lateral thinking

 

Lateral thinking is a term coined by Edward de Bono, a Maltese psychologist, physician and writer. It first appeared in the title of his book The Use of Lateral Thinking, published in 1967. De Bono defines lateral thinking as methods of thinking concerned with changing concepts and perception. Lateral thinking is about reasoning that is not immediately obvious and about ideas that may not be obtainable by using only traditional step-by-step logic.

Techniques of lateral thinking

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 becomming 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 judgement but a stimulus for new perception.

As an example see the provocation on cars having square wheels given as example 2 below.

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.

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

Edward de Bono points out that the term problem solving implies that there is a problem to respond to and that it can be resolved. That eliminates situations where there is no problem or a problem exists that cannot be resolved. It is logical to think about making a good situation, that has no problems, into a better situation. Sometimes a problem cannot be solved by removing its cause.

We may need to solve problems not by removing the cause but by designing the way forward even if the cause remains in place.

– (Edward de Bono)

Lateral thinking can be used to help in solving problems but can also be used for much more.

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.

You need to think outside the box (maddie)

Example 1 of lateral thinking

It took two hours for two men to dig a hole five feet deep. How deep would it have been if ten men had dug the hole for two hours?

The answer appears to be 25 feet deep. This answer assumes that the thinker has followed a simple mathematical relationship suggested by the description given, but we can generate some lateral thinking ideas about what affects the size of the hole which may lead to different answers:

• A hole may need to be of a certain size or shape so digging might stop early at a required depth.
• The deeper a hole is, the more effort is required to dig it, since waste soil needs to be lifted higher to the ground level. There is a limit to how deep a hole can be dug by manpower without use of ladders or hoists for soil removal, and 25 feet is beyond this limit.
• Ten men would need more room to work side-by-side, and so may need to dig the hole wider rather than deeper. Each man digging needs space to use a shovel.
• Deeper soil layers may be harder to dig out, or we may hit bedrock or the water table.
• Digging in soil, clay, or sand each present their own special considerations.
• Ten men are more likely to disagree on a digging method than two men.
• Holes required to be dug beyond a certain depth may require structural reinforcement to prevent collapse of the hole.
• The shape of the hole may not be a prism: if it is cone-shaped hole, which is wider at the top than the bottom, then even if the volume of the hole is five times that of the first hole, it may not be five times as deep.
• Digging in a forest becomes much easier once we have cut through the first several feet of roots.
• It is possible that with more people working on a project, each person may become less efficient due to increased opportunity for distraction, the assumption he can slack off, more people to talk to, etc.
• More men could work in shifts to dig faster for longer.
• There might be fewer shovels than available men.
• The two hours dug by ten men may be under different weather conditions than the two hours dug by two men.
  • Rain could flood the hole to prevent digging.
  • Temperature conditions may freeze the men before they finish.
• Would we rather have 5 holes each 5 feet deep?
• The two men may be an engineering crew with digging machinery.
• Maybe one of the 10 men will die, less likely if only 2 men are working.
• One man in each group might be a manager who will not actually dig.
• The extra eight men might not be strong enough to dig, or much stronger than the first two.
• There must be a reason for digging and ten men are more likely to hinder each other's progress, due to personal profit and expectations : competition, disagreement on the place where it would be better to dig, disagreement on who should use a shovel to dig and who should use a bucket to carry the soil out of the hole, ...
• A greater number may induce a greater diversity and the babel tower syndrome may occur: incompatibility within the workers and failure to understand each other effectively.

The most useful ideas listed above are outside the simple mathematics implied by the question.

Example 2 of lateral thinking

Consider the statement "Cars should have square wheels." When considered with critical thinking, this would be evaluated as a poor suggestion and dismissed as impractical. The lateral thinking treatment of the same statement would be to speculate where it leads. Humor is taken intentionally with lateral thinking. A person would imagine "as if" this were the case, and describe the effects or qualities. Someone might observe: square wheels would produce very predictable bumps. If bumps can be predicted, then suspension can be designed to compensate. How could this car predict bumps? It could be a laser or sonar on the front of the car. This leads to the idea of active suspension. A sensor connected to suspension could examine the road surface ahead on cars with round wheels too. A car could have a sensor for determining when it was going to hit a bump that feeds back to suspension that would know to compensate. The initial "provocative" statement has been left behind, but it has also been used to indirectly generate the new and potentially more useful idea.

Provocative operations

A notation used in lateral thinking, is Po. This stands for provocative operation and is used to propose an idea, which may not necessarily be a solution, or a 'good' idea in itself, but moves thinking forward to a new place where new ideas may be produced. People in conversation could use the word "PO" to notify others that they are intentionally making a provocative comment that should be best applied using lateral thinking techniques.

Example of provocative operation

The problem is that Tom won't come to the mountain.

• Po: The mountain must come to Tom (the classic answer).
• Po: Use a video conference (an IT idea).
• Po: Use an intermediary.
• Po: Ask him what he wants in exchange for coming to the mountain (a deal)
• Po: See if he'll accept a free timeshare slot in a holiday home (that just happens to be on the mountain).
• Po: Wait until he changes his mind.
• Po: Cut your losses and tackle a different problem.
• Po: Coerce him
• Po: Force him
• Po: Ask Tom to go near the mountain if not to the mountain.
• Po: Lure, deceive or blackmail him.
• Po: "Make him an offer he can't refuse". Leave him no alternative.

These are all provocative operations and characterise a stage of lateral thinking where the ideas generated need further work in order to become practical solutions.

Q:If there was a horse and a hole the size that through could fit a mouse, then how could the horse fit through the hole?

A:Thinking laterally one might consider that there are no real bonds between the word 'horse' and the animal itself. So therefore what is to say that the noise we use to communicate and the letters or drawings that we use to record this is not really connected or does not refer to what we describe as a mouse or even a worm.

Example 3 of Lateral Thinking

A man and his son are in a car crash. The father is killed and the son is taken to hospital gravely injured. When he gets there, the surgeon says "I can't operate on this boy- he is my son!" How is this possible?

This is an example of an instant perception blocking the mind's ability to explore alternatives. In this case the instant perception is that most people imagine a surgeon as a male. If you switch your perception to allow for a female surgeon then the answer is suddenly obvious, the surgeon is the boy's mother. Most people imagine a surgeon as a male, but in this case it is the opposite! Lateral thinking is the method of switching perceptions to allow the alternate view point.

Lateral thinking puzzles

When using lateral thinking puzzles it is important to check your assumptions. You need to be open-minded, flexible and creative in your questioning and able to put lots of different clues and pieces of information together. Once you reach a viable solution you keep going in order to refine it or replace it with a better solution.

Some Fun Lateral Thinking Questions

1. There is a man who lives on the top floor of a very tall building. Everyday he gets the elevator down to the ground floor to leave the building to go to work. Upon returning from work though, he can only travel half of the distance up riding in the elevator and has to walk the rest of the way up unless it's raining! How can this be?
2. Mel Colly stared through the dirty soot-smeared window on the 26th floor of the office tower. Overcome with depression he slid the window open and jumped through it. It was a sheer drop outside the building to the ground. Miraculously after he landed he was completely unhurt. Since there was nothing to cushion his fall or slow his descent, how could he have survived?

Answers

1. The man is very, very short and can only reach halfway up the elevator buttons (assuming the levels of the buttons designating floors increases from bottom to top). However, if it is raining then he will have his umbrella with him and can press the higher buttons using it.
2. Mel Colly was so sick and tired of window washing, he opened the window and jumped inside.

See also

• Thinking outside the box

References

• Lateral Thinking. Edward De Bono, 1970. Penguin Books. ISBN 0-14-021978-1
• Po: Beyind 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

External links

• Lateral Puzzles
• Lateral Thinking Puzzles
• Aha! Puzzles

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