are the aims of lateral thinking. From my own understanding after having read this book, I think that each individual has a different perspective and thus the dominant idea they identify is different too.
Crucial Factor: This is something that is always present in all dominant ideas regarding a particular topic. The purpose of identifying curcial factors is again to examine them and challenge them. The crucial factor restricts the way the problem is looked at. Again, each individual with a different perspective may come up with a different crucial factor.
Fractionation
This technique is very similar to analysis. Fractionation deals with completely breaking down of the situation into its components. However, lateral thinking uses this fractionation to provide material which can be used to stimulate restructuring of the original situation.
Reversal method
In this method one takes things as they are and then turns them round, inside out, upside down, back to front. Then one sees what happens. It is a provocative rearrangment of information. For example, you make water run uphill instead of downhill. Instead of driving a car the car leads you.
There are many ways in which one can reverse a situation. For example:
A policeman organizing traffic can be revered in the following manner:
The traffic organizes the policeman.
The policeman disorganizes the traffic.
Therefore, the reversal method allows one to escape from looking at at the situation in the standard way. Also, by disrupting the original way of looking at a situation one frees information that can come together in a new way. Finally, the main purpose is provocative. By making the reversal one moves to a new position.
An example Edward De Bono provides is of a flock of sheep moving slowly down a country lane which was bounded by high banks. A motorist in a hurry came up behind the flock and urged the shepherd to move his sheep t0 0ne side. The shepherd refused since he could not be sure of keeping all the sheep out of the way of the car in such a narrow lane. Instead he reversed the situation. He told the car to stop and then he quietly turned the flock around and drove it back past the stationary car.
Another example is from Aesop’s fable. The water in the jug was way too low a level for the bird to drink. The bird was thinking of taking water out of the jug but instead he thoguht of putting something in. So he dropped pebbles into the jug until the level of the water rose high enough for him to drink.
Edward De Bono claims that Mullah Nasruddin tales are a good example of lateral thinking too.
Analogies
Analogies are used in lateral thinking by translating problems into analogies and then develop the analogy. At the end one translates the analogy back and sees what might have happened to the original problem. It is probably more useful to develop the two in parallel. The use of analogies in lateral thinking is completely different. Unlike its use in argument, analogy in lateral thinking is not to prove anything. They are simply used like all other lateral thinking techniques; to generate further ideas.
A good example of analogies in lateral thinking comes from the tv show House. In this show House uses mundane discussions and events as analogies to solve medical problems.
An example:
Suggested Problem: Finding your way in fog.
Suggested Analogies: A shortsighted person finding his way around. A traveller in a strange country trying to find the railway station. Doing a crossword puzzle. Looking for something that has been lost in the house.
Entry point and Attention Areas
From what I understand, this technique is related quite a bit to the dominant and crucial ideas explained earlier; since entry point and attention area for a problem depends on ones perspective. Attention area refers to the part of a situation or problem that is attended to. Entry point refers to the part of the problem or situation that is first attended to.
The choice of entry point is of huge importance because the historical sequence in which ideas follow one another can completely determine the final outcome even if the ideas themselves are same. In practice a different entry point will usually mean a different train of ideas. For example, a picture of a man with a stick in his hand followed by a picture ofa dog running might suggest that the man is throwing sticks for the dog to retrieve. A picture of a dog running followed by a picture of the man with a stick in his hand might suggest that the man is chasing the dog out of his garden.
Attention area. The entry point is the first attention aread. Usually it starts at this point but eventually covers the whole problem. Sometimes however important parts of the problem are completely left out. It is only when these parts are brought under attention that the problem can be solved.
For example, in Sherlock Holmes’ cases there was a large dog. Dr. Watson dismissed the dog as being of no importance because it had done nothing on the night of the crime. Sherlock Holmes pointed out that the great significance of the dog was precisely that it had done nothing. He shifted attention from the significance of the fact that it had done nothing. This meant that the criminal must have been known to the dog. Therefore, if something is left out of consideration then it is very unlikely that it will ever come back in later on.
Like the reversal procedure one can deliberately turn away from what one would naturally pay attention to in order to see what happens if one paid attention to something else. Another method is to list the different features of the situation (fractionation) and then to proceed methodically through this list paying attention to each feature in turn.
The important thing to keep in mind is that one should not feel that some features are so trivial that they do not merit any attention. The difficulty is that in any situation one can pick out as many features as one likes since the features reside not in the situation but in the way it is looked at (Perspective).
Random stimulation
Thus far most techniques discusses so far worked from within the idea. The idea has been developed according to some routine process with the intention of allowing the information to snap together again in a new pattern. But, instead of tryting to work form within the idea one can deliberately generate external stimulation which then acts on the idea from outside. This is called random stimulation.
The two ways of random stimulation are Exposure and Formal Generation. Exposure is when one actively puts oneself into a postion where one is subjected to random stimulation that is part of exposure and part of formal generation. For example:
1. Accepting and welcoming random inputs.
2. Exposure to the ideas of others like in brainstorming.
3. Exposure to ideas from completely different fields.
4. Physical exposure to random stimulation. For instance going to an exhibition, zoo, museum. |
The main point of random stimulation is not to look for anything when exposing oneself to stimulation. Otherwise, one is exposing oneself with preconceived notions.
Formal Generation is done in multiple ways. One is to use a random word to elicit discussion. Second, to select a book or journal. Third, select some object from the surroundings.
Random stimulation works because the mind has the ability to connect any two separate inputs no matter how unconnected they are.
PO: Provocation
This is something introduced by Edward De Bono to assist us in lateral thinking. The first funciton of it is to simply allow one to say anything one likes. PO allows to arrange information in any way whatsoever. Also, by being nonsensical one can arrange information in a way that is different from the established patterns. The statement “PO water flows uphill if it is colored green” is ridiculous but it could lead to such ideas as: Why should the green color make a difference? Is there anything one could add to water to make it flow uphill? (There is such a product.)
Blocked by Openness
To sum it up in one sentence. In this section Edward De Bono is basically stating that adequate is always good enough for most of us. He points out that in our thinking we have developed methods of dealing with things that are wrong but no method for dealing with things that are right. When something is right out thinking comes to a halt.
