Lateral thinking de Bono - methods and tasks

In order to think outside the box and implement something new, you need to know how you can come to a new idea by abandoning the old templates. Unconventional thinking can be called a global intuition, suddenly surging inspiration or autogenous state of a person. However, lateral thinking is not chaos in the mind. Man can control it.

Lateral thinking - what is it?

This is a method of finding solutions to problems through unusual methods ignored by logic. The author of this concept is a doctor from Britain, Edward de Bono, and today his work is based on authoritative experts in the field of management and creativity. He argues that in logical thinking, reason is controlled by logic, whereas in the process of creative cognition, its role is secondary. The lateral type of thinking or lateral finds an idea, but its logic develops. It's like getting out of the deadlock in the back of the car, although it's not necessary.

How to develop lateral thinking?

To think more broadly, ignoring the templates and standards, it is recommended to work this way:

  1. Fight your own logic. It is the first one that prompts the search for a way out of the impasse, but one should try to look at the usual things "illogically". Stereotypes "zamylivayut eye" and do not give to find a simple and successful solution, lying on the surface.
  2. The development of lateral thinking involves the perception of things by "strange eyes". It is necessary to forget about your experience and look at the thing as if you had never heard of it before and did not have to use it.
  3. Track your own "logical thoughts." Realizing lateral consciousness in practice, a person, first of all, learns to take into account his "logical" thoughts. Once he understands that he again takes as a basis a template or standard, he goes from the opposite and acts contrary to logic.

Methods of lateral thinking

The most popular methods include:

  1. Brainstorming . Its author is Alex Osborne. At the same time, several participants work on the solution of the problem, which can express very different variants, including fantastic ones.
  2. Solution of inventive tasks . Lateral thinking of de Bona has won many followers, among whom is Henry Altshuller. This has developed a method that is strikingly different from the previous one, as it aims to find an algorithmic approach to solving a problem or to modify an old one.
  3. The Delphi Method . In this case, polls, interviews, brain storms are conducted. All participants are looking for a solution to the problem individually. Unrelated experts evaluate their work, predict the result, and the created organizational group brings their opinions together.

Exercises for the development of lateral thinking

The following methods help to create imagination and imagination:

  1. The game in "Danetki". The facilitator comes up with an unusual situation, and all the others should solve it, but the manager can only answer "yes" or "no" to all their clarifying questions.
  2. Develop lateral thinking exercises to find solutions to logical puzzles and puzzles. For example, "What kind of stone does not happen at sea?", "How to throw a ball from ping-pong so that it knocked down an object standing on the ground and landed in the opposite wall?", Etc.
  3. Draw 9 points on paper and connect them with four lines, without lifting the handles from the paper and passing through one point twice. A similar exercise: find 9 variants of division of a square into 4 equal parts.
  4. To think up a maximum of variants of application of any thing, for example, a plastic bottle, a floor lamp, a wheel tire, etc.

Lateral thinking - tasks

There are a huge number of tasks and teaching techniques that are also designed to develop imagination and creative imagination:

  1. Take two identical glasses, pour in one water, and in another compote. From a glass with compote to collect a spoonful of liquid and pour into a vessel with water. Now, from a glass with water, spoon and pour into a container with compote. Repeat these steps once again and determine what is more: water in a vessel with compote or compote in a jar of water.
  2. Tasks for lateral thinking include working with pictures, stories, descriptions. The presenter can give out to all participants pictures with two related images, but one closes. The task of the participants is to guess what is depicted in the second half. For example, seeing a painted man on a tree, they suggest that he: "it's useful to take off a kitten", "harvests", "is going to cut down branches," etc.