{"id":823,"date":"2013-01-25T16:40:37","date_gmt":"2013-01-25T16:40:37","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.indigobusiness.co.uk\/blog\/?p=823"},"modified":"2024-02-29T15:08:13","modified_gmt":"2024-02-29T15:08:13","slug":"can-you-laterally-think","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/wpblog.indigobusiness.co.uk\/can-you-laterally-think\/","title":{"rendered":"Can you laterally think?"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"bulb\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Personally I have, until recently, considered \u2018lateral thinking\u2019 <\/b>to be a buzz-phrase. Often when I hear it, my children are preparing a contrived, stupendously hard to answer question, with a blatantly obvious solution \u2013 existing only in hindsight. These playful puzzles are designed to be challenging and engaging, and eventually make you smack your own forehead in humility!<\/p>\n

Professionally, prior to Indigo, I was a director of a communication & branding company. New projects were wonderful \u2018blank canvasses\u2019; ours to fill with stimulating concepts to inspire the client, add value and ultimately deliver custom to their door. Being a creative bunch, meetings would revolve around brainstorming the brief with a view to lucking out on one or two worthy concepts.<\/p>\n

Creative solutions are necessary to effect innovation and gain competitive advantage<\/b>. We draw on everything that makes us individuals and experts \u2013 experience, knowledge, successes, failures, resources, etc. \u00a0Battling through historical stimuli and our successes & failures, our thinking keeps us \u2018on track\u2019 and safe from disaster. Invariably we content ourselves with solutions which are merely cloned copies of previous ideas; albeit marginally altered to feel fresh and satisfactory. Consequently innovation is limited, shortfalls are regurgitated and inherent failure is sown into the fabric of the project<\/b>.<\/p>\n

Dr Edward de Bono\u2019s Lateral Thinking<\/b><\/a>\u00a0workshop provides tools and techniques to bring large numbers of fresh, unforeseen answers to the table.\u00a0 It does this by hijacking normal thinking patterns and spurring pathways you would not otherwise have reached.<\/p>\n

After the focus has been defined, ideas are poured in without restraint. No idea is a bad idea because it is not yet analysed or filtered, that all happens later. The tools and techniques I have learnt from Dr de Bono\u2019s Lateral Thinking<\/a><\/strong>\u00a0workshop would have our \u2018blank-canvass, dart-throwing’ exercise scrapped as wholly inefficient!<\/p>\n

The sheer volume of initial concepts and ideas that can be generated into a compact time period is staggering. During the workshop, six of us working as a team utilised the \u2018Random Word\u2019 technique and generated 127 ideas <\/strong>during four bursts of fifteen seconds. That\u2019s over two hits a second. It is noteworthy that not all the ideas would be \u2018world changers\u2019 but that\u2019s not the emphasis – six relative strangers from differing backgrounds were ALL being explosively creative towards a collective task.\u00a0 Think what an experienced team would be able to do – the possibilities are profitable!
\nWhat we need is practice, abstraction, experimentation\u2026 Playtime<\/b>.<\/p>\n

Just for a moment consider – If it wasn\u2019t difficult what would the answer be?<\/i><\/b><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Craig Clarke, Consultant<\/p>\n

CraigC@indigobusiness.co.uk\u00a0<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Personally I have, until recently, considered \u2018lateral thinking\u2019 to be a buzz-phrase. Often when I hear it, my children are preparing a contrived, stupendously hard to answer question, with a blatantly obvious solution \u2013 existing only in hindsight. These playful … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[25,143,99,11],"class_list":["post-823","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-creativity","tag-creative-thinking","tag-dr-edward-de-bono","tag-fresh-thinking","tag-lateral-thinking"],"yoast_head":"\nCan you laterally think? - the indigo blog<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/wpblog.indigobusiness.co.uk\/can-you-laterally-think\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_GB\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Can you laterally think? - the indigo blog\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Personally I have, until recently, considered \u2018lateral thinking\u2019 to be a buzz-phrase. 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