If you’re interested in speed of thought, lateral thinking can be x10 faster than logical thinking and so the end point of lateral thinking can be value creation.
But, what do we mean by ‘speed of thought’?
• Speed of thought is how lonG it takes you to change your mind. cvs2bvs.
• Speed of thought is how long it takes you to escape from your current viewpoint. cvs2bvs.
• Speed of thought is how long it takes you to stop defending your current viewpoint. cvs2bvs.
• Speed of thought is how long it takes you to switch to a much better viewpoint. cvs2bvs.
The biggest roadbump to speed of thought is your fear of being wrong. The most common cause of cognitive inertia is mistake-phobia, the morbid fear of making a mistake. Excessive use of logic makes us fearful thinkers. Logic is a natural thinking style for humans because it is driven by the strong emotion of fear. The fear of mistakes. Western education has put too great an emphasis on logic, the kind of binary thinking focused on judgement of right vs wrong or good vs bad or black vs white etc etc.
At the level of human2human relationships, many causes of daily conflict often are exacerbated by binary I-am-right-and-you-are-wrong logic-style thinking. Our obsession with logic is bad philosophy. Our over-use of logic has made us very slow thinkers. Very fearful thinkers. Very aggressive thinkers.
The search for ‘better’
Especially in the business context. Most business thinking is far too slow and costly. Lateral thinking is a tool for speed of thought – for creating better solutions. Better strategies. Better opportunities. Better attitudes. Better timing. Better outcomes. Better returns. Better results. Better consequences, Better Futures, etc etc.
In the last lessons you considered TPFs for Your Job and Your Company. In this lesson consider a Three Possible Futures for Your Industry.
DFQ #08: Do a TPF for your industry?
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