Coaching practices for Lateral Thinking with Friends
Describe almost anything you are working through and IX Coach finds the practices whose real-world fit is closest. For Lateral Thinking with Friends, these are the strongest matches in the current practice library.
Does this sound like the set of challenges you might be facing?
- Every time we get the team in a room to brainstorm, the loudest two people steer it and everyone else goes quiet
- When I try to brainstorm how to make this work I freeze up and self-censor every idea as not good enough
- I keep generating "alternatives" but they’re all just minor variations of the same basic approach
- My mind keeps circling the same few obvious ideas about this problem, all of them clearly related to it, and I can’t break out
- I’m stuck and every realistic option I can reach from here is no good, and I sense the workable answer is somewhere I just can’t get to from inside the feasible
Practices that may help
- Lateral Thinking, Made Practical
Lateral thinking, coined by Edward de Bono, is a set of deliberate techniques for disrupting habitual thought patterns so that a problem can be approached from an unexpected angle. Unlike vertical (logical) thinking, which deepens the current line of reasoning, lateral thinking deliberately abandons it to find a new entry point. Evidence for specific techniques is largely observational and practitioner-reported; the underlying cognitive principle — that breaking pattern-lock enables novel solutions — has support in creativity research. - Brainwrite instead of group brainstorm
Have people generate ideas silently and individually first, then pool and build.
Divergent Thinking: Generating Many Ideas - Reverse brainstorm: solve the opposite problem first
Ask "How would we guarantee the worst possible outcome?" — then invert every answer.
Lateral Thinking, Made Practical - Concept fan: map the solution space before picking a direction
Expand from specific solutions to the broader concept behind them, then generate alternatives at the concept level.
Lateral Thinking, Made Practical - Random entry: force a random stimulus into the problem
Open a dictionary to a random word, then connect it to the problem — the forced association breaks the current pattern lock.
Lateral Thinking, Made Practical - Use a stepping-stone idea: an intermediate impossible idea
Generate a deliberately impractical intermediate idea to use as a bridge to a practical one you could not have reached directly.
Lateral Thinking, Made Practical - Solve problems collaboratively to access your ZPD
Joint problem-solving with a peer or coach reveals capability you could not reach alone.
Zone of Proximal Development: Learning at Your Real Edge - Combine and build on others’ ideas
Treat every idea as a building block — the best ideas in a session are usually hybrids.
Osborn’s Brainstorming Rules, Made Practical - Run a structured team morphological session
The method is most powerful when multiple perspectives populate the dimensions and values.
Morphological Analysis, Made Practical - Break associative barriers through randomness
Introduce random stimuli — words, objects, images — into your problem-solving sessions and force connections.
The Medici Effect: Innovation at the Intersection
Related concerns
- Lateral Thinking With My Partner
Lateral thinking, coined by Edward de Bono, is a set of deliberate techniques for disrupting habitual thought patterns so that a problem can be approached from an unexpected angle. Unlike vertical (logical) thinking, which deepens the current line of reasoning, lateral thinking deliberately abandons it to find a new entry point. Evidence for specific techniques is largely observational and practitioner-reported; the underlying cognitive principle — that breaking pattern-lock enables novel solutions — has support in creativity research.
- Lateral Thinking On A Budget
Lateral thinking, coined by Edward de Bono, is a set of deliberate techniques for disrupting habitual thought patterns so that a problem can be approached from an unexpected angle. Unlike vertical (logical) thinking, which deepens the current line of reasoning, lateral thinking deliberately abandons it to find a new entry point. Evidence for specific techniques is largely observational and practitioner-reported; the underlying cognitive principle — that breaking pattern-lock enables novel solutions — has support in creativity research.
- Lateral Thinking Structured
Lateral thinking, coined by Edward de Bono, is a set of deliberate techniques for disrupting habitual thought patterns so that a problem can be approached from an unexpected angle. Unlike vertical (logical) thinking, which deepens the current line of reasoning, lateral thinking deliberately abandons it to find a new entry point. Evidence for specific techniques is largely observational and practitioner-reported; the underlying cognitive principle — that breaking pattern-lock enables novel solutions — has support in creativity research.
- Lateral Thinking With My Team
Lateral thinking, coined by Edward de Bono, is a set of deliberate techniques for disrupting habitual thought patterns so that a problem can be approached from an unexpected angle. Unlike vertical (logical) thinking, which deepens the current line of reasoning, lateral thinking deliberately abandons it to find a new entry point. Evidence for specific techniques is largely observational and practitioner-reported; the underlying cognitive principle — that breaking pattern-lock enables novel solutions — has support in creativity research.
- Challenge Assumptions Lateral Thinking
Lateral thinking, coined by Edward de Bono, is a set of deliberate techniques for disrupting habitual thought patterns so that a problem can be approached from an unexpected angle. Unlike vertical (logical) thinking, which deepens the current line of reasoning, lateral thinking deliberately abandons it to find a new entry point. Evidence for specific techniques is largely observational and practitioner-reported; the underlying cognitive principle — that breaking pattern-lock enables novel solutions — has support in creativity research.
- Lateral Thinking Alternatives
Lateral thinking, coined by Edward de Bono, is a set of deliberate techniques for disrupting habitual thought patterns so that a problem can be approached from an unexpected angle. Unlike vertical (logical) thinking, which deepens the current line of reasoning, lateral thinking deliberately abandons it to find a new entry point. Evidence for specific techniques is largely observational and practitioner-reported; the underlying cognitive principle — that breaking pattern-lock enables novel solutions — has support in creativity research.
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