Lateral Thinking

Books have written extensively about the process of lateral thinking . The point of lateral thinking is that many problems require a different perspective to solve successfully. And lateral thinking applies to human problem solving.

One author identifies four critical factors associated with lateral thinking:

1. Recognize dominant ideas that polarize perception of a problem

2. Searching for different ways of looking at things

3. Relaxation of rigid control of thinking, and

4. Use of chance to encourage other ideas. This last factor has to do with the fact that lateral thinking     involves low-probability ideas which are unlikely to occur in the normal course of events.

Example of a lateral thought :

The following anecdote is provided by DeBono (1967). A merchant who owes money to a money lender agrees to settle the debt based upon the choice of two stones (one black, one white) from a money bag. If his daughter chooses the white stone, the debt is canceled; if she picks the black stone, the moneylender gets the merchant's daughter. However, the moneylender; 'fixes' the outcome by putting two black stones in the bag. The daughter sees this and when she picks a stone out of the bag, immediately drops it onto the path full of other stones. She then points out that the stone she picked must have been the opposite color of the one remaining in the bag. Unwilling to be unveiled as dishonest, the moneylender must agree and cancel the debt. The daughter has solved an intractable problem through the use of lateral thinking.

Principles:

To get a different perspective on a problem, try breaking the elements up and recombining them in a different way (perhaps randomly).

In the near lifetime we should see the need teach our preceeding generation, the need to think.