Lateral Thinking or Thinking out of the Box : An Art or Science
A. Background :
A much sought after behavior well appreciated by all in addressing problems — is the concept of Lateral Thinking or Thinking out of the Box (TOTB) — which all seek to come forth.
Literally TOTB — could imply that one is boxed inside a box with at least 8 perceivable constraints which one needs to remove at least one to be able to move out or get out of the Box one finds oneself.
Many Management Development programs are run in organisations to inculcate this behavior without much success in the learnings transferring back in the normal daily operations.
In early years concepts scientific techniques like Fish Bone Analysis, Brain storming, BCG Matrix Box Analysis, One Minute Elevator Pitch — and the most recent Design Thinking have all made designed to help in TOTB to solving problems.
Participation as also contributions in these programs depending upon the team composition as also subject matter taken up which has the maximum possibility of contributions from most of the participants has been one challenge — but the more challenging has been to bring the learning back in the day to normal working.
While quite a few do get exposed to such programs as part of the formal development program — but a vast majority may remain unexposed to these scientific methods in helping to resolve problems thru TOTB.
Which brings us to the question whether Lateral Thinking is even required or not — as many run their day to day operations and life without resorting to TOTB.
Can TOTB be taught like any other science which people can be trained to get people to adopt by following some specified processes or procedures or is it an art which one has inherently or does not have — so its ability to adopt by all is questionable given that it being an Art would be limited to few inherently either having it or else it is acquired and learnt by some due to the power which comes with the role they are assigned.
TOTB to my mind is firstly required as a way of life to deal with both the simplest to the complex challenges we are facing or will face in future — simply because no one has the luxury of having unlimited resources.
In India — the concept of TOTB can best be described as what the Oxford dictionary calls Jugaad — which is trying to find a solution under limited resources. In general we had learnt to life with limited resources — and most have found innovative ways to deal with their challenges.
This was best understood and aptly demonstrated when the entire country was put into lockdown — and all people supported it very well with the available resources we had at hand.
We not only dealt with the challenge — but came up with many innovative ways to explore new opportunities which did not exist earlier — like feeding over 80 crore people for almost 9 plus months with the buffer stock we had, PPE kits, mask, ventilators, etc just to list a few out of the many.
While TOTB should therefore become fairly easy to adopt or may be adopting on their own by most in their life even without realizing it or any formal exposure to development program — however it is observed that quite a few also need someone to show the way — as against feeling they can be an equal participant in the whole process.
TOTB is both a science as also an art — and its practice starts by all from very early in ones life.
Parents, Schools, Colleges, Organisations and the people all have a role to play in developing the science into an art which is practiced in dealing with all forms of challenges that we all face in our life.
B. TOTB Inculcation in One’s Life :
In a recent interaction with a small child who had come with both her parents — I had asked the child how many sisters his father had — and with some difficulty and prompting she was able name all of them — and when I asked her how many brothers did the sisters have — she was unable to respond — not realizing that the single brother was the simple answer.
The above example could be seen as a teaser to the child or what some may call a trick question — and was shared not to belittle the child or the parent — but to show simply show that one needs to bring the element of TOTB learnings at a very early age — and in this process all have a critical role to play — starting from the parents themselves.
TOTB needs to be inculcated very early in one life if one were to want their children to become a practitioner of this practice in dealing with their varied life challenges.
Some of the key things which are adopted by quite a lot of parents include and not limited to supporting the child in the following areas :
a. Providing puzzles and games which explore their ability to solve problems
b. Provide opportunities to read and write at an early age so that they are exposed to wider and varying views
c. Provide opportunities to participate in debates with varying subjects
While adopting the above by many — some unknown territories people have allowed the children presence during family discussions or disputes amongst elders — while most have avoided their presence leave apart participation stating youngers should not be exposed to such situations.
Similarly some families allow their wards to be involved in the financial issue discussions to enable them wards to get a wholesome experience and also participation with their own views if allowed to be expressed.
With such exposure they are get the opportunity to understand the dynamics of resolution to complex, complicated and at times conflict view point.
The art of agreeing to disagree can best be learnt from the home itself with an element of some exposure akin to formal development programs.
C. TOTB in the Professional World :
1. Journalism / Media
Amongst the various professional fields — one profession which requires professionals to think on their feet in the new world of 24x7 social media exposure is in the field of journalism.
Typically for a journalist to be effective he needs to be able to do the following — and quickly all on the feet as the news is happening :
a. Be fairly well conversant with the topic of discussions — requiring continuous reading on current affairs as also analysis
b. Reporting truthfully the event or news or interview at hand
c. Ability to quickly come up with follow-up questions based on the responses to the view point being presented — and to quickly refer to contradictions in the arguments being presented
d. Ability to also express ones own view also post the coverage as a summary update
As I see from the coverage across many channels — journalists and or reporters tend to limit their coverage to point (b) above which is the reporting part to the extent possible.
The coverage to the viewers remain incomplete if the other areas are not effectively covered by the presenter.
The anchors, reporters and journalist who are able to present all the above four are the most effective and would seem to have developed both the science as also art of TOTB. They are the more sought after people who the audience prefer to listen.
TOTB is not only to be practiced during development program but also in our day to day operations.
Sharing below few other situations where TOTB had been effectively deployed with participation of all the key team players.
2. IT Business Unit Revamp
In a IT business unit I was running some decades back — we had a team of over 100 people — however quite a substantial team were involved in back-office operations. They were not strictly white collar jobs — nor where they blue colored jobs — but what the then CEO preferred to call them grey collared jobs.
Being an IT business unit — the compensation had gone out of control — and so some hard decisions had to be taken to rationalize the workforce. With a team meeting — one went about identifying those roles which could not continue to be within the IT Business unit — and also those whose skills were too outdated to be competitive in the market place.
For all the people who were part of the grey collared jobs most of whom had crossed the middle age — we proposed and got an approval to offer a proper VRS to the employees — an unheard of thing those days in the IT sector — and they were also given an option to join on contract for the remaining period of their service or else they were given adequate time to search outside opportunities.
Many who had to re-skilled — we took them thru a training program — and supported them in their certification process so that they could be effectively deployed. Similarly some were given options to move to other business units on internal transfer based on other business units requirements.
Thru the above process — the teams were rationalized to almost 60 people — and from there with the new skills augmented — we were able to bring the business unit back to a position of strength of over 700 teams.
The above situation involved using TOTB to give a total and wholesome aspect — literally to say all the 8 corners of a Box was covered — revenue challenges, profitability challenges, growth, skills, team participation, people
related due to rationalization, career aspirations keeping client support intact.
3. Project Office Re-organisation
In another case involving a team comprising of almost 70 plus people supporting various clients across the country — due to reduction in new client signings — and with time the team composition becoming fairly top heavy — there was a need to rationalize the team size to a much more manageable number.
There was no benchmark available — and guidance from the technical solution teams who had solutioned this was minimal as it came from historical guidance — and which over time had to be reviewed due to various tools and processes deployment but had not been done.
A core team across clients and process owners — and the entire working was reviewed thoroughly. During multiple round of brain-storming sessions — covering all aspects — client contractual commitments, process needs, people fitment, project needs, logistic issues, etc — a final new project-cum process matrix organisation was created and presented for downsizing to a team of 21 people.
When this was presented to the Senior Management — we shared that this is a dramatic reduction — and probably we can re-look at another three to four more people — however we do not know the full impact of such a massive reduction. We were advised to proceed ahead with this number — but ensure that no client is affected.
The new team structure was put in place to the extended teams — most of the teams who were moving out were given options to look within — and they were placed within reasonable time. A few sought better opportunities outside or who had put in their notice were not back-filled.
The project teams were taken into confidence — as also the processes that had to be implemented with new leaders emerging in the new reduced team composition — all working in a projectized matrix organisation.
The net impact of the TOTB allowed again a wholesome experience — with all objectives being met thru the above example.
The teams were fairly charged up in taking up the different and enhanced roles they had to play — and there was a spin-off effect of the reduction was that both the clients as also projects teams felt that this team was extremely critical for their operations — which during the pre-transformed state were typically taken for granted by the same outside teams.
4. Commercial Dispute
In a commercial dispute with a client during an exit from the contract — we had come into a deadlock for months and we were unable to come a closure on the exit.
While driving down to one of the meetings towards the last — I came to see some offering from the client on a billboard and it struck me that the issue needs to be validated on its authenticity.
Post verification and validation of all the documents with the concerned teams — I decided to use the important information I had got validated and chose to bring up the issue subtlety with the client during the meeting.
The client received and understood the message and its implications — so while the meeting ended cordially — we were able to move very quickly and work towards a successful closure within a week or so.
A word of caution would be in order — which is the art of communication has to be based on using only validated information and it needs to be done very carefully so as to ensure client confidence and relationship is maintained at all times.
D. Conclusion and Learnings
In the above cases the key point mentioning was that most of the members had not gone thru the formal development program on TOTB.
So for TOTB to be effective — one has to be always on the watch out of the smallest of information which could materially help in resolving a problem.
It is not necessary that one has to use only formally what has been trained to do — but to be aware that TOTB can be used in solving various challenges in ones day to day operations — one has to definitely work on developing the art of using it to be effective.
The above examples were shared only to bring out the fact that TOTB needs to be used in one’s daily operations — with team participation of all the key players.
Some of the key learnings as per my experience are captured as under :
a. Use TOTB in the day to day ones operations where-ever possible
b. During an development program — it is important to ensure that a cohesive and well-rounded team is put in place — who can relate to the issue — and also provide possible solutions.
c. To get different point of view a few people from outside could be brought in to give a perspective which may be missed out — few roles that could become part of the group — could be from HR, Finance.
d. Bring to the table real problems as close possible to real cases — which can be analysed by teams participating in the program
In today’s world — we have a dichotomy where we create various forms of matrix structures in an organisation — while wanting teams to build deep skills. This is somewhat like multiple T structures — where the top represents the varied roles in the organisation — and the bottom represents the deep skills expected in the teams — but when it comes to putting people into development programs — we expect the teams to participate in a multi-disciplinary team to get the lateral thinking in solving the problem during the program itself — while in actual life they have no such exposures.
The learnings would be limited to few people who understand the subject and so participate more — and so the chances of all the people taking back the learnings to their real world is very low — as they are operating differently and with organisation structures not really supporting a TOTB way of working.
On the other hand a better team composition along with TOTB being applied in day to day operations — the learnings during any such program to get the teams equipped to new techniques would be much more effective.
The teams within are best equipped to understand the issue as also provide ways and means to address the various challenges that one needs to face while undertaking a solution — and while TOTB training can make one to be more aware — it is the practice to which one puts the training in operations which provides the effectiveness one needs.
The formal training has its own role to play — but the application to one’s situation is the art which one has to develop over the years thru regular practice and deployment to see the best and most effective benefit of TOTB.
Pankaj Srivastava
Email : psrivast@gmail.com