Last Wednesday, Dr Edward de Bono addressed 300 Continuous Improvement Network (CIN) members* at the Victorian Arts Centre in an event hosted by CIN Network Chair, Victorian Chief Commissioner of Police, Christine Nixon. (http://www.vpscin.org)
Creativity
Edward talked about how the mind is designed to be organized, but uncreative. If we take the pieces of a puzzle and piece them together one by one, as we receive them, we do not end up with the best solution.
The best solution comes when we lay out all the pieces and consider them as a whole. This is not, however, the way our brains work. Our brains organize information by adding it, as it arrives. The result is often a reinforcement of concepts and patterns of behaviour, which have become outdated and irrelevant.
Someone once used an IBM computer to work out the number of ways of getting dressed with eleven items of clothing. The computer was not allowed to learn from experience. The computer took eleven hours of non-stop computation. This is not really surprising when you consider the number of possible combinations by multiplying 11x10x9x8 etc. There are a possible 39 million combinations. If we tried out one for every minute of our lives, we would have to live until the age of eighty to try them all. Life would be unnecessarily difficult. Our brains are designed to bypass such complexity and identify a straightforward solution. To cope with the world around us our brains develop routines and patterns to create and maintain a stable world.
An Active, Self-Organising System
Most information systems, including computers, are passive in nature. Data is recorded and processed but remains inactive – it does not change the process applied to it. The brain is different. There are two types of information systems: a passive system and an active system.
The brain is an active system. It organises itself. It does not require an operator or a disc drive. It is constantly rewriting its own “files”. Every new piece of information changes and expands them.
When data is received, neural networks organise it into patterns. These patterns are then used to identify and process future data. As information comes in the patterns grow. They are asymmetric: spreading out like the branches of a tree or river.
When hot water is dropped on a towel it is soaked up or spreads through the fabric. Besides having wet patches, the surface of the towel is not changed by the experience. When hot water is dropped on to lump of jelly, however, the jelly is changed by the experience. It melts in some areas and not in others. When further water is added, it is more likely to end up in groves established by previous hot water. Those groves then become deeper.
The jelly model can be compared to the brain. Once it has established routines and patterns of thought, the brain seeks to reinforce them by using them to process and organize new information.
The brain had excellent recognition skills: it recognizes “standard” situations and gives a “standard” response.
If you go to see a doctor with a rash, he will ask you questions; use your answers to assist him in identifying the symptoms; make a diagnosis and then say whether you have measles or not.
This kind of thinking is excellent for the purposes of recognition. It does not, however, assist creativity.
The Importance of Lateral Thinking
The front left wheel of a motor is important. Without it, a four-wheeled car cannot function effectively. Its importance does not, however, negate the need for the other three wheels.
It is the same with thinking. Logical, critical thought has its uses. It is not, however, sufficient on its own. Creativity requires a different mode of thought – one that navigates the patterns of our brains using other tools and techniques.
Edward invented the term “lateral thinking” in 1967.
He describes it as follows: “You cannot dig a hole in a different place by digging the same hole deeper.”
When we think, our minds seek to recognize patterns and apply them to our experience. The temptation is to apply the most obvious pattern. Our response, as a result, can be inappropriate and uninspired. Lateral thinking is different. Alternative concepts, ideas and possibilities are actively sought out.
The Oxford English Dictionary defines “lateral thinking” as: “seeking to solve problems by apparently unorthodox or illogical methods.”
With hindsight, lateral thinking almost always reveals a logical answer. The challenge is leading the mind to an idea or possibility that is not logical or instinctive from the outset.
By using carefully chosen thinking “tools” it is possible for the mind to escape its usual trains of thought to become more creative.
Humour is one way to show lateral thinking in action.
“If I were married to you, I’d put poison in your coffee.”
“If I were married to you, I’d drink it.”
Humour forces our minds to abandon one train of thought and switch to another. With hindsight the new path seems perfectly valid and indeed, logical. Lateral thinking challenges the belief we have held for some 2400 years: that if ideas are logical in hindsight, then logic will find them from the outset.
Our knowledge of the human brain means we now know this not to be true.
* The Victorian Public Service Continuous Improvement Network (VPSCIN) comprises 1717 members across the Victorian Public Service and beyond. The purpose of the network is to encourage and promote continuous improvement (CI) practices across the Victorian Public Service.
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