Tackling Problems Creatively

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Table of Contents:

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 alternative approaches)	Selective (correctness of selected alternatives)
Movement to generate different directions	Movement if there is a direction or reason
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 explored for better results	Excludes the irrelevant
Explores least likely	Follows most likely paths
It is a probabilistic process	It is a finite process

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.

Pamphlets

Radio

Education

Use *

Efficiency **

Increase

Do without

Save

Decrease water shortage

* - 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 –

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 -

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:

Mind mapping in eight Easy Steps:

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
· Forced Relationships/Analogy
· Attribute Listing
· Morphological Analysis
· Imitation
· Mind mapping
· Storyboarding
· Synectics
· Metaphorical thinking
· Lotus Blossum Technique
· In the realm of the senses
· Use of drawing (from Robert McKim's Experiences in Visual Thinking)
· IdeaToons (by Michael Michalko)
· NLP (Neuro-Linguistic Programming) Techniques
· Assumption Smashing
· DO IT! method of Roger Olsen
· LARC Method
· Unconscious Problem Solving
· Simplex - a "complete" process with three stages (finding problems, solving problems, implementing solutions) and eight discrete steps represented as a wheel to reflect the circular, perennial nature of problem solving. The full name is the Basadur Simplex process. Its eight steps include: problem finding, fact finding, problem defining, idea finding, evaluating and selecting, action planning, gaining acceptance, and taking action.
· The TRIZ method of Semyon D. Savransky
· Fuzzy Thinking
· Some further examples of creativity techniques and guidelines linked with historical examples.
· Breakthrough Thinking - The seven steps of uniqueness, purpose, solution after next, systems, needed information collection, people design, and betterment timeline.

Further web resources, techniques, books and software for creativity:

Just do a search on Yahoo or Google with the keywords “creativity”, “creative thinking techniques” or “mind mapping” and you will find many resources.

About the Author:

Pierre du Plessis (MBL, 1982, UNISA) is a business consultant, co-owner of Leaders Circle, author of several e-books and training manuals, previous Corporate Logistics and Procurement Manager, ex-army infantry soldier as Officer in Charge of Battalion Operations and nowadays business owner of several successful offline business operations. He is also co-founder of Career Builders Club. This module can be used for re-publishing as long as it remains unchanged. You may copy and paste this entire page into your web site.

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