In 1967 Rollin king approached a Texas attorney with an idea
for starting an interstate airline. It was an idea that someone crazy enough to
understand the potential could actually make it happen. That person was Herb
Kelleher, one of the most innovative entrepreneurs of our time, who turned Southwest
Airlines into the most profitable Airline in the world. When Kelleher was
asked in a 2009 interview at Stanford University, “Is there anything about the
spirit of innovation, that can be taught and learned or do you think it is
congenital, that you’re born with it?” Kelleher replied, “I think you have to
have that spark in your DNA to start. You’re a little bit of a risk taker,
you’re a little bit of a visionary, and you’re a little bit of an idealist.”
Thinking
big is only a small part of the strategy that money makers implement into their
business plan, but a closer look at the strategy reveals a unique and enduring trait
that is matched to money makers (Rauch and Frese, 2007). Some may call it innovation and others
identify it as out-of-the-box thinking. Edward
De Bono (1967) described the trait as something more than mere innovation. He
coined the term, “Lateral thinking,” which was not only manipulating existing
pieces, but seeking to change those very pieces. It focuses on the
perceptual part of thinking. (De Bono,1969).
Lateral thinking is not a natural
way to think. Our brains make sense of new experiences by relating it to
meaningful patterns. Furthermore, Gestalt psychologists suggest that cognitive
processes begins with innate patterns of sensory information and we relate new sensory
input to fit our mental patterns. Our brains tend to be self-regulating mechanisms,
so when sensory input doesn’t appear to fit mental patterns we adjust the
information. Some people will adjust a picture that is slightly crooked, even
in a stranger’s house, to fit their perceptual patterns of what they consider
normal. Lateral thinkers naturally perceive the world from a different
perspective. Perhaps it’s a preference for right hemisphere processing or an
innate cognitive structure that causes them to adapt existing information to fit
their worldview.
Lateral
thinking often presents us with solutions to problems that is not initially
appreciated by the general public. Only when the idea “works” and sometimes
revolutionizes the industry is it recognized as useful. Education tends to
follow cultural trends, and lateral thinking leads the trends, so for this
reason, lateral thinkers often struggle in higher education. According to Pauwe
and Williams (2001) Higher education inadvertently suppresses intuitive,
creative, lateral, emotional, and other dimensions of nonlinear thinking,
suppressing the innovative nature of aspiring entrepreneurs.
How
many sides to a circle? It depends on how you see the world. In most people’s
minds the cognitive structure of a circle has no sides, but to a person who
thinks laterally a circle has an inside and an outside.
