Very brief and simple intro to divergent thinking

An insight switch-over involves discontinuity. It involves breaking loose from an established way of looking at things in order to find a new one. For this reason insight cannot be achieved by the sequential process of logical thinking which insists that you must be right at each stage.

So logical thinking will only preserve the established way of looking at things - not change it. To do this one needs lateral thinking.
http://www.debonothinking.com/

Often, knowing what “not” to do is half the battle. So, here are “Ten Mental Blocks to Creative Thinking,” followed by a terrific sci-fi example of creative thinking]:

http://www.copyblogger.com/mental-blocks-creative-thinking/

1. Trying to Find the “Right” Answer
2. Logical Thinking
3. Following Rules
4. Being Practical
5. Play is Not Work
6. That’s Not My Job
7. Being a “Serious” Person
8. Avoiding Ambiguity
9. Being Wrong is Bad
10. I’m Not Creative

Discuss: Where is lateral thinking needed more?

Today I was called in to judge a competition where management school students were presenting their new business ideas. I came away with the impression that students have novel ideas for new products or services but are weak in ideas for realizing those products into actual businesses. In a word they are fairly okay with the WHAT but not okay with HOW.

So I am wondering whether we have enough good examples of how lateral thinking helped in putting into the market a new product idea.

William Kamkwamba, the young man in Malawi who, at age 14, built a windmills to bring electiricity to his village is one of the great lateral thinkers. He built hiw windmills based only on pictures he saw in a book. Everyone in his village mocked his efforts, calling him crazy…until the electricity his windmill produced changed the life of everyone in the village.

Dr. Edward de Bono, creator of Lateral Thinking, explains that creativity is a skill that anyone can learn with the proper training

The fact that lateral thinking is not a natural gift, but instead is a product of experience and practice is something that I find fascinating. Everyone should be able to learn how to be an effective lateral thinker. Here’s an intriguing example of lateral thinking that actually happened and saved the lives of the astronauts on the Apollo 13 mission

Hey! It wasn’t untill few months ago when I was surely positive about what happens with my recycled trash. All the trash, even recycled, used to be pick up by one truck and all of it ended in one place! Terrible. So there was nobody in Poland who actually recycled trash.. But as I said earlier, recently I saw a truck picking up only one container and then moved to another container with the same kind of trash! :) I consider it a huge success for Poland! :)

But during that time when all trash eneden int he same place, I learned to reuse things. For example I bought postcards in a tiny metal box, and now I’m using it as my pencilcase ;)
There’s also a project called Odyssey of the Mind where as a part of your solution to a creative problem you had to made an outfis out of trash! Really awesome!

Truely speaking if brings me so much joy when I can reuse and repurpose things! Try it! :)