Lateral Thinking

by Edward de Bono

  The second function of PO is to challenge these established patterns, PO is used as a freeing device to free one from the fixity of established ideas, labels, divisions, categories and classifications. The way PO is used can be summarized under the following headings:

  To challenge the arrogance of established patterns.

  To question the validity of established patterns.

  To disrupt established patterns and liberate information that can come together to give new patterns.

  To rescue information trapped by the pigeonholes of labels and classifications.

  To encourage the search for alternative arrangements of the information.

  Never a judgement

  As suggested before, PO is never used as a judgement device. PO is never used to indicate whether an arrangement of information is right or wrong. PO is never used to indicate whether an arrangement of information is likely or unlikely or whether it is the best available at the moment. PO is a device to bring about an arrangement or rearrangement of information not a device to judge the new arrangements or condemn the old ones.

  PO implies, ‘That may be the best way of looking at things or putting the information together. That may even turn out to be the only way. But let us look around for other ways.’

  With vertical thinking one is not allowed to challenge an idea unless one can show why it is wrong or else provide an alternative. If one provides an alternative one must somehow show why this alternative is preferable to the original idea as well as proving that the alternative is sound. With PO one has to do none of these things. One challenges the established order without necessarily being able to offer anything in its place or even to show any deficiency.

  Judgement usually asks for justification of an idea. Justification of why an arrangement of information should be accepted. One wants to know why something has been put together in a certain way. With PO the emphasis is shifted away from this ‘why’ to ‘where to’. One accepts the need to rearrange information in new ways. One takes a new arrangement and instead of trying to see where it has come from and whether it is justified one sees where it leads to — what effect it can have.

  The response to PO

  The challenge of PO is not met by a fierce defence of why the established idea is indeed the best possible way of putting things together because PO does not attack an idea. PO is a challenge to try and think of other ways. The challenge of PO is met by generating different ways of looking at the situation. The more ways one can generate the more clearly it may be shown that the original idea was indeed the best one but that is no reason for refusing to try and generate other ways. If in generating these alternative ways a new and better way of looking at things turns up then that can only be a good thing. Even if the old idea is only altered slightly that is still a good thing. Even the possibility that there might be another way of looking at things is useful in itself in so far as it lessens the rigidity of the old idea and makes it more easily changed when change is due.

  Challenging cliché patterns

  Any pattern that is at all useful is a cliché. The more useful it is the more of a cliché it tends to become. And the more of a cliché it is the more useful it may become. PO can be used to challenge any cliché. PO not only challenges the way concepts are arranged into patterns but the very concepts themselves. One always tends to think of clichés as arrangements of concepts but that the concepts themselves must be accepted as the building blocks of thought and so must themselves remain unaltered.

  ‘ Po freedom’ challenges the very concept of freedom not the value or purpose of freedom.

  ‘ Po punishment’ challenges the very concept of punishment not the circumstances under which it is used or the purpose for which it is used.

  As suggested above it is the useful concepts that need challenging most. The less useful concepts are likely to be under perpetual challenge and reformation. But the usefulness of a useful concept protects it.

  Focusing

  Since the cliché may refer to a particular concept or a phrase or to the whole idea it is helpful if one is specific about what is being challenged by PO. In order to do this one would repeat what is being challenged but preface it with PO.

  ‘It is the function of education to train the mind and to pass on to it the knowledge of ages.’

  To this one might reply: ‘Po, train the mind’ or ‘Po the knowledge of ages,’ or even just ‘Po train’.

  Used in this way PO can act as a focusing device to direct attention to some concept that is always taken for granted because there are other concepts which seem more open to reexamination.

  Alternatives

  There are times when it is reasonable to try and find other ways of looking at a situation. This happens when the current approach is not satisfactory. PO is used as a demand to generate alternatives even when it is quite unreasonable. One goes on generating alternatives right up to the point of absurdity — and beyond. Since there is no good reason for generating alternatives under these circumstances one needs the artificial stimulus of PO which is a device that works outside of reason.

  ‘It is spring and the bird is on the wing.’

  ‘No. The wing is on the bird.’

  ‘Po.’.

  ‘The bird and the wing both happen to be going along in the same direction.’

  Used in this way PO is an invitation (or a demand) to generate alternative arrangements of the information. It is also used to justify those alternative arrangements by making it clear that they are offered as alternative arrangements and not necessarily better arrangements or even justified ones.

  Anti-arrogance

  One of the most valuable functions of PO is as an anti-arrogance device. PO is a reminder of the behaviour of the memory surface of mind. PO is a reminder that a particular arrangement of information which seems inevitable may yet have come about in an arbitrary fashion. PO is a reminder that the illusion of certainty may be useful but that it cannot be absolute. PO is a reminder that certainty about a particular arrangement of information can never exclude the possibility of there being another arrangement. PO challenges dogmatism and absolutism. PO challenges the arrogance of any absolute statement or judgement or point of view.

  Used in this way PO does not imply that the statement is wrong. It does not even imply that the person using PO has doubts about the statement let alone justified doubts. All PO implies is that the statement is being made with a degree of arrogance that is not justified under any circumstances.

  PO implies the following: ‘You may be right and your logic may be faultless. Nevertheless you are starting from perceptions that are arbitrary and you are using concepts that are arbitrary since both are derived from your own individual experience or the general experience of a particular “culture”. There are also the limitations of the information processing system of mind. You may be right within a particular context or using particular concepts but these are not absolute.’

  PO used in this fashion is never intended to introduce so much doubt that an idea becomes unusable. PO is never directed at an idea itself but only at the arrogance surrounding it — at the exclusion of other possibilities.

  Counteracting NO

  NO is a very convenient device for handling information. It is a very definite and a very absolute device. NO also tends to be a permanent label The permanence of the label, its definiteness and its absolute rejection, may rest on evidence that was at best flimsy. Once the label is applied however then the full force of the label takes over and the bare adequacy of the reason behind its application is lost. It may also happen that the label was justified when it was originally applied but that things have changed and the label is now no longer justified. Unfortunately the label remains until it is removed — it does not only last so long as there are reasons for it to last. Nor is it easy to examine whether there are sufficient reasons for maintaining the label because one cannot know whether a label is worth reexamining until one has in fact done so an
d the NO label itself deters such examination.

  PO is used to counteract the absolute block caused by the NO label. As usual PO is not a judgement. PO does not imply that the NO label is incorrect nor does it even suggest that there is doubt about the label. In effect PO implies: ‘Let us cover up that NO label for the moment and proceed as if it was not there.’ As one goes forward with one’s examination it may become obvious that the label is no longer justified. On the other hand it may become obvious that the label is still as valid as ever but nevertheless information which has been hidden behind the label may be very useful elsewhere.

  Consider the statement: ‘You cannot live if your heart stops.’ This would be changed to ‘Po you can live if your heart stops’ and this leads on to consideration of the artificial devices for keeping a heart beating, for artificial hearts or transplanted hearts. It also leads on to the need for a new criterion of death since the heart can be kept beating by artificial means even when the brain is irreversibly damaged.

  The history of science is full of instances when something was said not to be possible but later proved to be possible. Heavier than air flying machines are an example. In 1941 someone showed that to get a load weighing one pound to the moon would require a rocket weighing one million tons. Eventually the rocket that actually sent men to the moon weighed far less.

  Any definite use of the NO label is an invitation to use PO.

  Anti-division

  In so far as PO is used to challenge concepts it also challenges the division which divides something into two separate concepts. PO challenges not only the concepts but the division that has brought them about. The pattern making tendency of mind can both put together things that ought to be separated and also separate things that ought to be put together. Both an artificial difference and an artificial sameness may be challenged with PO.

  If two things are separated by a division then PO may challenge the division or may shift attention towards the features which the two things have in common and away from those features that separate them.

  Rigid divisions, classifications, categories and polarizations all have a great usefulness but they can also be limiting. As with NO the function of PO is to temporarily lift the labels and let the information come together again for reassessment. Information is dragged out of pigeonholes and allowed to interact. Things may be classified by a particular feature or by a particular function. Once classified the label becomes permanent and as a result all the other features and functions tend to be forgotten. One does not think of looking under a label for a function that is not indicated on that label. As in a filing system something is more effectively lost if it is misfiled than if it is not filed at all.

  A spade and a broom are two very different things. ‘Spade po broom’ focuses attention on the similarities: in both a function is performed at the end of a shaft, both have long shafts, both can be used in a right-handed or a left-handed manner, in both there is a wide part at the end of the narrow part, both can be used for removing material from a place, both could be used as a weapon, both could be used to prop a door open etc.

  ‘Artist po technologist.’ One is very ready to put people into pigeonholes and the further the pigeonholes are apart the more useful they seem to be. They seem to be more useful because with far apart pigeonholes one finds it easier to predict what a person is going to do than if the pigeonholes overlapped. ‘Artist po technologist’ challenges the big gap there is supposed to be between the two types. It suggests that the two types may both be trying to do the same thing: to achieve an effect. The materials may be different but the methods may be the same: a combination of experience, information, experimentation and judgement. It may also suggest that nowadays an artist has to be something of a technologist if he is to use the newer media.

  Diversion

  PO challenges concepts, it challenges the division between concepts, and it can also be used to challenge the line of development of a concept. Sometimes the line of development of an idea is so natural and so obvious that one moves quite smoothly along this path before ever wondering whether there might be an alternative path to be explored. To prevent this PO may be used as a temporary blocking device. PO is used as a special sort of NO but without the judgement of NO or the permanence of NO. In effect PO implies: ‘That is the natural path of development but we are going to block that path for the moment in order to make it possible to explore some other pathways.’

  ‘A business exists to make profits. Profits are obtained from the most efficient methods of production coupled with thorough marketing and the maximum price the market will bear…’ This is a natural and reasonable line of thought. But if one were to challenge, ‘Po to make profits’ then one would be able to explore other possible developments. ‘A business has the social function of providing an environment in which people can make the maximum contribution to society through productivity.’

  ‘A business exists as an efficient production unit. Efficiency is the main aim no t profit.’

  ‘A business only exists as an evolutionary stage in the organization of production and its only justification is historical.’

  If PO is used skilfully it can divert the line of thought into new pathways by blocking the old ones at certain crucial points. PO is an excuse for choosing a line of thought that is not the most obvious or the best.

  PO and overreaction

  The general function of PO is as a laxative to relax the rigidity of a particular way of looking at things. In certain situations a rigid way of looking at things can lead to emotional overreaction. In such cases PO acts as a laugh or a smile to release the tension that accompanies a rigid point of view. Both a laugh and a smile occur when a particular way of looking at a situation is suddenly turned round. PO suggests the possibility of such a change in view. PO acts to lessen the fierce necessity of a particular point of view.

  General function of PO

  PO is the laxative of language and thinking. PO is the device for carrying out lateral thinking.

  PO is a symbol which draws attention to the pattern making behaviour of mind which tends to establish rigid patterns. PO draws attention to the possibility of clichés and rigid ways of looking at things. PO draws attention to the possibility of insight restructuring to obtain new patterns without any further information. Even if PO is never used except as a reminder of these things then it can still be extremely useful.

  When used as a practical language tool the function of PO is to indicate that lateral thinking is being used. PO indicates that the arrangement of information being made makes sense from a lateral thinking point of view even if it does not make sense otherwise. Without some definite indicator such as PO there would be confusion when lateral thinking was introduced in the middle of an ordinary vertical thinking discussion.

  PO is not a selective device but a generative one. PO is never a judgement. PO never examines why an arrangement of information has been made but looks forward to what effect it may have. PO does not oppose or counteract judgements but merely side steps them. PO also protects arrangements of information from judgement.

  PO is essentially a device to enable one to use information in a way that is other than the most obvious and the most reasonable. PO allows one to make arrangements of information for which there is no justification. PO also allows one to challenge arrangements of information for which there is full justification.

  PO may seem a perversion designed to upset the highly useful system of logical thinking, permanent concepts and the pursuit of the most obvious. PO is not however a perversion but an escape. It does not destroy the usefulness of this system but adds to it by overcoming the rigidity which is the main limitation of the system. It is a holiday from the usual conventions of logic not an attack upon them. Without the stabilizing background of traditional vertical thinking PO would not be much use. If everything was chaos then there would be no rigidity to escape from nor would there be any possibility of establishing a more up to date
pattern which is what insight is about. As a device PO actually enhances the effectiveness of vertical thinking by keeping it intact This PO does by providing a means to bypass vertical thinking in order to introduce a generative factor. Once a new pattern has emerged it can be developed with the full rigour of vertical thinking and judged.

  Similarity of PO to other words

  It may be felt that some of the functions of PO are very similiar to those carried out by such words as hypothesis, possible, suppose and poetry. There are some functions of PO which are indeed similar, for instance the semicertainty function. But there are other functions of PO which are quite different, for instance the juxtaposition of totally unrelated material. Hypothesis, possible and suppose are very weak relations of PO. They cover arrangements of information which seem very reasonable but cannot quite be proved. They are tolerable guesses at the best arrangement of information at the moment. PO in contrast allows information to be used in ways which are totally unreasonable. The most important difference is that with these words the information is used for its own sake even if the use is tentative. With PO however the information is not used for its own sake but for its effect Perhaps the most similar word is poetry where words are used not so much for their own meaning as for their stimulating effect

  The mechanism of PO