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Lateral Thinking Defined
Lateral thinking is about restructuring a
questions or
problems.
Lateral thinking is concerned with generation
of new ideas. It is also concerned with "breaking out of the concept prisons
of old ideas."1
Turning Problems Into Opportunities: 6 Tips
Lateral Thinking versus
Vertical Thinking
Lateral thinking is not a substitute for
vertical thinking. Both are required – they are complementary: lateral
thinking is generative, vertical thinking is selective. For instance, during
brainstorming
meetings, you encourage lateral thinking during the first session to
generate as much creative solutions as possible, and vertical thinking
during the second session to select the feasible ideas.
In traditional vertical type of thinking (logic
or mathematic), you move forward by sequential steps each of which must be
justified. You select out only what is relevant. You must be right at each
stage in order to achieve a correct solution.
In lateral thinking, you may deliberately seek
out irrelevant information – you use information not for its own sake but
for its effect. You may have to be wrong at some stage in order to achieve
an innovative and correct solution.
Loose-Tight Leadership
Ask Searching Questions
Don't ask one or two questions and then rush straight towards a solution.
With an incomplete understanding of the
problem it is very easy to jump to
wrong conclusions.
How To Solve Problems
Ask open-ended questions that elicit a wide rage of answers:
(see
an example)
True Success: 4 Questions To Ask
The Power of
Cross-Functional Excellence
If you build broad
cross-functional expertise, no idea will be wasted!
Systemic
Innovation: 7 Areas
6 Innovation Practice Tips
Your
mind can accept only those ideas that have a frame of reference with
your existing knowledge. It rejects everything else. If your knowledge is
functionally focused, you'll be open to new ideas related to your functional
expertise only and will miss all other learning and innovation
opportunities. If you develop a broad cross-functional expertise, no new
idea will be wasted. It will immediately connect with the existing knowledge
and will inspire you, energize you, and encourage your
entrepreneurial creativity.
The broader your net, the more fish you catch...
More
Case in Point
Encouragement of Lateral Thinking at
GE Work-Out
At
GE Work-Out, participants are made fell the urgency to change and begin
to see the whole picture of the situation. Then, they are
ready to focus on new ideas.
How can the process be
improved? What can be
done
differently to achieve the
stretch goal?
"Using the process map as a starting point,
Work-Out asks participants to
brainstorm ways of achieving the goal, and then provides a structure for
quickly sorting through the ideas, selecting the best ones, and developing
them into recommendations for
change. As with any brainstorming process,
Work-Out encourages people to toss out any idea, no matter how minor, how
crazy, how seemingly impossible. And the process helps people learn how to
build on each other's ideas, combine ideas, and
think "out-of-the-box."
In fact,
when the old Aetna Insurance Company implemented its version of Work-Out,
the program's sponsors called it "Out of the Box."3
Exercises
Practicing
Lateral Thinking
Source:
Effective Innovation: How to Stay Ahead of
the Competition, John Adair
The Bicycles and
the Fly
Two boys on bicycles, 20 miles
apart, began racing straight towards each other. The instant they started, a
fly on the handlebar of one bicycle started flying straight towards the
other cyclist. As soon as it reached the other bicycle, it turned and
started back. The fly flew back and forth in this way, from handlebar to
handlebar, until the bicycles met.
If each bicycle had a constant
speed of 10 miles and hour, and the fly flew at a constant speed of 15 miles
an hour, how far did the fly flew? (See
the answer)
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