Lateral thinking and problem solving

© 2003 Dr Stuart Palmer, Deakin University, Australia

The stones, carrot and scarf
Some stones, a carrot and a scarf are lying on the lawn
Nobody put them on the lawn, but there is a perfectly logical reason for their being there
What is it?

The four sheep
A farmer has four sheep
One day he notices that they are standing in such a way that they are all the same distance away from each other. That is to say, the distance between any two sheep is the same
How can this be so?

  or 

Vertical thinking
You may remember last time we spoke about vertical and lateral thinking
de Bono refers to 'vertical thinking' where we base our thought processes on our prior knowledge, our experience and logic
Our thought processes are based on assumptions and follow a logical sequence

Vertical thinking is an automatic form of thinking that is based on patterns that we are familiar with
It helps us function in day to day life
It stops us from stepping off high buildings and walking in front of traffic
We automatically know the logical consequences if we do these things

Vertical thinking is an automatic form of thinking that is based on patterns that we are familiar with
This is the natural form of thinking
It constrains our creativity and ability to solve problems

Other factors constrain our creativity:

• experience tells us the "right" way to do it
• the typical design process is not creative
• organisations are conservative

Creative thinking
de Bono uses the following diagram to show the nature of creative thinking and vertical thinking

We normally proceed down the vertical thinking path
If we were to examine every possible side track, life would be impossibly slow
Optimal or useful solutions to some of our problem may exist on these side tracks
Under normal conditions we will pass them by

Here are some additional terms defined using the previous diagram

All creative ideas are logical in hindsight, otherwise they would have no value
de Bono says that the mistake that many people make is to conclude that the creative solution could have been reached logically and linearly in the first place
It is important to understand that the path from A to B is very different to that from B to A

de Bono likens creative insight to humour
As the joke unfolds, we form a normal, vertical understanding of the story
When the punchline is delivered, we immediately see an alternative view of the same story
For example ...

Creative thinking and humour
Greg Norman had a bad Christmas,
he was given only three golf clubs,
and only two of them had pools!

Creative thinking
de Bono concludes that the same type of pattern switching that we see in humour also occurs in hindsight (the B to A path) and insight (the A to B path)
The purpose of lateral thinking is to provide a more deliberate means for pattern switching than relying on mistake or accident

Lateral thinking
While lateral thinking may not be the normal form of thinking,
it is not a mystical black art that you are either born with, or you aren't
Much like public speaking, leadership, etc, it can be learned, practised and developed

A set of systematic techniques used for changing concepts and perceptions and generating new ones
More generally - exploring multiple possibilities and approaches instead of pursuing a single approach

Lateral thinking is NOT 'brainstorming'

De Bono refers to brainstorming is an undisciplined form of creative thinking that may be suitable for advertising where anything is possible,
but it is of limited use in solving 'real world' problems

Uses of lateral thinking
Improvement - removing defects and 'making it better'
Problem solving - finding a solution, or a better solution to a problem
Value and opportunity - creating competitive advantage is business
The future - creative planning
Motivation - creativity can be a great motivator

Improvement - de Bono sees this is the area of greatest potential for lateral thinking
It is about removing defects, but also about improving what is already working
Problem solving - the traditional area for creative thinking
The standard solution or the first solution are not necessarily the best
Incorporates problem avoidance

Value and opportunity - business has been through reorganisation and cost cutting
Many are now addressing quality
Once all your competitors are lean and competent, how do you gain a competitive advantage?
By creatively finding and creating new product values and completely new business opportunities

The future - strategy is often about reducing possibilities to a single course of action
Creative planning is about designing multiple options
Motivation - creativity can make people interested in what they are doing, it creates opportunity for achievement and for teamwork

Characteristics of creative thinkers
Tanner offers the following characteristics of creative thinkers ...

Discontent with the status quo - trouble makers
Seek alternative solutions - don't grab at the first solution that arises
Are prepared (to think creatively)
Think positively - find new angles on what would normally be considered negatives
Work hard at it - the one common characteristic found among creative thinkers

Lateral thinking techniques
de Bono has provided the world with a number of techniques that can be used to stimulate lateral thinking

The 6 hats
The creative pause
Focus
Challenge
Alternatives
Provocation

The chess masters
Two grandmasters played five games of chess.
Each won the same number of games and lost the same number of games.
There were no draws in any game
How could this be so?

The creative pause
Unless there is some obstacle, or we consciously stop, our thinking flows along smoothly - this is vertical thinking
Unless we purposefully make an effort to apply creative thinking, then it will only occur by chance, if it occurs at all

The creative pause
is a purposeful, proactive effort to employ creative thinking
It is an interruption in the smooth flow of routine in order to pay deliberate attention to some point
It is not a creative thinking technique in itself - the value of the pause is not in what we do during the pause, but in the distraction it provides

The 'green hat' is a formal way of asking for creative effort
The pause asks:
"There could be a new idea here"
"Is there another possibility here"
"Is that the only way of doing it?"
de Bono suggests a pause of 20-30 seconds for individuals, two minutes for a group

The creative pause is a vital habit of the successful problem solver and creative thinker

Focus
When we apply creative thinking, we need to focus on something
Focus can be applied randomly, or specifically
There are an infinite number of random focus points, ie.
why do I have to stand in line at the airport?
why do I have to hold the nozzle to pump petrol into my car?

The ability to identify and develop new ideas has made many people wealthy
The inventor of the variable speed windscreen wiper solved their problem of a fixed wipe speed being either too fast or too slow, and made their fortune as well
Focus is another habit of the practicing creative thinker

Specific focus can be:
General - "we need some new ideas about telephones"; or
Purposeful - "how can we use telephones for advertising?"

de Bono identifies different types of purposeful focus:

Improvement - "how do we speed up supermarket checkout?";
Problem solving - "how can we reduce losses from shoplifting?"
Task - "We need a flat computer monitor"
Opportunity - "how can we use this glue that barely sticks a scrap of paper?"

Six years after producing such an adhesive, 3M finally found an answer and can still barely produce enough PostIts to meet worldwide demand!

Focus is related to the concept of identifying the underlying problem
If the focus is to develop an improvement for umbrellas,
perhaps we really should look at new ways of protecting people from the rain

Challenge
Who knows why the keys on a computer keyboard are laid out in the QWERTY arrangement we all know and love?
The layout of the keys is purposefully convoluted and is actually designed to slow down the possible speed of typing, because, on early typewriters the mechanical arms that strike the carbon ribbon would jam together if the typist was too quick

Does this make any sense today when virtually everyone uses a computer that can respond to keystrokes at rate far faster than any human could ever type?
But, we continue this way because "that's the way it has always been done"

Many aspects of our life are determined by conventions that are now no longer relevant
The creative challenge asks:
"Why is it done this way?"
"Why does it have to be done this way?"
"Are there other ways of doing it?"
The creative challenge does not set out to criticise, judge or find fault, but improve

Why are plates round?
?Potter's wheels produce round objects
?They are easy to set, the orientation is not important
?People are used to them that way
Many plates are now made by injection moulding
They could be any shape we desire

Tradition, obsolete reasons, assumptions, apathy, domination, avoidance, false arguments, etc. can lead us to accept things the way they are
Changes in technology, values, circumstances, costs, etc mean that we should challenge what is taken for granted
I am guilty of saying "don't fix what ain't broke"

Alternatives
A natural flow-on from the challenge is to develop alternatives to the current method
Where the next logical step is easily available, we do not normally look for alternatives
This is vertical thinking
We need to consciously appreciate the need to look for alternatives to the obvious

In some circumstances, there will be a limited number of alternatives
But, most situations are open ended
We need to avoid traps like, "Either we raise prices or we don't"

Maybe we can:
raise some prices and lower others;
raise prices but offer increases services, etc
raise basic prices, but offer discounts;
totally change our product range and set new prices!

When we have to generate new alternatives,
we can employ a reference point
Some common references points are:

Alternatives - reference points
Purpose - "We have no matches, how else can we light a fire?"
Groups - "Bananas are not available, what other tropical fruit could we offer?"
Resemblance - "The anodisers are busy, how else can we get this surface finish?"
Concepts - "We normally drive, what other ways are there to travel from A to B?"

There is no 'correct' reference point -
try several

Creative thinking
Now it's time to solve a couple of small problems

Focus - identify the key issues - what is the underlying problem(s)?
Challenge - why does it have to be done this way? - are there other ways of doing it?
Alternatives - search for alternatives - use reference points - purpose, groups, resemblance, concepts

Provocation
Many important new ideas come about through accident, mistake or 'madness'
All of these provide some discontinuity which forces us outside of the normal boundaries of 'reasonableness'
Deliberate provocation can produce the same effect,
We can be mad for 30 seconds at a time, and then be sane again

We said previously, all good ideas seem logical in hindsight, but may not be able to be reached by logical, linear thinking
Provocation uses techniques to force us outside of logical thought processes,
from where we may be able to move on to a side track, find our way back to where we started and open up a new idea

Provocation is one of the means by which we can make the creative leap required in lateral thinking

de Bono offers the comparison from chemistry where to move from one stable compound to another, we may have to first pass through a temporary, unstable phase

Provocation is a two-stage process:
we have to set up the provocation; then
move on to generate a new idea

de Bono uses the term 'po' as shorthand for 'provocation operation' when setting up provocations

Po - The escape method
Escape from what we take for granted
We drive in to work
Po, you cannot drive in to work
cars are banned, we have to use public trans.
you live on campus, or nearby
you work at home
you drive 'out' to work, businesses are encouraged to relocate out of town

Po - Reversal
Reverse the usual direction of operation
The phone rings when we get a call
Po, phones ring all the time & stop on a call
a lamp is lit all the time the phone is working properly
the phone can mute the television when a call is received

Po - Exaggeration
Increase or decrease the normal range / scale
Police need eyes in the back of their heads
Po, police have six eyes
police on the beat have access to video surveillance cameras
individuals act as extra eyes for the police - this idea lead to the formation of Neighbourhood Watch programs

Po - Distortion
Change the normal arrangements
What good are insurance benefits after you die?
Po, you are dead before you die
this provocation lead to the development of insurance policies that pay benefits for certain terminal illnesses on diagnosis rather than death
it could also have initiated pre-paid funerals

Po - Wishful thinking
Fantasy - wouldn't it be nice if ...
factories pollute the water for everyone downstream
Po, the factory is downstream of itself
many countries now legislate that factories that put effluent into rivers must draw their intake water downstream of their emission point

Po - The random input
If we have a stable, complex system, a random disturbance may cause it to settle into a new rest state
A powerful way to generate new ideas is to use a random disturbance
In provocation, we take a random word and juxtapose it with our problem theme
The illogical combination is a provocation that may lead to new ideas

Cigarette po traffic light
put a red band around a cigarette near the butt to indicate a 'danger zone'
as the last part of the cigarette is most harmful, stopping before the band would be safer

Cigarette po flower
place seeds in the filters of cigarettes
so that when the butt is thrown away on the ground, flowers might grow
if a particular type of flower was chosen, it might become a form of advertising

Generating random inputs
To avoid any influence on the random input process we need a pseudo-random source of words
Compile a list of 60 words. To select, look at your watch and note the position of the second hand, use that word
Open a newspaper or book at random, close your eyes and point to the page. Use the word closet to your finger

Provocation
Remember that provocation is a two-stage process:
we have to set up the provocation; then
move on to generate a new idea

Creative thinking - Provocation
Escape - from what we take for granted
Reverse - the usual direction of operation
Exaggerate - the normal range / scale
Distort - the normal arrangements
Wishful thinking - wouldn't it be nice if ...
Random input - word association

Creative thinking
I have presented only a selection of de Bono's creative thinking techniques
de Bono is perhaps the most well known and published creative thinker,
but there are plenty of others, including detractors of de Bono
I encourage you to read around on the topic, review it all critically, and take from all sources what you find is valuable

Creative thinking
is like tennis
Taking one lesson doesn't make you a Seles or a Woodford
To excel at any task you must practise continually, and success should motivate you to achieve more

Coins of the realm
Why are 1898 pennies worth more than 1893 pennies?

For the same reason 20 pennies are worth more than 15 pennies -

there are 5 more of them!

References
de Bono, E. (1992), Serious Creativity, HarperCollins, New York.
Sloane, P. (1992), Lateral Thinking Puzzlers, Sterling Publishing Company Inc, New York.
Tanner, D. (1992), Applying creative thinking techniques to everyday problems, Journal of Consumer Marketing, 9, 4, 23-28.