Lateral Thinking Read online

  In answering the question the teacher does not have to struggle to justify something as a unique explanation. In his answer he can suggest alternatives. The answer to the question, ‘Why does the blackboard have to be black?’ could be, ‘It does not have to be black, it could be green or blue so long as the white chalk showed.’ The impression that there is a unique and necessary reason behind everything must be avoided. Contrast the answers:

  ‘Blackboards are black because black is a convenient colour to show up white chalk marks.’

  ‘Blackboards are black because otherwise you would not see what was written on them.’

  Even if there is a true historic reason behind something the teacher must not give the impression that the historic reason is a sufficient one. Suppose that blackboards really were black because the usefulness of white chalk was discovered first Historically this is an accurate reason for the use of black but in practice it is not enough. After all it only explains why people started to use black but does not explain why it is convenient to continue doing so. One might say: ‘Blackboards were originally coloured black because they were looking for a surface to show up the white chalk marks. They have continued to be black ever since because black has proved satisfactory.’

  Summary

  In dealing with situations or problems many things have to be taken for granted. In order to live at all one must be making assumptions all the time. Yet each of these assumptions is a cliché pattern which may be restructured to make better use of available information. In addition the restructuring of more complex patterns may prove impossible unless one breaks through some assumed boundary. The idea is to show that any assumption whatsoever can be challenged. It is not a matter of pretending that one has time to challenge every assumption on every occasion but of showing that nothing is sacred.

  The idea is not to sow so much doubt that one is reduced to dithering indecision through being unable to take anything for granted. On the contrary one acknowledges the great usefulness of assumptions and clichés. In fact one is much freer to use assumptions and clichées if one knows that one is not going to be imprisoned by them.

  Innovation 9

  The two preceding chapters have been concerned with two fundamental aspects of the lateral thinking process:

  The deliberate generation of alternative ways of looking at things.

  The challenging of assumptions.

  In themselves these processes are not far removed from ordinary vertical thinking. What is different is the ‘unreasonable’ way in which the processes are applied and the purpose behind the application. Lateral thinking is concerned not with development but with restructuring.

  Both the processes mentioned above have been applied for the purpose of description or analysis of a situation. This could be called backward thinking: this is a matter of looking at something that is there and working it over. Forward thinking involves moving forward. Forward thinking involves building up something new rather than analysing something old. Innovation and creativity involve forward thinking. The distinction between backward and forward thinking is entirely arbitrary. There is no real distinction because one may have to look backward in a new way in order to move forward. A creative description may be just as generative as a creative idea. Both backward thinking and forward thinking are concerned with alteration, with improvement, with bringing about some effect In practice backward thinking is however more concerned with explaining an effect whereas forward thinking is more concerned with bringing about an effect.

  Before going on to consider innovation it is necessary to consider an aspect of thinking that applies much more to forward thinking than to backward thinking. This is the matter of evaluation and suspended judgement.

  Suspended judgement 10

  The purpose of thinking is not to be right but to be effective. Being effective does eventually involve being right but there is a very important difference between the two. Being right means being right all the time. Being effective means being right only at the end.

  Vertical thinking involves being right all along. Judgement is exercised at every stage. One is not allowed to take a step that is not right One is not allowed to accept an arrangement of information that is not right Vertical thinking is selection by exclusion. Judgement is the method of exclusion and the negative (‘no’, ‘not’) is the tool of exclusion.

  With lateral thinking one is allowed to be wrong on the way even though one must be right in the end. With lateral thinking one is allowed to use arrangements of information which are invalid in themselves in order to bring about a restructuring that is valid. One may have to move to an untenable position in order to be able to find a tenable position.

  In lateral thinking one is not so concerned with the nature of an arrangement of information but with where it can lead one. So instead of judging each arrangement and allowing only those that are valid one suspends judgement until later on. It is not a matter of doing without judgement but of deferring it until later.

  As a process lateral thinking is concerned with change not with proof. The emphasis is shifted from the validity of a particular pattern to the usefulness of that pattern in generating new patterns.

  There is nothing ‘unreasonable’ about the other lateral thinking processes described so far but the need to suspend judgement is so fundamentally different from vertical thinking that it is much harder to understand.

  Education is soundly based on the need to be right all the time. Throughout education one is taught the correct facts, the correct deductions to be made from them and the correct way of making these deductions. One learns to be correct by being made very sensitive to what is incorrect. One learns to apply judgement at every stage and to follow up this judgement with the ‘no’ label. One learns how to say, ‘no’, ‘this is not so’, ‘this cannot be so’, ‘this does not lead to that’, ‘you are wrong here’, ‘this would never work’, ‘there is no reason for that’ and so on. This sort of thing is the very essence of vertical thinking and accounts for its great usefulness. The danger lies in the arrogance of the attitude that assumes that vertical thinking is sufficient. It is not. Exclusive emphasis on the need to be right all the time completely shuts out creativity and progress.

  The need to be right all the time is the biggest bar there is to new ideas. It is better to have enough ideas for some of them to be wrong than to be always right by having no ideas at all.

  The need to make use of provocative arrangements of information in order to bring about insight repatterning is dictated by the behaviour of mind as a self-maximizing memory system.* In practice this need is met by delaying judgement. Judgement is suspended during the generative stage of thinking in order to be applied during the selective stage. The nature of the system is such that a wrong idea at some stage can lead to a right one later on. Lee de Forest discovered the immensely useful thermionic valve through following up the erroneous idea that an electric spark altered the behaviour of a gas jet. Marconi succeeded in transmitting wireless waves across the Atlantic ocean through following up the erroneous idea that the waves would follow the curvature of the earth.

  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 in itself may have started from wrong premises.

  An incorrect idea which would have led on to a correct idea (or useful experimentation) 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.

  Delay in judgement

  A later chapter deals with the lateral process which involves being wrong on purpose in order to provoke a rearrangement of information. What is being considered here is simply the delaying of judgement instead of applying it immediately. In practice judgement
may be applied at any of the following stages:

  Judgement as to whether an information area is relevant to the matter under consideration. This precedes the development of any ideas.

  Judgement as to the validity of an idea in one’s own internal thinking process. Dismissing such an idea instead of exploring it.

  Judgement as to its correctness before offering an idea to others.

  Judgement of an idea offered by someone else — either in refusing to accept it or in actual condemnation of it.

  In this regard judgement, evaluation and criticism are regarded as similar processes. Suspension of judgement does not imply suspension of condemnation — it implies suspension of judgement whether the outcome is favourable or otherwise.

  The suspension of judgement can have the following effects:

  An idea will survive longer and will breed further ideas.

  Other people will offer ideas which their own judgement would have rejected. Such ideas may be extremely useful to those receiving them.

  The ideas of others can be accepted for their stimulating effect instead of being rejected.

  Ideas which are judged to be wrong within the current frame of reference may survive long enough to show that the frame of reference needs altering.

  In the diagram below A is the starting point of a problem. In tackling the problem one moves towards K but this idea is unsound and so it is rejected. Instead one moves towards C. But from C one can go nowhere. Had one moved towards K then one could have proceeded from there to G and from G to B which is the solution. Once one had reached B then one would have been able to see the correct path from A through P.

  Practical application

  The principle of suspended judgement has been discussed. The practical application of this principle needs outlining for it is not much use accepting the principle but never applying it. In practice the principle leads to the following behaviour:

  One does not rush to judge or evaluate an idea. One does not regard judgement or evaluation as the most important thing that can be done to an idea. One prefers exploration.

  Some ideas are obviously wrong even when no attempt at judgement is made. In such cases one shifts attention from why it is wrong to how it can be useful.

  Even if one knows that an idea must eventually be thrown out one delays that moment in order to extract as much usefulness from the idea as possible.

  Instead of forcing an idea in the direction which judgement indicates, one follows along behind it.

  A bucket with holes cannot carry much water. One could reject it out of hand. Or one could see how far it could carry how much water. In spite of the holes it may be very useful for bringing about a certain effect.

  Design 11

  In so far as it is not just a matter of copying, design requires a good deal of innovation. Design is a convenient format for practising the lateral thinking principles that have been discussed up to this point The design process itself is discussed at length in a later section; in this section design is used as practice for lateral thinking.

  Practice

  The designs are to be visual and in black and white or colour. Verbal descriptions can be added to the pictures to explain certain features or to explain how they work. The advantages of a visual format are many.

  1. There has to be a definite commitment to a way of doing something rather than a vague generalized description.

  2. The design is expressed in a manner that is visible to every one.

  3. Visual expression of a complicated structure is much easier than verbal expression. It would be a pity to limit design by the ability to describe it.

  The designs could be worked out as a classroom exercise or they could be done as homework. It is easier if the students all work on the same design rather than on individual choices for then any comments apply to them all, there is more comparison and they are all more involved in the analysis.

  It is convenient if all the designs are executed on standard sized sheets of paper. Once the design task has been set no additional information is given. No attempt is made to make the design project more specific. ‘Do whatever you think is best’ is the answer to any question.

  Comment on results

  Unless the group is small enough to actually cluster around the drawings these would have to be copied and shown on an overhead projector or epidiascope. Or they could just be pinned up. Adequate discussion could be carried out without showing the drawings at all but just redrawing the important features on the blackboard. In commenting on the results the teacher would want to bear the following points in mind:

  1. Resist the temptation to judge. Resist the temptation to say, ‘this would not work because…’

  2. Resist the temptation to choose one way of doing things as being much better than any other for fear of polarizing design in one direction.

  3. Emphasize the variety of the different ways of carrying out a particular function. List the different suggestions and add others of one’s own.

  4. Try and look at the function underlying a particular design. Try to separate the intention of the designer from the actual way this was carried out.

  5. Note the features that have been put there for a functional purpose and the ones that are there as ornaments to complete the picture.

  6. Question certain points — not in order to destroy them but in order to find out if there was any special reason behind them which may not be manifest.

  7. Note the borrowing of complete designs from what might have been seen on television, in the cinema or in comics.

  Suggestions

  Design projects can either ask for improvements on existing things or for the actual invention of something to carry out a task. It is easiest if the designs do involve something physical since this is easier to draw. They do not have to be mechanical in the strictest sense of the word; for instance the design of a new classroom or a new type of shoe would be very suitable. It is enough that they are concrete projects. In addition one can try organizational designs. Organizational designs would ask for ways of doing things such as building a house very quickly.

  Design:

  An apple picking machine.

  A potato peeling machine.

  A cart to go over rough ground.

  A cup that cannot spill.

  A machine to dig tunnels.

  A device to help cars to park.

  Redesign:

  The human body.

  A new milk bottle.

  A chair.

  A school.

  A new type of clothes.

  A better umbrella.

  Organizational:

  How to build a house very quickly.

  How to arrange the checkout counters in a supermarket.

  How to organize garbage collection.

  How to organize shopping to take up the least time.

  How to put a drain across a busy road.

  Variety

  The purpose of the design session is to show that there can be different ways of doing something. It is not the individual designs that matter so much as the comparison between designs. In order to show this variety one could compare the complete designs but it is more effective to pick oat some particular function and show how this was handled by the different designers. For in stance in the design of an apple picking machine one could choose the function of ‘reaching the apples’. To reach the apples some students will have used extendable arms, others will have raised the whole vehicle on jacks, others will have tried to bring the apples to the ground, others might have planted the trees in trenches anyway. For each function the teacher lists the different methods used and asks for further suggestions. He can also add suggestions of his own or ones derived from previous experience with the design project.

  Particular functions with the apple picking machine could include the following:

  Reaching the apples.

  Finding the apples.

  Picking the apples.

  Transportin
g the apples to the ground.

  Sorting out the apples.

  Putting the apples in containers.

  Moving on to the next tree.

  It is not suggested that in carrying out the design the student will have tried to cover all these functions. Most of them would be covered quite unconsciously. Nevertheless one can consciously analyse what has been done and show the different ways of doing it. In many cases no provision will have been made for carrying out a certain function (e.g. transporting the apples to the ground). In such cases one does not criticize the designs that do not show the function but commends those that do show it.

  Evaluation

  One could criticize designs for omissions, for errors of mechanics, for errors of efficiency, for errors of magnitude and for all sorts of other errors. It is difficult to resist the temptation to do this — but the temptation must be resisted.

  If some designs have left things out then one shows this up by commenting on those designs which have put it in.

  If some design shows an arrangement that is mechanically unsound then one comments on the function intended rather than on the particular way of carrying it out.

  If some designs show a very roundabout way of doing something one describes the design without criticism and then describes more efficient designs.

  One of the most common faults with designs by students in the 10–13 age group is the tendency to lose sight of the design project and to go into great detail drawing some vehicle that is derived directly from another source such as television or space comics. Thus an apple picking machine will be shown bristling with guns, rockets, radar and jets. Details will be given about number of crew, speed, range, power, how much it would cost to build, how long it would take to .build, how many nuts and bolts, the materials used in construction and so on. There is no point in criticizing the superfluity of all this. Instead one emphasizes the functional economy and effectiveness of other designs.