Before beginning a strategic thinking or strategy development activity, we often spend excessive time and effort on determining the rigorous analytical, solution-oriented processes and skills needed.
These methods are crucial and should not be discarded. They help us understand an existing business strategy, not create and drive a new direction. Game changing strategies need a different spark, ones that help us break away from our existing conventional thinking.
To create strategies that differentiate us, we must develop thinking tools that are explicitly designed to foster creativity.
The creative approach of de Bono’s Lateral Thinking, opens up these new pathways or directions by creating connections and alternatives.
The tools and techniques learnt, provide a pathway that ensures we disrupt our current thinking patterns – making us think in unexpected directions.
Lateral Thinking moves strategic thinking beyond the insights delivered by analytic tools, it helps strategists make the jump beyond what already exists, to invent a genuinely new way of doing business.
Simply waiting for inspiration to strike is not the answer.
Lateral Thinking tools can help build a new breakthrough strategy, it teaches how to use four core toolkits:
- Focus tools – create a purpose to our idea generation or broaden our approach to search for new ideas.
- Idea-generation tools – move us and disrupt our current thinking patterns – Concept Extraction, Challenge, Random Entry and Provocation and Movement.
- Harvest tools – ensure we increase the yield of our idea generation and create more value from the idea generating output.
- Treatment tools – promote consideration of real-world constraints, stakeholder points of view, resources and support to make the idea reality.
Find out more about de Bono’s Lateral Thinking:
- Workshop outline.
- Download brochure.
- Public workshop calendar.
- Enquire about training for groups and teams.
More about Richard Morris Richard is an accredited Think on Your Feet®, Writing Dynamics™, Lateral Thinking and Six Thinking Hats® trainer and has delivered these workshops to numerous clients.
From an organisational development context, he has created and implemented a new leadership behavioural framework and set of associated flagship leadership development programmes.
