Lateral Thinking
15/01/2007

Some people are interested in new ideas. They like the excitement and potential of a new idea. Some people do not like the risk and uncertainty of new ideas and prefer the security of routine. Some people feel they have a gift for creative thinking. Others believe they do not have this gift. While artistic creativity may be a gift, the ability to generate new ideas is a skill just as mathematics is a skill. It can be learned, practised and used deliberately to generate new ideas. This is what ‘lateral thinking’ is all about. Lateral thinking is based on an understanding of the brain as a self-organising information system which creates asymmetric patterns. From this basis we can design the deliberate tools of idea creativity. I have hundreds of trainers around the world who are now teaching this skill. A group of workshops working for a steel company generated 21,000 ideas in a single afternoon using just one of the deliberate tools of lateral thinking.