Table of Contents:

Introduction
Purpose of this module
Established ideas
Vertical Thinking
Lateral Thinking
Difference between lateral and vertical thinking
Difference in creativity and lateral thinking
Principles of the lateral thinking process
Practical techniques to generate alternatives
De Bono's six thinking hats
Structure to introduce lateral thinking
Guidelines for treatment of ideas
Kick-start your own creativity
How To Mind Map
Mind mapping in eight Easy Steps
Bibliography
Some more techniques for creative thinking
Further web resources, techniques, books and software for creativity

Introduction:
This module is not a comprehensive analysis of creativity or lateral thinking. However, it
covers the main points and the aim is to give enough background for practical application
of the principles.

Traditionally the people with western culture focus on obvious problem areas. The
eastern culture, however, focus on all areas, not only problem areas. The idea is to get
improvement and not to concentrate only on crisis management.

We can use lateral thinking and creativity to focus on all areas to get improvement and
better ways of doing things.

The purpose of this module is to supply you with

knowledge so that you can:
- Use the techniques to get improved creative results; and
- Teach them to others.

Established ideas:
In the previous chapter we saw that habits, attitudes and perceptions are responsible for
conditioning of the mind.
Our upbringing and education instilled established ideas and concepts in our minds, for
instance moral principles and social norms.

To understand how the human mind works we can compare the human mind to a
computer system, which stores and retrieves information. We store information, concepts
and ideas like encoded patterns. Once the pattern is definite, we file and encode it. Once
the pattern has been filed, we can recall it instantaneously. This self-organising, self-
maximising, memory system is very good at creating patterns. This effective memory
system can easily recall patterns, combine patterns and add to them. The more we use a
pattern the more it strengthens, which unfortunately also has the effect that the pattern
becomes rigid. In other words the pattern can become restricting in the sense that we
block out other alternative patterns.
Restructuring of established patterns in the mind is not easy.

Vertical Thinking:
Vertical thinking is the traditional type of thinking where one moves forward by
sequential steps. At each step we use logical judgement to evaluate and select the most
relevant alternative, before moving on to the next step. This is to ensure that an argument,
recommendation or solving a problem is sound, foolproof and acceptable. This type of
thinking is necessary, useful and must exist.

Lateral Thinking:
Lateral thinking is a process of escaping from restricting patterns, restructuring of old
patterns and provocation of new patterns. It is looking at concepts and ideas in a different
way and the stimulation of new ideas. It is about exploring illogical avenues for
triggering of new ideas to find superior solutions.
Lateral thinking and vertical thinking are complementary to each other.

Difference between lateral and vertical thinking:

LATERAL VERTICAL
Generative (richness of different Selective (correctness of selected
alternative approaches) alternatives)
Movement to generate different Movement if there is a direction or reason
directions
Provocative Analytical
Can make jumps Sequential
Not necessary to be correct Correct at every step (negatively blocking
off certain pathways)
Irrelevance and chance intrusions are Excludes the irrelevant
explored for better results
Explores least likely Follows most likely paths
It is a probabilistic process It is a finite process
We must understand the differences in order to be able to use both effectively.

Difference in creativity and lateral thinking:

Creativity is about a creative result that improves something. Lateral thinking is the
process (vehicle) to get a creative result (destination).

Principles of the lateral thinking process:

Generating of alternatives:

A particular method or way is only one from among many others. The natural tendency is
to look for the best possible approach, but in lateral thinking one must look for as many
different approaches as possible and not come to a stop at the most promising approach.

The purpose of the search is to loosen up rigid patterns and to provoke new patterns to
arrive at something better than the obvious alternative.

Challenging assumptions:

Assumptions are also patterns based on certain boundaries or limits. We must challenge
the validity of concepts and the necessity of boundaries in trying to restructure patterns.
An example is the nine dots where one has to break through the self-imposed boundary.

The "why" technique can also be helpful here to challenge assumptions by repeatedly
questioning an answer with "why." The intention is to create discomfort and increase the
possibility of restructuring the pattern.

Deferring Judgement:

In vertical thinking we exercise judgement at every stage to make certain that the
information is right. With lateral thinking one allows invalid information to cause
restructuring that is valid. In other words the concern is more with to where an
arrangement of information can lead us.

Instead of judging each arrangement and allowing only those that are valid, one defers
judgement until later.

The emphasis shifts from the validity of a particular pattern, to the usefulness of that
pattern in generating new patterns.

In his book Lateral Thinking, De Bono states as follows:

"The need to be right all the time is the biggest bar there is to new ideas."
"The major dangers of the need to be right all the time are as follows:

- Arrogant certainty attends a line of thought, which though correct, may have started
from wrong premises.

- An incorrect idea which would have lead on to a correct idea (or useful experiment) is
choked off at too early a stage if it cannot itself be justified.

- It is assumed that being right is enough - an adequate arrangement blocks the possibility
of a better arrangement.

- The importance attached to being right all the time breeds the inhibiting fear of making
mistakes."

Escaping From Dominant Ideas:

One must try to get into the habit of trying to pick out the idea, which seems to one self to
dominate the issue. The purpose is to see the situation clearly enough to be able to
generate different points of view. It is a matter of identifying the dominant idea to avoid
it or escape from it.

One must try to convert a vague awareness to a definite pattern. Otherwise it will be
extremely difficult to generate alternative ways of looking at the situation. The dominant
idea will keep on dominating the issue.

Isolating Crucial Factors:

A crucial factor can immobilize a situation and make it impossible to change a point of
view. It is extremely difficult to loosen up a pattern unless one can identify the rigid
points.

The purpose of isolating a crucial factor is to be able to challenge the validity of it. Once
it is found not to be crucial, more freedom for different viewpoints will emerge.

Practical techniques to generate alternatives:

Fractionation:

Often when one faces a problem or concept, it is difficult to see any other picture. The
reason is that the whole of the present picture is adequate and the only viable one. To
generate movement for alternatives, one can break a concept up into smaller parts
(fractions) and consider the smaller parts for alternatives. We can then reconstruct the
whole picture or pattern with the new smaller parts into a new form.

We can compare this to the riddle of a murder case where all the separate pieces of
information are written down as separate factors. Then you have to reshape each factor
and try to fit the separate pieces together in different ways to come up with various
pictures (answers to the riddle).

Reversal:

Usually this technique is not useful in it self, but in what it can lead to.

It is the method of reversing a situation and seeing what it brings forth.

The purpose is to escape from the standard way of viewing a situation, with the
possibility of ultimately arriving at a better viewpoint. It does not matter whether the
reversed situation makes immediate sense or not. What matters is what can flow from it.

A certain situation can have different forms of reversal. For instance, the statement "The
Chief Safety Officer leads the monthly safety meeting," can have several reversals such
as:

- The safety officer does not lead the meeting.

- The members lead the meeting.
- The meeting leads the safety officer.
- The safety officer guides the chairman.
- The safety officer disrupts the meeting.
- The chairman is not the safety officer.

The above reversals can eventually lead to members being chairman on rotation basis, or
that they abolish a meeting or replace it with another structure.

Random Stimulation:

Value management practitioners intensively utilise this method. It is about stimulation

from sources outside one's own mind. The idea is that any information is stimulating, no
matter how unrelated it may be. The more irrelevant, the more useful the information
may be. We can induce random stimulation in various ways. Two methods are as follows:

Cross-disciplinary fertilisation: - exposure to the ideas from completely different fields.

A deliberate routine like the use of a dictionary; this is named random word stimulation.
Here we use randomly selected words to get movement. We form a chain of ideas by the
random word, to link it up with the problem under consideration.

What one must not do is to try and select a word that seems relevant or suitable to the
problem. The selection must be truly random. One way to achieve this is to select a page
number from the page range of a dictionary. Then spin a dice for the number of the word
on that page.

This is a deliberate effort to mix in unconnected pieces of information to provoke the

original pattern into restructuring or a new line of development.

The Concept Fan:

With this method you take the broadest concept or approach and backtrack (fan) to more
detail.

Ideas Methods Broad directions Purpose or objectives

EXAMPLE:

Pamphlets Education Increase Decrease water

Radio Use * Do without shortage
TV Efficiency ** Save
* - UNNECESSARY ** - RECYCLING, LESS

Provocative Operation:

We can use provocation deliberately in several ways to get movement of ideas.

Provocative Operation - Extract A Principle/Concept/Feature:

When someone has an idea, treat it sequentially as follows to see where it can lead to:
(i) Extract a principle/concept/feature;

(ii) focus on the difference that will be forthcoming;

(iii) what other consequences can be expected;

(iv) try to see the positive aspects;

(v) under what special circumstances can it have a direct value?

EXAMPLE: Provocative idea: "Everyone who wants to be promoted must wear a yellow
shirt."

(i) Principle - it will be a visible signal of ambition or desire.

(ii) Difference - matching of performance appraisal and desires.

(iii) Consequences - emotional stress, reaction at home (why are you not ambitious?),
cost of shirt etc.

(iv) Positive aspects - willingness for promotion and effort will be visible.

(v) Special circumstances - promotion with relocation easier, where he renders the public
a service, the employee will try harder.

Provocative Operation – Escape

When you consider a problem area or an area for improvement, treat it sequentially as
follows to try to arrive at a novel concept:

(i) Spell out what is normal and natural about it (traditional). How has it always been
done?

(ii) Escape from the normal way by cancelling, negating or dropping a normal aspect.

(iii) get movement by substituting an alternative.

(iv) shape an idea of how you can carry out the alternative.

(v) find a better way than the original idea.

EXAMPLE; Restaurant

(i) Normal aspects - waiter, menu, seats, tables, order form, invoice etc.
(ii) Escape - by picking randomly one aspect such as "order form," the escape can be "the
waiter does not write it up."

(iii) Movement - I do

(iv) Idea - combine the order form with invoice.

(v) Better idea -combine menu, order form and invoice?

Provocative Operation - Reversal:

You can also arrive at novel concepts by following the next steps:

(i) Spell out what is normal.

(ii) Take one of the normal aspects and reverse it to an opposite.

(iii) Exaggerate to beyond normal range of measurement to create an unstable idea that
may lead to another idea (weight, length, number).

(iv) Distort by changing the time sequence.

(v) Apply wishful thinking - "Wouldn't it be nice "

EXAMPLE: Telephones

(i) Normal - dial number, pick up hearing aid, holding it etc.

(ii) Reversal - make hearing piece a fixture.

(iii) Exaggeration - dial several numbers.

(iv) Distortion - dial before picking up

(v) Wishful thinking - not to handle the phone but be able to speak and listen.

Remember each stage can lead to further novel ideas which you must capture in writing.

De Bono's six thinking hats:

This method is useful in conversations, personal thinking, but mainly in meetings. It gets
people out of an argumentative mode.

Numerous organisations, world�wide, now use this method.

The hats technique is a powerful tool to focus on one hat at a time, to do good at each
one, before moving on to the next hat. The sequence is not fixed but can alter to suit the
situation.

White Hat -

This is the thinking mode where everybody (Data) seeks and supplies information data,
what is needed, what is available and what is missing.

Red Hat –

Feelings, intuition, hunches, emotions (Feelings)

Black Hat -

Caution, comparing, considering in terms of negative facts, experience, system, policies,

ethics.

Yellow Hat -

Logical, positive, benefits, value (Positive), feasibility, reasons, trying to be objective.

Green Hat -

Create new ideas, further alternatives, (Creative) possibilities, provocation (micro-culture

to reverse the natural black hat thinking).

Blue Hat -

Control to manage the thinking (Direction) process.

Structure to introduce lateral thinking:

1 Train the team members the practical techniques of lateral thinking and the traits of a
creative team.

2 Use the six hats technique to make creativity easier.

3 List of areas, which will benefit from creative thinking.

4 Draw up a cloud nine, dream file - visualise, fantasize where you would like the areas
to be.

5 Draw up a task sheet of specific target areas and nominate someone for each area, to
put energy into creative maintenance.

6 Use the practical techniques when no movement is forthcoming.

Guidelines for treatment of ideas:

1 Increase the power of the idea;

2 overcome weaknesses;

3 remove faults;

4 shape with real-life constructive constraints;

5 apply black hat cautions; and

6 possible rejection takes place last.

Self-test questions:
1 The brain uses a system that is very effective at forming patterns, but enhances rigidity.
What is this system called? 2
2 Describe what you understand by vertical thinking. 4
3 Describe what you understand by lateral thinking. 5
4 There are eight differences listed between lateral and vertical thinking. Make use of two
columns to list six of the differences. 12
5 Name five principles of the lateral thinking process 5
6 Name seven practical techniques to help in generating alternatives for lateral thinking 7
7 Name three provocative operation techniques 3
8 Name the five sequential steps used in the provocative technique of extracting a
principle 5
9 Name the five sequential steps used in the provocative technique of escape 5
10 Name the five sequential steps used in the provocative technique of reversal 5
11 Make use of two columns to list the colours of the six thinking hats together with the
respective meaning of each 12
12 List the six action steps to establish structure for lateral thinking 6
13 List the six guidelines for treatment of ideas 6
Total possible marks 77

Task assignment:
1 Select an area of improvement in your working environment.

2 Get a team together to help you with the task (it can also be your family members).

3 Educate them in the techniques and traits of a creative team.

4 Apply the provocative operation technique of escape or reversal or both, to try and get
the group to arrive at a conclusive novel idea.

5 Write up a report covering the following:

- Description of improvement area;

- Description of how the provocative operation was used (outcome of sequential stages);
- Description of novel idea and its real life value;
- Your opinion of the success of the team.

Kick-start your own creativity:

Enhancing your creativity and thinking skills can and should be a lifelong journey.
Explore the worldwide internet for more resources.

How To Mind Map:

 Structure – Paper – Lines – Words – Images - Colour

Mind mapping in eight Easy Steps:

You can look it up and read further on the internet. http://www.thinksmart.com/

Bibliography:
1 Lateral Thinking by Edward De Bono, 1990. Penguin Books.

2 Six Thinking Hats by Edward De Bono, 1991. Penguin Books

3 The worldwide internet, 2004

4 Mind mapping in eight easy steps, by Joyce Wycoff, 2004, http://www.thinksmart.com/

Some more techniques for creative thinking:

Here is a small selection of techniques:
· Random Input
· Problem Reversal
· Ask Questions
· Applied Imagination - Question Summary
· Lateral Thinking
· Six Thinking Hats
· The Discontinuity Principle
· Checklists
· Brainstorming