Shahram Chaudhry
In the introduction, Bono first distinguishes between creativity and lateral thinking by explaining that creativity is the description of a result while lateral thinking is a description of the process. When we admire someone’s creative result such as a painting, we are appreciating the outcome of someone’s creative process. On the other hand, lateral thinking refers to a cognitive process that encourages unconventional and non-linear thinking. While creativity is often attributed to the result, lateral thinking focuses more on the process of thinking itself.Lateral thinking is concerned with thinking outside the box and looking in a different way at things that have always been looked at the same way. The main distinction between lateral and vertical thinking is that because vertical thinking is sequential, there’s no room for mistakes while in lateral thinking one could go wrong at one or more stages and still achieve a fruitful outcome.
The writer uses the analogy of digging a hole to explain the concept of lateral and vertical thinking and I don’t think it can be explained in any better way. He compares lateral thinking to digging different holes and vertical thinking to digging the same hole deeper. Now both actions can be equally important depending on circumstances and some situations might require both of them together. So lateral thinking and vertical thinking go well together and are complementary. In conclusion, while lateral thinking encourages individuals to adopt a mindset that embraces ambiguity, welcomes new possibilities, and explores diverse perspectives, vertical thinking helps in achieving results in a particular direction, and both are essential to success.