Lateral Thinking by Bono Edward DeCan two plus two equal five?
Can water run uphill instead of downhill?
Is it possible to attach magnets to apples and then create a machine that can pluck the apples from the apple tree by attracting magnets?
In ordinary logic, things like these may appear weird or absurd. This typical way of thinking is called as the vertical thinking. But there is another way to think, an out-of-the-box way. It is termed as lateral thinking. Lateral thinking liberates an immense ocean of ideas and possibilities with regard to problem solving, developing new ideas and even day-to-day life.
Lateral thinking by Edward de Bono unfolds the way of lateral thinking in deep detail. The book elaborates on the ideas as in what is lateral thinking, what it does and how it is practiced?
The book delves deep into the concept of lateral thinking while elaborating its obvious relatedness to the functioning of the human mind. Every chapter is divided into definition section and a section of practice examples.
In this review, I share some of the insightful pointers from the book. Without further ado, let’s get started with these!
EDUCATION, CULTURE, CONFLICT & THE NEED FOR LATERAL THINKING
While the culture is concerned with estabilishing ideas, education is concerned with communicating these established ideas. Typically, the education is more concerned with collection of ideas but the true meaning of education is not merely collection of ideas but also the best ways of using it.
In most schools, the type of thinking promoted is vertical thinking or thinking based on total logic. Ideas are pitted against each other in conflict for change. Typical education works from outside.
Lateral thinking is more concerned with insight rearrangement from within. And to do this, we must understand how the human mind works.
THE MECHANISM & FUNCTIONING OF HUMAN MIND
Mind is an information handling machine just like a computer. The basic characteristics of the mind are:
• It is a Self-organizing, self-maximizing memory system
• It is a patterning system
o It create patterns, recognize patterns, react to patterns and makes use of patterns wherein the established patterns develop a code.
• It works in Code communication
o Code heading – trigger word – activation of pattern
o Can only work because mind has preset patterns
• Insight & humour
o switch over from one arrangement of information to the other
o if switch over is temporary, it results in humour
o if switch over is permanent, it results in insight
• It is a cumulative memory system
o Memory – a memory is anything that happens and does not completely unhappens. The result is some trace that is left. The trace may last for a long time or short time.
o Mind picks out information from the environment based on the preset patterns stored in it
• It is a memory surface
o The accumulated memory trace forms something called as a memory surface
o like contours of a landscape
o like a jelly plate on which hot water and cold water are poured and patterns form on the jelly as a result
o like rainfall forming little rivulets, rivers or streams of information
o The arrangement of information on the memory surface is called as a pattern
• Mind has limited attention span
o only part of the memory can be activated at a time
o which part is activated depends on what is being presented to the memory surface
o The most easily activated area is the most familiar one
o A familiar pattern becomes ever more familiar
o this way mind forms and stores a stock of preset patterns which are the basis for code communication
• Its content depends on the sequence of the arrival of information
WHAT IS LATERAL THINKING?
• Lateral thinking is liberation from old ideas and stimulation of new ideas
• insight restructuring for maximum use of stored information
• A means for restructuring and escaping cliché patterns for putting information together in new ways for generating new ideas
• Lateral thinking is concerned with changing patterns.
• Directly linked to the information handling system of the mind
• Used for generating new ideas, problem solving and processing perceptual choice
o perceptual choice is natural patterning behaviour of mind – it determines what goes in each package of information
• Not looking for right answers but generating alternatives for looking at new ways of the situation
DIFFERENCE BETWEEN VERTICAL THINKING & LATERAL THINKING
Lateral thinking and vertical thinking are complimentary. Here are a few differences between the two of them.
• Lateral thinking is generative. Vertical thinking is selective.
• Vertical thinking is used to dig a hole deeper whereas Lateral thinking is used to dig a hole in a different place.
• In vertical thinking, rightness matters. In lateral thinking, richness matters.
• Vertical thinking is concerned with selecting the best approach. Lateral thinking is concerned with generating as many approaches as possible just for the sake of generating them.
• Vertical thinking works with a direction. Lateral thinking works by generating directions.
• Vertical thinking is analytical. Lateral thinking is provocative.
• In vertical thinking, one moves from one step to the other, one step at a time. in lateral thinking, one doesn’t have to be sequential. One can jump from one point to the other.
• In vertical thinking, one uses negative to block certain pathways. In lateral thinking, there is no negative.
• In vertical thinking one throws out what is not relevant. In lateral thinking, one welcomes what is irrelevant to generate alternate ways of looking at a situation.
• Vertical thinking is a finite process where one works to arrive at an answer. Lateral thinking is a probabilistic process where there is no need for an answer.
TECHNIQUES, TOOLS & DEVICES FOR LATERAL THINKING
#1 Generation Of Alternatives
o the most basic principle of lateral thinking is that any particular way of looking at things is only one from among many possible ways – Lateral thinking is concerned with exploring these other ways by rearranging and restructuring information
o instead of blindly accepting the most obvious approach, one looks for the alternatives
o Practice generating alternatives with geometric figures, non-geometrical shapes, pictures, photographs from newspapers & magazines, altered pictures, written material such as stories, problems and inconveniences of everyday living
o Quota is the term used to describe number of alternative ideas generated in a given period of time
#2 Challenging assumptions
o instead of generating alternatives A, B, C, D, we examine the assumptions A, B, C, D.
#3 the why technique
o repetition of why at each step
o by refusing to be comforted with an explanation, one tries to look at things in a different way and to increase the possibility of restructuring a pattern
o ex: why is blackboard black?
because the chalk is white
why is chalk whute?
#4 innovation
o involves forward thinking and moving forward
o building up something new rather than analyzing something old
#5 suspended judgement
o the purpose of thinking is not to be right but to be effective
o Vertical thinking involves being right all along. Judgement is exercised at every step. One is not allowed to take a step that is not right. Vertical thinking is selection by exclusion – judgement is the method of exclusion and negative (no, not) is the tool of exclusion
o The need to be right all the time is the biggest bar in generating new ideas
o With lateral thinking one is allowed to be wrong all the way but one must be right at the end.
o Suspended judgement is a deliberate delay in judgement wherein one postpones it till the end instead of applying the judgement immediately.
#6 Design
o design is a convenient form of using lateral thinking principles
o visual expression of a complicated structure is much easier ththan verbal expression
o Create a new design, redesign something, organizational design
o Divide a design into individual units of functions
#7 Dominant ideas & crucial factor
o A dominant idea is the organizing theme, a way of looking at a situation
o One defines it in order to escape from it – why are we always looking at this thing in the same way
o Dominant idea is not in the situation but the way of looking at the situation
o Crucial factor is the element, the tethering point which must always be included no matter how one looks at the situation – what is keeping us to this old approach?
o The dominant idea organizes the information and the crucial factor tethers it.
#8 Fractionation
o In self-maximizing memory system of the mind, there is a tendency for patterns to become larger and larger.
o The more unified a pattern is, the more difficult it is to restructure it – so one divides a pattern into fractions and restructure the pattern by restructuring these individual fractions and then reassembling the rearranged fractions to generate a new pattern, a restructered pattern.
#9 Reversal Method
o Reverse how you look at something
o One takes things as they are and turns them round inside out, upside down, back to front.
o Ex: you can make water run uphill instead of downhill
o Ex: A policeman organizing traffic – reversal – a policeman disorganizing traffic – traffic organizing the policeman etc.
o No one is better than the rest – one is simply searching for provocative rearrangements of information
#10 Brainstorming
o a formal setting for use of lateral thinking
o main features
cross stimulation – stimulating others’ ideas and receiving stimulation in return
suspended judgement
formality of the setting
group activity
Notetaking a permanent list of the many butterfly ideas generated in a brainstorming session
#11 Analogies
o A simple story or situation that is compared to something else
o making connection between the given situation and a similar situation
o An analogy has a life of its own
o Analogies are used to provide movement to the train of thoughts
#12 Choice of entry point & attention area
o Attention area is the part of the situation or problem that is attended to
o Entry point refers to the part of the problem or situation that is first attended to= first area of attention
o rotation of attention – divide a problem into fractions or features and rotate the attention from one area to the other
o Separation of units, selection of units, combination or reassembly of units
#13 Random Stimulation
o Instead of trying to work from within an idea, one uses external stimulation which acts on the idea from outside.
o Random exposure – to welcome a new situation and deal with it
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