How to improve your flexibility?

Have you never been exposed to lateral thinking? First read the introduction below, and then read the book "Lateral Thinking" by Edward de Bono, the world's most famous thinking training master~ I would like to add that I am engaged in the creative industry, and the pursuit of creativity is to break the rules. Looking for unique ways to solve problems, horizontal thinking is a very useful creative way of thinking. To use it skillfully, you must not only understand the secrets, but also practice more every day~ It's like a martial arts secret book, no one can read it Only by practicing tirelessly can you truly become a great hero~

Horizontal thinking has been included in the "Oxford English Dictionary", and the explanation in the dictionary is - "to use non-standard thinking" Orthodox or apparently illogical ways of seeking solutions to problems." The simplest description of lateral thinking is: "You can't dig different holes in different places by digging the same hole deeper and deeper." The emphasis here is to seek different ways and different paths to look at things.

When using "vertical thinking", you first choose a position and then use it as the basis for a perception; then, you have to see where you are at this moment; then, you have to start from Logical analysis of your place and moment.

When using "horizontal thinking", we move to the side path and try different perceptions, different concepts, and different entry points. We can use a variety of methods, including a range of motivational techniques, to get us out of our usual thinking paths.

At Horizontal Thinking, we strive to think differently. All opinions are correct and compatible; each different opinion is not derived from one another but arises independently.

Conventional logic focuses on "truth" and "what is", while lateral thinking, like perception, focuses on "possibility" and "what might be".

Here are some examples of using lateral thinking to inspire ideas.

The Casual Typing Method

This is the simplest of all creativity techniques. Any organization or individual, such as a rock band or a playwright, can use this technique to come up with wonderful ideas. This method is that we first select a focus that we hope to get creative ideas (such as "office copy machine"), then randomly select a noun from the dictionary, newspaper or word list, and then connect the two to think creatively . For example:

"Office copy machine" po "nose"

Immediately, we thought of smell. How can smell be used? Perhaps we could design a simple cartridge to inject a certain smell into the office copier, so that when the copier breaks down it will emit a different "smell." If you stand next to the copier and smell lavender, you know it's time to add copy paper. If you smell mothballs, you know it's time to replace the ink cartridges in your copier. This technique should be very simple. One of the advantages is that you don't have to stand next to the copier. If you're working at your desk and smell lavender, you can stand up and refill the copy machine. Using smell to indicate the working condition of a machine is a very useful concept that can be applied to various types of machinery.

Reverse stimulation

Reverse means to first find out the "normal" or conventional direction of doing things, and then propose stimulation in the opposite direction. The idea resulting from the stimulus does not have to be related to the original focus. For example:

"I drink orange juice for breakfast."

po, I drink orange juice for breakfast.

Imagine "Drink Me Orange Juice for Breakfast", I fell into a large glass of orange juice, and when I climbed out, I smelled like orange juice. This led to an idea for bathing, which was to install several different scented perfume tubes on the shower head, and the shower user could choose the scent of the perfume he or she liked.

When a call comes, the phone rings.

Po, the phone rings all the time, and only stops ringing when a call comes.

This seems difficult to use because it is so absurd. But you can also get useful ideas here. If the phone rings all the time, at least that's how you know it's working. This gave rise to the idea of ??installing a small red light on the phone to indicate that the phone was operating. The second idea is to connect the phone to the TV. When a call comes, the TV suddenly goes silent, and you immediately know there is a call. The TV can also remain silent until your call ends.

Escape Motivation

In any situation, there are some things that we take for granted. For example, a tea cup has a saucer and a handle, shoes must have soles, phone calls must be paid, and so on.

The first step in escape stimulation is to name the things we take for granted. The second step is to get rid of these taken-for-granted things, which means canceling, denying, abandoning and removing them.

We take it for granted that restaurants charge customers for food.

Po, the restaurant does not charge for food.

Maybe the restaurant could charge a "time" fee in lieu of the food fee. You pay a certain amount per minute, but the food is served for free during the time you pay. This idea has implications for business establishments such as coffee shops, where customers often just want a cup of coffee and sit there for a long time. Instead of selling the coffee at a high price to compensate for the time lost, we could sell the coffee at a cheap price but put a timer in the middle of the coffee table to make it easier to charge. A simpler approach is that when you enter the cafe, the waiter hands you a bill recording the current time, and when you leave, you are charged according to the length of time you stayed.

Twisted excitation

In any case, there is always a certain connection between things. There is also a certain temporal sequence to any action. Twisted excitation is about finding such regular arrangements and then twisting them.

Po, you sealed the letter after you mailed it.

This is a typical twisted excitation. An interesting idea came out of this. If you don't want to pay postage, you send the letter as an unsealed letter. Other advertisers can slip advertising flyers into your letters and then seal the letters, paying for the postage for you. The benefit to you is that you get free mailing, and the benefit to the advertiser is that the message is delivered directly to potential customers. Obviously, advertisers need to choose the postal area to reach the customer group they are looking for.

Wishful thinking

Propose a fantasy that you know is impossible to achieve, "Wouldn't it be great if...?" If the pencil could write automatically, if the shop was stolen I have discovered for myself that if I sat with interesting people every time I took a plane...

Po, if you were stuck in a traffic jam, the plane would be waiting for you.

This gave rise to the idea that all flights would be scheduled half an hour earlier than their actual departure time. If you're late, you'll have to pay an extra fee but still be able to board the plane. Or, if you check in early, you'll get a discount. Another idea is to automatically book the next flight for passengers who miss their flight, but the booking only lasts for an hour.

(Source: "Horizontal Thinking: A Systematic Approach for Individuals and Teams to Continuously Acquire New Ideas", by Edward de Bono, Beijing Science and Technology Press)

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In late September 1969, advertising experts from all over the world gathered in Japan to participate in the World Advertising Congress.

What caused the greatest response at this conference was Professor Edward de Bono of the University of Cambridge in the UK’s speech on lateral thinking.

Professor Edward de Bono contends that when you are considering a new idea, it is necessary to get rid of the shackles of inherent ideas that have always been considered correct. For example, according to people's inherent concept, water always flows to lower places. If we only started from this concept, there would be no siphons in the world that can lead water to high places.

Horizontal thinking is for vertical thinking.

Vertical thinking is a traditional thinking mode represented by logic and mathematics. The most fundamental characteristic of this mode of thinking is that it is deduced step by step based on the premise, and neither overstep nor step errors are allowed. It certainly makes sense, but if a person only uses one method of vertical thinking, he can't be creative.

The following example given by Professor Edward de Bono best illustrates this way of thinking.

(1) A borrowed a debt from B. If he cannot repay it, he will have to go to jail;

(2) B is a loan shark and he wants to marry A’s daughter. Wife;

(3) The girl refused to obey until death;

(4) B told the girl a solution: "Now I pick up a white stone from the ground. Then put the black pebbles in the bag and let you touch them. If you find the white pebbles, your father's debt will be cancelled. If you find the black pebbles, then you have to marry me. "

(5) After saying that, he picked up two black stones from the ground and put them into his pocket. However, this action was discovered by the girl.

Professor Edward de Bono asked the participants: If you were Person A’s daughter, what would you do?

The answers tend to be as follows:

(1) The girl refused to mold the stone;

(2) The girl exposed B’s trick of picking up two black stones;

(3) The girl had no choice but to grab a black stone at random , marries B against his will.

However, the above methods are not satisfactory. Only by using new thinking skills and horizontal thinking can we solve the problem with the best of both worlds.

Now, if we Tathagata think in terms of horizontal thinking, we will break the original concept. That is to move the focus of consideration in a horizontal direction: from the pebbles in the pocket to the pebbles on the ground.

When the girl's eyes moved from the pocket to the ground (that is, she changed the direction of her thinking), she thought that B's two stones were picked up from the ground. So she reached into her pocket and grabbed a stone, and when she took it out of the bag, she deliberately dropped it on the ground. At this time, she said to B: "Ah! I was so careless. I dropped the stone on the ground. I have no way of knowing whether the stone I picked out was black or not. But it doesn't matter. Look at your pocket." The piece left in the bag must be different from the one in the pocket..."

There is no doubt that there is a black stone in the pocket. B did not dare to admit his deception, so he had no choice but to conclude that what the girl took out was a white stone. In this way, the girl used horizontal thinking to reverse the helpless situation and achieved satisfactory results.

This example can illustrate the difference between vertical thinking and horizontal thinking. Vertical thinking focuses on the girl having to remove a pebble; horizontal thinking focuses on the remaining pebble in her pocket. The vertical thinking method makes the "most reasonable" analysis and observation of things, and then uses logical reasoning to solve them; the horizontal thinking method tries to use a variety of different methods to observe things, rather than using the most promising method to observe and deal with something. kind of thing.

Professor Edward de Bono also gave an interesting example.

Once, he gave a group of children a question: How to measure the height of a tall building? The children raised their hands to speak. Some said that they could lower a rope from the highest floor to the ground and then measure it. You can know the length of the rope just by looking at it; some say you just need to measure the height of one layer and then multiply it by the number of layers; others say you can use geometric methods and so on.

At this time, a child suddenly said that he could push the house down to the ground and measure it. Everyone laughed when they heard it, but Professor Edward de Bono confirmed this idea, thinking that this was originality, and other methods were not beyond the norm. Of course, there is no need to knock down the house. You just need to slightly modify the measurement method: draw a white spot on the ground 10 meters away from the house, then take a photo of the house and the white spot, and use a ruler to measure the photo. , you can calculate the height of the house immediately. Doesn't this create a new method of measuring height? Therefore, the lateral thinking method is to advocate stepping out of conventional ideas and looking for new ideas.

Horizontal thinking is a method of thinking that is neither logical nor causal, but transcendent. It allows you to think about the problem starting from the answer.

The important secret of horizontal thinking is reverse thinking. Even a very mature idea needs to be repeatedly considered backwards. This reverse thinking method has become an important thinking skill.