Yesterday my post was about the benefits of trying for a different perspective when stuck or lost: Approach Things From A Different Angle. Today, I’d like to look at things from, yes, yet another angle.
An approach that lets you bring all of your creative powers to bear, not just brute force logic, is lateral thinking, as popularized by Edward De Bono – look at definition 2, which applies to the type of approach I’m writing about today.
Here’s my favorite lateral thinking puzzle. Someone gives you a barometer and asks you to tell them the height of a specific building. How would you find that out?
- You could take a barometric reading from on top of the building and at its base. You then calculate the difference and determine the height.
- Or you could tie a string to the barometer, lower it to the base of the building and measure the string.
- Or you could measure the length of the shadow of the building, place the barometer on the ground and measure its shadow, measure the height of the barometer and calculate the building’s height trigonometrically.
- Or my favorite. Got to the building super and say, “I will give you this barometer if you tell me the height of this building.”
And we could go on — that’s the beauty and the benefit of lateral thinking.
I am a clear advocate of the scientific method, but problem solving isn’t always scientific. In fact, it almost never is. You have to observe (what is it we’re not seeing here?), perceive your own assumptions (will using the barometric pressure or the container it’s in do the trick?), and be willing to change those assumptions creatively (who says you have to use the barometer itself or its physical properties to perform the measurement yourself?) You have to view the situation, and your assumptions about it, from another angle. Sometimes, you’ll get more accurate information, and get it faster and easier, by just asking the super.
Sometimes you can use this approach indirectly, that is, rather than attacking the problem in front of you, solve a different problem. Jokes, riddles, and nonsense questions often depend on this kind of lateral thinking, as with this old favorite, “How do you get down off an elephant?”
You don’t get down off an elephant. You get down off a goose.
I’ve used lateral thinking to solve both professional and personal problems. For example, when I was building my home theater, the main HVAC plenum ran right thru the theater area. The designer, the contractor and I spent hours trying to figure out a design approach to work around a 2 foot by 1 foot metal box running thru the theater ceiling. The answer? Don’t. It was ultimately easier and cheaper to route the plenum out of the theater room and thru what is now the lobby.
Another example? Consider the project where I was asked to writing a brochure for a piece of software to help automate buying for retailers. The staff, all old-school, seat-of-the-pants purchasing professionals, had no interest in a computer system telling them how to buy. After several test messages, it became clear to me that no marketing message was going to get thru to them. What the hell was I going to do? The customer wants a brochure and needs to sell software. My answer? Don’t do a brochure. Instead, I created a workbook. It was a multipage document that didn’t try to explain the product, its benefits, or features. It was a step-by-step procedure that allowed the buyer to write down their numbers for a particular buy, follow the logic, do the math, and come up with a recommended purchase. They loved it. It followed the logic they instinctively used and demonstrated that the software wasn’t magic. They could continue using the worksheet, which took about ten minutes to use for each calculation (can you do least squares linear regression in your head?), but instead they quickly accepted that their worksheet answers equaled what the system was telling them. They quickly and happily embraced the new system.
De Bono’s first definition of lateral thinking states it well. Redoubling your effort may not be as useful as changing your direction.
What works for you? What unique approach or solutions get you the right answer, but from a lateral angle?
