Lateral Thinking Principles
“If you want to think what nobody
else thinks, ask a question that nobody else asks.”
--Paul
Sloane, lateral thinking expert
Lateral thinking is a problem-solving approach designed to
encourage creative outside-the-box solutions to difficult problems. Developed by Edward de Bono in the 1960s, it
is based on four principles: recognizing assumptions and challenging dominant
ideas; searching for alternatives (asking better questions; challenging
assumptions, and generating innovative, non-logical solutions.
Principles
Recognizing dominant ideas, or conventional ways of
looking at problems, is the way to begin to see them in a new light—but the
conventions need to be identified in order to steer around or away from
them. Searching for alternatives
refers to finding new ways of seeing, so that problems can be redefined or
defined within a novel context, one that may be quite distant from its ordinary
surrounding assumptions. Challenging assumptions is when the ordinary
thinking patterns can be left behind, as sub-optimal traps, by contrarian
thinking. An entirely unexpected point
of view yields entirely new insights not available by conventional means.
This is because the usual ways of framing and breaking out
of the frame in group thinking have been tried and found less than successful—merely
extending existing assumptions isn’t the answer. Generating novel solutions gives a new
lease to open-mindedness in developing new thinking styles with a sharper
turning ratio (this is the strength of the cheetah, angling its top speed as
the fastest land animal).
The innovative, non-logical (non-vertical) solutions come
from looking at the same problem from different angles, seemingly so different and
distant that they can’t fit the problem at hand. So the very nature of the problem is
reconsidered across these four stages as well as, of course, novel options that
can serve as solutions. Robert Pirsig,
author of Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance (1974), says
Lateral knowledge is knowledge
that’s from a wholly unexpected direction, from a direction that is not even
understood as a direction until the knowledge forces itself upon one. Lateral truths point to the falseness of
axioms and postulates underlying one’s existing system of getting at truth.
Here is an example of a lateral thinking question, based on
minimal information:
If Chinese men eat more rice than Japanese
men, why is this true?
Lateral questions
Does this mean that each individual consumes more rice, or
that the total number of people do?
There are many times more Chinese men than Japanese men (over 11 times
more) – the aggregate number presents the simplest answer making the fewest
assumptions. Often in lateral thought
(also called horizontal thinking), the most straightforward answer is the best
one, bypassing more elaborate pre-assumptions. Therefore, the lateral approach finds ways to
escape thinking that is anchored in context, or a context we believe is
necessary to both problem and solution. In
the best solution-finding, the anchor is a false security; only our thinking
about its nature is limited. Immediate
circumstances, even if they exist only in the mind, constrain our
thinking. That narrowed thought process
will constrain the solution—just when it doesn’t need to be constrained by
vertical thinking but released from invisible barriers to yield a far superior
resolution from the side.
The nine-dot problem is a classic example. The challenge is to connect with four
straight lines every dot--without lifting your pencil or retracing any
lines. This puzzle is the classic
think-outside-the-box example (see solution at the end).
Lateral thinking is the mainstay of working out solutions to
hard-to-solve mysteries, real as well as fictional. The detective must recognize a clue as having
a sideways, non-obvious entry into revelation of the truth of the crime /
puzzle. This recognition factor is the
power behind the lateral approach. This skill
is the soul of the fictional sleuth Sherlock Holmes.
Lateral analysis over AI
“As AI is getting smarter, young college grads may be
getting dumber. They can regurgitate
information and ideas but struggle to come up with novel insights or analyze
issues from different directions. They
don’t learn how to think through, express, or defend ideas,” says Allysia Findley
in The Wall Street Journal. Fluid
recognition is key to what humans are good at, even though we don’t always
allow ourselves to flex that imaginative power.
We prefer the safety of vertical thinking one step at a time, each building
on the last. We also prefer well-defined
problems, meaning those that are so straightforward that the answer is
contained in the question itself. Think
of the way an algebra problem lays out X, the unknown, so that the rest of the
equation can work up the solution from the knowns.
But a lateral exercise in problem definition is in riddles, where
the reworking of language as word definition and re-defining holds the
solution. Here’s one for kids: “What is
always coming, but never arrives?”
Answer: Tomorrow. “Arriving”
happens in time, not space.
Solution: The lines extend beyond the framework of
the square, which is the only way the solution can be achieved—by thinking
outside the box. There was no rule
stating that this method is not allowed.
The restriction is only a mental one.
Or a cultural barrier so thick that we don’t even realize it’s
there.
