Lateral Thinking & Brainstorming
Brainstorming is a great way to gather people together to help throw out some great ideas to help find new ways of solving problems. Brainstorming is virtually lateral thinking, where you are coming up with new ways of thinking, taking a look at a problem with a new set of eyes, with a totally different perspective.
Vertical thinking, the opposite of lateral thinking, is the way we typically think, this is conventional thinking. This type of thinking is our greatest barrier to brainstorming. When we look at a problem, we look at it with a preconceived idea of how the problem should be handled; our logic automatically starts to make judgments and coming up with a totally logical solution with our limited method of thinking.
We start to go through our conventional ideas of what’s right and wrong, using our deductive reasoning, or just using our good ole “common sense”. Our ideas are typically boring, dry, predictable, and one that will really not affect any change. Dr. DeBono says that “You cannot dig a hole in a different place by digging the same hole deeper”.
So, how do you use lateral thinking versus conventional thinking? It actually takes some specific techniques. This type of thinking is very hard to start using, because you have to change the way you have been thinking your entire life. The techniques that you will use are brainstorming techniques that get the brain going in the lateral thinking mode.
One of these lateral thinking methods is called fractionation which takes a problem then dividing it up into fractions. You take each individual part and look at each one by itself, coming up with individual solutions.
The conventional way of thinking would be to take the entire problem and look at it as a whole solving it all at once. But the fractional lateral thinking method is like a patchwork quilt, putting each piece together with its’ own solution, therefore coming up with a great solution that would have never been considered.
If you take the time to study Edward De Bono’s lateral thinking method, you will find new and better ways of problem solving and business innovation.
