Lateral Thinking

The term "lateral thinking" was first coined by Edward de Bono in his 1967 book The Use of Lateral Thinking and has since entered the dictionary.

Lateral Thinking:
Creativity Step by Step

What Is Lateral Thinking?

"thinking which seeks new ways of looking at a problem and does not merely proceed by logical steps from the starting-point of what is known or believed"

Ordinary thinking is sometimes called "linear" or "vertical" thinking. We go from "A" to "B" to "C". If we're lucky we might have a flash of inspiration and go directly from "A" to "C" - but we still end up at "C".

With lateral thinking we move sideways rather than straight ahead. Instead of going from "A" to "B" we go to "a", "alpha" or even "1". Instead of always ending up at "C" we might end up at "c", "gamma" or "3".

Obviously lateral thinking is only part of the creative process - at some point we will need to move forward in a linear fashion. However the combination of linear and lateral thinking enables us to explore unusual ideas and possible solutions.

Lateral thinking is an important part of much creative writing, in particular comedy writing - everything from "Waiter, there's a fly in my soup" to the surreal monologues of Eddie Izzard.

Provocative Operations

A Po is in some ways a refusal to answer the original question: stepping back and questioning the question itself. For instance if we are asking "How do we get from A to B?" a Po might be "Why bother?". Another might be "Couldn't we just make A look more like B?". Pos don't always provide answers but they do sometimes allow new insight into the nature of the problem.

Pos also remind us of one of the basic rules of all problem solving: check your assumptions!