What is Lateral Thinking and Do I Need It?

Two of the services we frequently use with our Clients are Idea Generation and Problem Solving. We approach both challenges with very different, process oriented methods but there is one thing that remains constant – Our ability to think laterally and come up with novel concepts by looking at situations in new and different ways. Many of our Clients are so deeply involved in an issue such as their daily business that they find it hard to change perspective and see things from an alternative angle. This is where we come in… we tend to see things that are ‘outside the box’.

Vertical thinking, also known as logical thinking, takes an idea and carries it forward. Lateral thinking, on the other hand, provokes fresh ideas and essentially changes the frame of reference in almost any situation. Vertical thinking tries to overcome problems by dealing with them head-on, lateral thinking attempts to bypass obstacles using a variety of different approaches.

In essence, Lateral thinking is a tool that helps us change our way of thinking about something often by modifying our perceptions.

With logical thinking you start out with certain given components and boundaries wrapped in a process. This is similar to the situation in chesswhere you start out with specific pieces and are expected to play by the rules. The issue is that in most real life situations, we can not use the chess model or logical thinking to solve problems because you don’t know what the pieces are, what they represent or how many pieces actually exist… knowing the rules is almost irrelevant to solving a problem or generating new ideas.

Throughout our lives we are handed several different rulebooks (cultural, social, business oriented etc). When we get these rulebooks we just assume that the components that the rulebooks refer to, simply exist and we tend to accept that certain boundaries and limitations are present because they were mentioned in the rulebook. Lateral thinking throws out the rules and assumptions as well as the boundaries and limitations so that we are free of our social, cultural, geographic and demographic bonds.

Lateral thinking focuses on changing some element to enable a new and fresh perspective of a given situation. Lateral thinking deals primarily with perception. By using lateral thinking techniques we can organize the external world into the pieces that we can then process. Perhaps more importantly, by observing lateral thinking in others we can generate new ideas and better understand how they perceive the world around them.

The brain is a self-organizing information system that forms asymmetric patterns. In such systems there is a mathematical need for moving across patterns. The tools and processes of lateral thinking are designed to achieve such lateral movement to accomplish a given result.

A famous person once said that you can’t dig a hole in a different place by digging the same hole deeper. Think about that for a moment… If you were driving in a car on the highway but your intended destination is behind you, driving faster while keeping the car on the same heading will not get you to your intended destination.

If you were to continue thinking about a problem or a solution in a given way, this may not be as useful as changing tact and trying something completely different. Additional effort in the same direction will not necessarily help you get the results you were after but applying some proven tools designed to turn the car around, may offer you options that you never knew existed. It’s a format of thinking ‘out of the box’ and our Clients believe that we are very good at it. It may be because we do it frequently.

If you have a challenging problem or need some new ideas, please, fill out our form and allow us to get in touch with you today.

Is Problem Solving Worth It?

A growing number of people around the world claim to be ‘electro-sensitive’, in other words physically responsive to the electromagnetic fields that surround electronic devices such as mobile phones. In fact, Sweden has recently recognized such sensitivity as a disability, and will pay for the dwellings of sufferers to be screened from the world’s electronic smog.

This is a superb example of a knee jerk reaction rather than the result of an effective problem solving process. It is unfortunate that the kind and caring politicians who sponsored the subsidy in Sweden preferred to throw money at the unknown cause rather than actually investigate it and apply some form of process to identify the most probable cause for the sensitivity.

The issue is that, time and again, studies of those claiming to be electro-sensitive show their ability to determine whether they are being exposed to a real electric field or a fake one is no better than chance. So, unless these sensitive people are lying about their symptoms, the most probable cause for the symptoms must be sought elsewhere.

In Germany at the University of Regensburg, Michael Landgrebe and Ulrich Frick think that the ‘elsewhere’ in question is in the brain and in a paper presented recently to the Royal Society in London, they describe an experiment which, they think, proves their point.

Dr Landgrebe and Dr Frick used a body scanner called a functional magnetic-resonance imager to see how people’s brains react to two different kinds of stimulus. Thirty participants, half of whom described themselves as electro-sensitive, were put in the imager and told that they would undergo a series of trials in which they would be exposed either to an active mobile phone or to a heating device called a thermode, whose temperature would be varied between the trials. The thermode was real. The mobile phone, however, was not.

The type of stimulus, be it the authentic heat source or the fake electromagnetic radiation, was announced before each exposure and the volunteers were asked to rate its unpleasantness on a five-point scale. In the case of heat, the two groups’ descriptions of their experiences were comparable. So, too, was their brain activity. However, when it came to the fake phone exposure, only the electro-sensitives described sensations such as prickling and even pain. Moreover, they showed neural activity to support these perceived sensations. Some of the same bits of their brains lit up as when they were exposed to high temperatures.

This suggests that electro-sensitivity, rather than being a response to electromagnetic stimulus, is akin to well-known psychosomatic disorders such as some sorts of tinnitus and chronic pain. A psychosomatic disorder is one in which the symptoms are real, but are induced by cognitive functions such as attitudes, beliefs and expectations rather than by direct external stimuli.

The paradoxical upshot of Dr Landgrebe’s and Dr Frick’s experiment is that mobile phones do indeed inflict real suffering on some unfortunate individuals. It is just that the electromagnetic radiation they emit has nothing whatsoever to do with it.

If you have a situation where actual results deviate from your expectations and the cause is not known… please do us all a favor and either apply our Problem Solving Methodology directly or contact us to do it for you.

What Exactly is A PROBLEM?

People today, overuse and misuse the word ‘problem’ and it is becoming an issue for me because, here at BoxOnline, we use a tool to solve problems and this tool is very effective – but only when you actually have a real, genuine problem. So, when a Client says “I have a problem” we get all excited because we are trained and experienced problem solvers. The thing is most people say that they have a problem when what they mean is that they have an issue, a situation, a case where they believe that something has or will go wrong. So, what exactly is a problem?

A problem can be defined as a situation where you have all 3 of the following circumstances simultaneously:
1) You have a deviation from norm.
2) You do not know the cause of the deviation.
3) You must know the cause of the deviation in order to continue

Let’s clarify the above a bit better. When there is a deviation from norm, something unexpected occurred and when you do not know why this something occurred, it is likely that you do not know the most probable cause for the deviation. If your project is not able to continue after the unexpected something occurred then you need to repair the damage and the best way to repair something is to know what broke. Thus, if you do not know the cause for an unexpected deviation and you cannot move forward, you have a problem and we can start applying our honed problem solving techniques right away.

If, however one or two of the circumstances described above do not apply to your situation – YOU DO NOT HAVE AN ACTUAL PROBLEM. You have something else!

Analogy: You look at a board in the floor and spot a metal nail sticking out. You don’t want someone to trip over the nail or to cut their foot so you go get a tool to put the nail back where it belongs. Do you select a hammer or a screwdriver? That’s right, as soon as we have labeled a given situation “a problem”, we can reach for the appropriate tool to help identify what the most probable cause is or was. Then the cause can be dealt with and the process can move forward again. Any questions?

Your knowledge is worth more than you think

A few years ago an engineer I know retired after 30 years of loyal service for his employer, a large industrial company in Switzerland. After weeks of attempting to solve a problem with one of their largest and most productive machines, the company decided to bring in this retired engineer to try to solve the problem. After all, he was the best problem solver the company ever had. The engineer accepted the challenge and spent a day analyzing the large piece of equipment before making an X with his black pen on one specific component of the machine’s electronics. ‘Replace the component with the X on it and your problems are over’ said the engineer. The part was replaced and sure enough, the machine roared to life and within hours was back up to full capacity. A few days later the company received a bill from the engineer for 50,000 CHF for his consulting services. The company demanded a detailed report to justify the high cost and the engineer replied immediately with the following:
A single identification marking with black pen: CHF 1.00
Knowing exactly which component to replace: CHF 49,999.00
The problem solving engineer received full payment for his services within the month and is still comfortably retired.

A more believable story comes to us from a lady in New Jersey who says that she got a plumbers bill for $1000.00 and can’t believe it since the plumber was in her cellar for less than 5 minutes. I know this lady, so I asked her to get the plumber to present a detailed invoice. Here is what he sent her the very next day:
Dear Mrs. Smith,
Despite the fact that it was past midnight when you called me to put a stop to the loud noises in your basement, I will not charge you for interrupting my beauty rest. Here is my detailed invoice for the services performed at your home two days ago.
1. Use of hammer $0.99
2. Knowing exactly which part of the boiler to hit $999.00
Total Cost for this service call $999.99

Thanks for your business.

There was no argument – the plumber knew what he was doing and this bill was paid that same week.

Let’s look at the above from a different perspective, If you need experience something that you did not expect to experience… perhaps something with a negative outcome… and you do not know the most probable cause… and you have to solve this problem… Then call a professional. At BoxOnline, we provide our Clients with professional problem solving process in addition to experienced professionals in a variety of industries. If you have a problem that needs a solution, contact us today.