Innovative thinking series-reverse thinking

Studies have shown that the key factor affecting a person's success is not IQ, but thinking mode.

Generally speaking, thinking is the orderly thinking of the brain in different dimensions in order to solve a problem. The different dimensions and order here are what we often call thinking patterns.

Innovative thinking is a thinking process of inventing or creating a new way to deal with something or express something relative to conventional thinking.

What I want to share with you today is the most common thinking in innovative thinking-reverse thinking.

Literally, it is easy for all of us to understand our reverse thinking, which can make us think more comprehensively, thoroughly and creatively.

What does reverse thinking mean besides literal meaning? How to use it? Can we train it deliberately?

This article will take you to solve the above problems.

First of all, let's look at a well-known case-Sima Guang's case of smashing the cylinder. Today, I will recreate this case for you. Let's see how Sima Guang thinks about this problem and how he came up with this idea.

Story reappearance:

Sima Guang and his friends are playing in the backyard. There is a big water tank in the yard. A child climbed to the edge of the water tank to play and accidentally fell into it. When other children saw that something was wrong, they cried and shouted. However, Sima Guang used his quick wits to pick up a big stone from the ground and slammed it into the water tank. Bang, the water tank broke, the water in the water tank came out, and the submerged child was saved.

Think about it:

When a child falls into the water tank, according to the general conventional thinking, the child must be pulled out of the water tank as soon as possible, in other words, people should leave the water so that their lives can be saved. "People leave water" is actually an inherent way of thinking that we have cultivated for a long time. But there are not so many fixed things in Sima Guang's mind. Can't "letting water leave people" also save people?

This is to break through the mindset and think from the opposite side of the problem, which is what we call reverse thinking.

What is reverse thinking?

Reverse thinking is a way of thinking that breaks the conventional thinking mode, thinks about common and conclusive things, phenomena or viewpoints from the opposite or side and obtains effective results.

The formation of this way of thinking requires us to make a "turn" in time when we encounter problems that cannot be solved by conventional methods, even a turn of 180 degrees, which can often achieve the effect of "another village".

Let's look at a few more cases:

Case 1: A straw boat borrows an arrow.

Zhuge Liang's "borrowing arrows from grass boats" in the Three Kingdoms is also a kind of reverse thinking. It is impossible to directly make 6.5438 million arrows in a short time, so making arrows becomes borrowing arrows, with fog as the cover and grass people borrowing arrows.

Case 2: Invention of vacuum cleaner

Dust blower uses powerful airflow to blow away dust to achieve the effect of dust removal, but the effect is only partial and cannot fundamentally solve the dust problem. ?

One of the designers was inspired by reverse thinking, and the vacuum cleaner can also achieve the effect of dust removal, without the problem of dust flying, which is more conducive to people's use. Thus, the vacuum cleaner was born.

Case 3: The emergence of Pinduoduo.

When Pinduoduo first started doing it, the e-commerce platforms represented by Taobao and JD.COM were very mature at that time. It is not easy to seize market share from these giants, and it is definitely necessary to find another way. Where did Pinduoduo's innovation begin at that time?

First of all, in 20 13-20 14, smart phones became popular, and mobile internet flooded from cities to rural areas. Secondly, in 20 15, Taobao cleaned up 240,000 low-end businesses, and in the same year, JD.COM also gave up product patting for low-end users.

There are 654.38 million+low-end suppliers with nowhere to go, including many low-end quality businesses. At the same time, third-,fourth-and fifth-tier cities and Guangfa rural areas not only gradually accept e-commerce, but also have the demand for consumption upgrading.

Thirdly, according to the long tail theory, for businesses, the most profitable thing is not to serve those "high net worth" consumers who are in the head position, but those consumers who occupy a large proportion of the population, have a relatively ordinary income level and can bring huge traffic.

Based on the above background, from 2065438 to September 2005, Pinduoduo went online, and its products sank to third-and fourth-tier cities.

Case 4: The emergence of low-cost airlines

In the last century, airplanes were exclusive to the rich, and the location was very spacious. There was even a chef on the plane who cut the turkey in front of everyone at dinner. At that time, air travel was more like the configuration of the rich.

Until the early 1990s, Southwest Airlines took low-cost strategy as its business strategy and competitive advantage, and began to face the general public, opening a real low-cost airline.

Founder kelleher found that "we no longer compete with airlines, but our new competitor is road traffic. We hope that with Ford, Chrysler, Toyota and Nissan driving on the highway, the price will increase, and we hope to transfer the passenger flow on the highway to the sky. "

The low-cost aviation model based on product simplification, service distribution process simplification and organization simplification has been very mature in various countries.

Later, Lan Jie Airlines, which was established in 2000, innovated under the low-cost mode of Southwest Airlines, and launched a medium and long-distance low-cost aviation mode, providing leather seats and satellite TV services.

All of the above are typical cases of reverse thinking.

There are many forms of reverse thinking, such as

The transformation of opposite poles in nature: soft and hard, high and low;

Interchange and inversion of structure and position: up and down, left and right, etc.

Process reversal: gas becomes liquid or liquid becomes gas, electricity becomes magnetism or magnetism becomes electricity, etc.

Either way, as long as you think of the opposite from one aspect, it is reverse thinking.

There are three specific ways of reverse thinking, namely, reverse transformation reverse thinking, transformation reverse thinking and defect reverse thinking.

1, reverse transformation and reverse thinking method

Reverse transformation and reverse thinking refers to the method of thinking from the opposite direction of known things and generating creative ideas. "The opposite direction of things" often refers to thinking in reverse from three aspects: function, structure and causality.

For example, the vacuum cleaner adopts the reverse thinking method of reverse transformation of functions.

2. Change the reverse thinking method

When studying a problem, we should change the means of solving it or change the angle of thinking about it, so that the problem can be solved smoothly.

Case 5: PH lamp

Generally speaking, if you want to turn down the brightness of the light, the conventional idea is to control the brightness of the light bulb by adjusting the knob.

However, Paul Henningsen used the reverse thinking method to design a lamp with multiple shutters, and indirectly achieved the goal by using the reflection function of the shutters.

This is also the famous PH lamp, a set of lamps maintained by a complex reflector, which looks like a pine cone.

Due to the application of converse thinking method, PH lamp with typical Scandinavian style came out and became a classic for a long time.

Later, it also evolved into various shapes of lights.

Case 6: From "Red Sea" to "Blue Ocean"

When everyone is rushing to create the self-media, some people see the business opportunity to provide services to the self-media, so there is a platform like "New List". Creating your own self-media belongs to the Red Sea, while creating a platform to serve the vast number of self-media belongs to the "blue ocean".

When there are more and more merchants on Taobao and Tmall, some people don't continue to join this team, but find their "blue ocean" through reverse thinking, so they set up a generation operation company to provide services for Taobao and Tmall, such as Baozun E-commerce, which has been successfully listed on NASDAQ in the United States.

3, shortcomings reverse thinking method

Mainly from the advantages and disadvantages of things to discuss and analyze, turn disadvantages into advantages.

Take advantage of the shortcomings of things, turn passivity into initiative, and turn disadvantages into favorable methods.

This solution to the problem is not to cover up or eliminate the shortcomings of things like conventional thinking, but to use the shortcomings of things for innovative design. Disadvantages may also be advantages, but from different angles.

Case 7: Using metal corrosion

For example, metal corrosion is a bad thing for metal materials, but people use the principle of metal corrosion to produce metal powder or electroplating to expand its use.

No matter which method is adopted, as long as you think of the opposite from one aspect, it is reverse thinking.

Generally speaking, reverse thinking can be divided into six categories:

1, causal reverse thinking

There is a universal causal relationship between things. Think of the factors that were originally thought to be the result as the cause. What was originally thought to be the cause is studied as the result, which is the inversion of cause and effect.

Case 8: How to deal with the problem of low efficiency of employees

There are some problems in administrative organs, such as lax discipline of cadres and low work efficiency. From a positive point of view, this is the result of imperfect system or poor leadership, so the general way is to rectify discipline and strengthen leadership.

If we think from the opposite side, that is, on the grounds of this phenomenon, lax discipline and low efficiency will inevitably cause serious dissatisfaction among the masses, thus affecting the relationship between cadres and the masses, damaging the image of party and government organs and bringing unfavorable factors to their own growth or survival.

If you think in this way, you will adopt new methods to solve the problem and get twice the result with half the effort.

2. Functional reverse thinking

Functional reverse thinking refers to the design thinking method of standing in the opposite direction of the original function, imagining the opposite function according to the existing function of things, and then designing new products according to the opposite function.

Case 2: From Blower to Vacuum Cleaner

Case 9: From a thermos (filled with hot water) to an ice cube.

Case 10: "rocket launched downward"

The rocket is launched upward, but there is no available traction on it, so the engineer uses the reverse thinking design method to design, designs the forward motion of the jet propulsion device through the reaction force, and infers "downward launch". Many inventions and ideas of earth-penetrating rockets are also made by transforming the reverse thinking method.

3. Structural reverse thinking

Structural reverse thinking refers to the thinking mode and thinking method of finding new ways to solve these problems from the reverse structural development form of existing research things. Generally speaking, we can think reversely from the structural position, structural material and structural type of things.

Case 1 1: vasily chair

Vassili chair was designed by Marcel Brewer, a famous Hungarian designer, in 1925. Vassili chair was once called the symbol of steel pipe chair in the twentieth century, which initiated the modern furniture.

In an era full of wooden chairs, he designed structural materials through structural reverse thinking design, got inspiration from curved handlebars, and boldly used stainless steel to design chairs that always showed gentle characteristics in wood, thus designing Vasily chairs.

The frame structure of Vassili chair is made of steel pipe, and the bracket is made of fabric. Stainless steel material makes it more shiny and cool. Vassili chair has also become a symbol of chairs in the 20th century, which has always been loved by consumers and sold on major e-commerce platforms.

4. The procedure or direction of reverse thinking

Reversing the original order, arrangement and position of things and then changing the original structure in reverse is the opposite direction.

Case 12: the invention of the phonograph

1877, when Edison improved the telephone, he found that the diaphragm in the telephone transmitter would vibrate with the sound. Then Edison thought, on the other hand, can the same tremor be converted into the original sound? As a result, according to this idea, Edison completed another important invention.

5, the concept of reverse thinking

Innovation ability depends on people's ideas and thinking angles to a great extent. Almost all new ideas and concepts have a process of denying predecessors. If we can think about anything and problems backwards, we may suddenly come up with an extremely ingenious new idea.

Therefore, if you want to innovate, you must first have a unique concept different from others, that is, you can think backwards about the general concept recognized by ordinary people. This is the concept inversion.

In many cases, there may be two diametrically opposed views on the same issue. From one point of view, this is a dead end, and from another point of view, this is a hopeful sunshine avenue.

If you think about some habitual sayings in reverse, you will find many examples of "vice versa".

For example, "many people make great efforts" and "few people make great efforts" (reasonable division of labor, learn from each other's strengths); "Where there is a will, there is a way" and "Where there is a will, there is a way" (subject to other conditions); "Failure is the mother of success" and "Success is the mother of success"; "Adversity produces talents" and "Prosperity produces talents".

Therefore, in life, we must learn to look at some problems and things from a negative perspective, so as to bring forth the new.

6, state (process) reverse thinking

State reversal refers to the way people understand things according to the opposite aspects of a state, which leads to invention.

Things generally exist in their unique state (such as positive and negative, dynamic and static, front and back, soft and hard, rigid and soft, etc.). Under certain conditions, changing their original state can stimulate innovation.

Case 13: the invention of planer

In the past, carpenters used saws and planers to process wood, but the wood did not move (in fact, it was moved manually). In this way, people's physical consumption is greater. In order to change this situation, people designed and invented the planer from the point of view that the tools don't move but the wood moves, which greatly improved the work efficiency and technical level and reduced the labor. From the change of wood static and dynamic processing state, we can know that it is closely related to state reverse thinking.

Case 14: collapsible water bottle

Who says a bottle must be made of hard material, not soft material, as long as it can form a three-dimensional shape when filled with water? Therefore, someone invented a collapsible water bottle, which can be folded like a plastic bag when it is empty.

The above are three forms and six types of reverse thinking. Let's see how to train your reverse thinking.

Reverse thinking has a simple and core training formula:

Ask all the questions: Is this the only way? What other changes can be made?

This can be regarded as a problem of training innovative thinking, with a critical eye, especially for familiar things, to break the original thinking mode and think in the opposite direction.

Let's look at a case first:

Case 15: An accident occurred in a paper mill in Germany.

There is a paper mill in Germany, and there was an accident in the process of producing paper-I forgot to add paste, so the paper can't be used and can only be scrapped according to regulations.

The factory director was annoyed. Just as everyone expressed their regret, a staff member thought, can we just watch these newspapers be scrapped like this? Can you use this batch of waste products in a different way?

This sentence is actually a deformation of the formula, which will "is this the only way?" "Can we watch these newspapers be scrapped?" Can you use this batch of waste products in a different way? )

The employee thought it over and over again, and combined with the characteristics of this paper, he proposed to simply rename this paper that is easy to seep water as absorbent paper, which changed the use of paper. As a result, this enterprise produced a new product and sold it well.

I suggest you ask all the questions: Is this the only way? What other changes can be made?

TIPS: In reverse thinking training, formulas need to be deformed and used according to different situations.

Specific application steps of reverse thinking

The training formula of reverse thinking is known. How do we train?

Step 1: Define the goal

We can't help asking, what is our goal?

Step 2: Do everything possible to achieve the goal.

This step is the most critical. Let's think about how we can achieve our goal.

We can list all the methods we can think of. At this time, we don't have to consider its feasibility for the time being. In the process of finding a solution, we should use the formula of reverse thinking to ask questions. Is this the only way? Is it okay to look at it from the opposite angle?

Of course, in this link, the number of exhausted methods needs to test the breadth and depth of knowledge mastered by the problem solver. In teamwork, we can make use of the strength of the team.

This link is exhausted until you can't think of it.

The third step is to screen and improve specific programs.

Among the exhausted schemes, among so many feasible and infeasible schemes, how can we find the best effect?

We use the elimination principle for screening:

(1) First, delete those contents that violate scientific knowledge and are completely unfeasible in technology.

(2) Secondly, get rid of those that do not violate scientific knowledge, but can foresee the adverse effects when you think about it.

(3) Third, we can carefully consider whether to reject the scheme generally adopted in the past, because innovation is to be different.

(4) Finally, what kind of scheme is adopted in the comprehensive budget and other aspects.

The fourth step, implementation

In the process of implementation, if you want to achieve unique results, you should always use this formula and ask for it at every step. Is this the only way to do it? What other changes can be made? Constantly asking questions can open our minds and stimulate the innovative vitality of generate.

By setting a goal to be achieved, and then thinking and verifying the results in turn, we will continue to deduce until we find some effective methods and ways, and then achieve the initial goal success according to these methods and ways.

Everyone can start from work and life, or see something and think about it: is this the only way? What other changes can be made?

L product managers can survey customers, "what is the least favorite product experience?" Think about how to design products.

L Salespeople can ask themselves: "What makes core consumers alienate us?" Different angles can reveal unexpected insights.

L Leaders can ask themselves: "What do bad leaders do every day?" Good leaders will naturally avoid these pits.

Similarly, if innovation is the core of your company, you can ask yourself, "How can you make your company lack innovation?" Removing these obstacles will help you stimulate more innovative ideas.

Of course, this is not a dispute, but a reverse thinking to solve the problem and find a more optimized solution.

Only through our continuous and deliberate training can we improve our reverse thinking.

Finally, with Einstein's famous saying:

References:

[1] Hu. Innovative thinking training and methods [M], Machinery Industry Press, 20 19

[2] Zhao Jie. TRIZ Innovative Thinking and Innovative Methods [M], People's Mail Publishing House, 20 18.

[3] Cui Huijuan. Research on the application of reverse thinking in product design [J]. Western Leather, 2020,42 (23): 76-77.

[4] Liu Zhu. On reverse thinking [J]. Journal of Chongqing Institute of Technology, 2005(09):96- 100.

[5] Other network resources