How To Generate New Ideas Through Lateral Thinking Techniques

Creativity is a skill that everyone can learn

Covid-19 was a mind-blowing experience for us all. The whole world under threat of imminent death.

What a year! Clearly a test on the grand scale of things.

If there were cracks in your life, this was certainly the year for them to show up. Nothing like a global crisis to wake up humanity.

Whatever the future holds, I think we’ll be more prepared for it now.

This was my response to Covid-19:

‘Oh, so it’s a pandemic.. Hmmm… interesting!’

Then, a flurry of fear swept across all digital networks.

“If you get it.. you won’t be able to BREATHE.”

I felt a twinge of fear, but then — I did what I’ve trained myself to do.

I calmed down and asked myself, ‘So, what will I do if I get the virus? I’m a nurse, I can do this.’

I put on my medical thinking hat.

‘Ok, so let’s find out what to do— step by step. If I get the symptoms, I will do.. this, that, and the other.’

I was ready.

Once all that was in place, I reflected on the thought of dying and said to myself, ‘Well, I suppose I’m ready, but I’d rather not die, as I still have a lot to do before I make it to my final home.’

Then, I needed to check in on everyone — did I need to go home as I was in Vietnam?

That was my thought process.

What was yours?

For as long as I can remember, my thinking was always a little outside the box. I hadn’t really thought about why it was different.

It was just that when I saw my friends and family living their lives with such certainty that it made me wonder — why are they doing that?

Then I remembered a time in my teens. I was at home in the living room, attempting to do a crossword in the Irish Independent, which was way above my ability at that time.

I was sitting on the floor trying to figure out the cryptic clues, but they made no sense to me whatsoever, so I jumped over to the simple clues to see could I get one of them.

I had no idea why I was into crosswords — I just liked words, and as I hated school, I never saw myself pursuing anything so lofty or creative, as writing.

I turned to my Dad who was sitting quietly watching television and asked him to help with one of the questions. I was trying hard to work it out, but my mind seemed stuck.

He saw my struggle and came to the rescue saying, ‘Try looking at it from another angle,’ and proceeded to describe it as different avenues, all leading to one point.

I was intrigued, especially as I rarely found any of my Dad’s stuff interesting, so I nudged him to say a bit more.

He then showed me how to take one thought or opinion and try to see it from as many different viewpoints as possible. I liked this idea and I got it!

He called it ‘Lateral Thinking,’ and I never forgot it. It was like a little key into my mind.

I believe it was at that moment that I started to think — outside of the box.

Later in my life, I discovered Edward de Bono, the man who coined the term Lateral Thinking in his book The Use of Lateral Thinking.

“Lateral thinking is a manner of solving problems using an indirect and creative approach via reasoning that is not immediately obvious. It involves ideas that may not be obtainable using only traditional step-by-step logic.” (Wikipedia)

I won’t deny it though, my use of lateral thinking often got me in trouble as I realized most people only use vertical thinking, and when I came with a different perspective, it would upset them.

All the same, it brought me great freedom as I was able to look at our social norms and question them.

I was often bored at school, and if I were there now as an adult, I’d probably feel the same. They had no idea how to ignite a young adult’s creative imagination.

I was looking for more fun and I couldn’t make sense of some of the rules. They seemed ridiculous to me. As I said — it got me in trouble.

But, as soon as I left school, I had more freedom to speak up and question things. That’s when life started to get a lot better.

There were actually people in the world who understood me. Hope, at last.

All that aside, if you haven’t heard of lateral thinking, this could be your day because lateral thinking is one of the greatest tools anyone could have.

Lateral thinking teaches you how to think creatively — it’s the formula for creating new ideas.

If you haven’t heard of Edward de Bono or of Lateral Thinking, perhaps you have been too busy thinking in conventional ways.

— Forbes Magazine

You no longer have to sit on a park bench, waiting for inspiration — you can learn the skill in the same way you learn mathematics.

So, let's dive in…

What is Lateral Thinking?

Lateral thinking is the step-by-step approach to creativity.

“Lateral thinking is the process of using information to bring about creativity and insight restructuring. Lateral thinking can be learned, practiced and used. It is possible to acquire skill in it just as it is possible to acquire skill in mathematics.” Edward De Bono

De Bono came up with this term as a way of explaining how our mind works. He said, we have been conditioned to think in a liniar way (vertical thinking), since the Middle ages, when thinking was aimed at explaining the Truth.

This of course is excellent, according to de Bono, but not excellent enough as it does not allow for a broader way of thinking. Truth will always be Truth — that can never change.

Lateral thinking, on the other hand, is more open and expanding. Open to possibility, as he put it. It’s less dogmatic and rigid which gives room for innovation, invention, and possibility.

The reason we need to learn it is that the brain doesn’t usually work that way. The brain gets locked into patterns — making it difficult to create new ideas.

A healthy human brain does not want to always be creative, it is designed to figure out how to do things or how to think about things and then ‘locks’ that automatic response or behaviour into a subconscious process so that your conscious brain can focus on other matters.

This is why Dr. de Bono developed the Lateral thinking techniques to help overcome our natural proclivity to get ‘locked’ into patterns and allow you to be creative on demand. These techniques can be used by individuals and groups are used in most Fortune 500 companies as a way to develop creative and innovative ideas. —Edward De Bono — from the de Bono Online Course

Here are the four main categories of Lateral thinking tools:

• Idea-generating tools that break free your current thinking patterns from their usual pathways.
• Focus tools that open your mind to new possibilities in the search for new ideas.
• Harvest tools that help maximize value are received from the idea-generating output
• Treatment tools that ground the creativity process by making the wild ideas and make them fit the real-world constraints, resources, and support.

Thinking harder in one direction is not necessarily going to help you to generate new ideas. The idea of lateral thinking (creative thinking) is to move your thinking in a whole new direction — walk down another street, so to speak.

According to De Bono:

“You cannot dig a hole in a different place by digging the same hole deeper.”

Lateral thinking can be useful for:

1. Problem-Solving

2. Finding New Ways

3. For Inventions and Innovation

The 6 Thinking Hats Technique

The six thinking hats is a technique created by De Bono to ‘help group discussions and to promote a more effective decision making.’ It can be used for meetings or for personal decision-making where an agreement is needed.

It allows the different modes of thinking to be separated one at a time. The 6 hats represent the different styles of thinking. For example, the blue hat is about management and control, so this hat usually starts and finishes the meeting.

What are the 6 thinking hats?

1. The Blue Hat — it’s about managing and controlling the process.
2. The White Hat —it’s about the facts/data.
3. The Red Hat — it’s about intuition, feelings, and gut instincts.
4. The Yellow Hat — it’s the optimistic viewpoint.
5. The Black Hat — it’s the critical hat. It plays the devil’s advocate.
6. The Green Hat — it’s the creative hat where you can share new ideas.

The idea is to use the six thinking styles to come up with the best solution to a problem and create more value.

I think the best way for you to understand this in a short time is to look at a visual demonstration of how it might work.

Lateral thinking does not have to be some big complex thing. You don’t have to understand the intricate patterns of the brain to use the tools outlined here.

Think of it like driving a car — many people know how to drive a car and derive great benefits from it but if you ask them how the engine works, most wouldn’t have a clue, nor care. They just want it to help them in life.

But, for those of you who are fascinated by the intricate details of how things work— you can go into more depth and study the book yourself, but, it’s not that difficult to use lateral thinking in your daily life. It’s just a matter of expanding your thinking.

Finally, he says:

Lateral thinking may take no more than one or two minutes. You just have to try to see things in a different way. You try to find a new approach or a new concept. And if you do not succeed you just drop it and get on with the usual way of doing things.

It does not matter how short a time is allocated to lateral thinking. What is important is that some time is allocated. To allocate thirty seconds now and again is of far more use than having a mammoth creative session once a year.

Like many things in life, if you want to improve it you need to work on it.

Lateral thinking is a shift in how you think, and if you learn to use these techniques, you will be able to generate thousands of new creative ideas.

I hope this article has been of value to you. This is a brief introduction to Lateral thinking techniques. The six hats technique can be used to find solutions and create new ideas in a fun and easy way.

Follow the links above if you’d like to learn more about it.

I am grateful to my dear dad who introduced me to lateral thinking at such a young age. Sadly, he passed away in 2018 when I was in Vietnam. I miss him.