Editor's note: This article is from WeChat public number "outside the circle of classmates" (ID: iquanwai), the author: online business school brand "outside the circle of classmates" founder and CEO of the circle of Sun, Douban 8.6 points bestseller "please stop ineffective efforts" author.
Executive Summary:
1. There are limitations to logical vertical thinking, and the sky is the limit for horizontal thinking, which will make you more creative
2. Creativity is in everyone, but it needs to be developed and trained in order to realize its potential.
3. Five words of creativity: believe, release, consider, collect, and act.
4. The correct posture of opening the brain (put): break the stereotypes of thinking, change the angle, connect the unrelated things, catalyze the
5. Before lifting the limitations of thinking and opening the brain, lift the limitations of external labels on the self
I. Why some people are well-organized but not insightful
This is a question sent to you yesterday: a cafe opened in the expensive downtown area, coffee 20 yuan a cup, the same price as the neighboring competitors, similar taste, but the environment is better, so the seats are often full. However, profitability still falls short of expectations. What are some of the ways you can improve its profitability (to simplify the problem, assume it still sells only coffee and no other peripheral products)?
I'm so glad that my readers are so thoughtful and have given me so many wonderful responses that I've been fantasizing about starting a consulting firm. ......
I've picked some of everyone's thoughts and roughly categorized them as follows:
Price increases: psychological pricing, enhancement of taste, focus on high-end categories, focus on high-end customers, charge service fees, etc.
Increase sales: expand takeout, expand online channels, mobile carts, limited time drink out discounts, order in advance, sell packages, re-layout seating, membership cards, extend business hours, limit wifi, etc.
Cost reduction: reduce capacity, find part-time employees, reduce procurement costs, push self-service, optimize processes, etc.
For this question, many circle grapefruits have used the structured thinking written about in previous posts (again, I marvel at how well you guys learn), with a thought process similar to the following diagram:
The above method is in line with the MECE principle and is very well developed. But is there any other method?
A few circle grapefruit gave different responses, and I'll share one with you: reduce the coffee price to slightly above cost, but on top of that, implement hourly charges based on the time spent on dine-in drinks. For a cafe with a good environment, the environment is also a chargeable value. As a result, take-out guests soar and the cafe's seat utilization increases.
How about this program?
Some would say: that's naive, cafes charge by the cup, where do they charge by the hour?
But who says you can't?
We don't even know how the actual results will turn out, but in reality, there are already some hotpot restaurants that have started billing on time, and the final figures show that it does contribute positively to profits.
The purpose of making this case for you is not to find out a right answer, in fact, which strategy is more effective still requires sufficient market research, so there is no right answer in the first place.
It's just that, through this case, we can all appreciate the difference in mindset.
Structured thinking, as we mentioned previously, is vertical thinking, which enables us to start from a single point and follow a rigorous logic step by step down the line, just like the formula we wrote above.
But it's flawed because it ignores horizontal possibilities, e.g., Revenue = Unit Price X Number of Cups, which assumes the premise that we're still charging per cup of coffee and ignores the possibility of charging by the hour.
This horizontal direction of thinking, which we call lateral thinking, is defined by Wikipedia as seeking solutions to problems in a non-directive, non-traditional or apparently non-logical, non-step-by-step deductive manner.
Yes, you see what this definition means: solving problems, too, can be done in a non-logical way.
So there are times when you find that some people who are very structured thinkers are very well organized, but don't seem to have any particular insight. Other people, who are not so well organized, often come up with brainstorming ideas.
The reason for this lies in the difference in thinking styles: vertical thinking allows you to think more clearly, refine your ideas, and express them more logically, but for more innovative insights, you often need to incorporate horizontal thinking as well.
Second, thinking can be improved, and creativity can be trained.
So what does the "creativity" we're talking about today have to do with these ways of thinking?
Creativity is defined in Psychology and Life as the ability of an individual to generate novel and appropriate ideas and products. Products here, of course, include all tangible and intangible products.
So, creativity is really a comprehensive concept, and thinking is the way of creating, and both vertical and horizontal thinking are necessary in our creative process.
Since vertical thinking like structured thinking can be developed, can horizontal thinking be developed, and in addition, can creativity be developed?
For those of you who did yesterday's test of the circle grapefruit, you should know that creativity can be fostered, and there are ways to do it.
Stanford offers an innovation course, "A Crash Course in Creativity," which comes to teach you how to generate ideas. And various studies have shown that creativity depends on many elements (intelligence, thinking, social environment, etc.), and many of these elements can be cultivated later in life.
Although it is said that "everyone is creative", however, not everyone can show this potential at any time and at will, the key is to train the mind.
We will, today, look at how to use vertical and horizontal thinking to enhance creativity, based on the problem-solving process. Of course, the creativity we're talking about today is more technical creativity than artistic creativity.
Technical creativity is about solving problems, while artistic creativity has no clear purpose.
In order to make it easier to understand, I have summarized the whole process into a five-word phrase, "Let's put it down, think about it and collect it", as shown in the figure below:
Faith: conceptual and informational readiness to create;
Putting: Putting your mind out on faith and opening your brain;
Consider: filter out ideas that don't add up;
Take back: take back the thinking, organize and summarize it, and form a plan;
Row: Execution and follow-up.
The "put" in this is more horizontal thinking, while the "take" is more vertical thinking. With such a process, we can ensure that our program has both innovative and bold ideas, as well as well-thought-out and rigorous logic.
Of these five words, "Receive" has been covered in previous structured thinking, so I will just mention it briefly. In addition, "Act" will not be covered today, so we will focus on the three words "Believe", "Release", and "Consider", We will focus on the words "believe", "release" and "consider".
III How to combine vertical and horizontal thinking to enhance creativity
1. Faith: conceptual and informational readiness to create
1.1 Changing attitudes
We often see that creative people tend to have a very positive attitude towards problems, seeing them as an opportunity to be creative and innovative rather than hating them for fear of trouble.
Therefore, to become a creative person, we need to be in the mindset that, firstly, we need to solve not only the existing problems that spring up, but, more importantly, we need to be good at identifying potential problems and solving them. Second, any change, setback, or failure is a good opportunity for innovation, not a nuisance. Third, keep an eye on external changes and trends.
It is only by doing these three things that our brains can become the soil of creativity.
1.2 Information gathering
In addition to a positive attitude, creativity is not something in the air, it is not an inspiration for no reason, it is based on the information we have at our disposal. Basically there are three types of information we need to gather before solving a problem:
The first category is feature information, i.e. the characteristics that some good programs in the field have, which ensures that we always keep the end goal in mind and don't get sidetracked. For example, if my friend wants to start a food public number, then he should first go and see what kind of characteristics other numbers that are doing well have.
The second category is subject matter information, i.e. methodology/learning material related to the problem to be solved, which ensures that your program has substance. Still using the food public as an example, she needs to learn about food-related theories, public usage, etc.
The third category is object information, i.e. the needs of your audience, which ensures that your program is grounded to solve the problem. So, you need to understand those people who read the food public and how their needs are.
2. Putting it out there: letting your mind run wild, opening up your mind.
After you have gathered enough information, the next moment is the moment of brainstorming! I've summarized four points about the right way to open your brainstorm:
2.1 Breaking the mold
Our minds gradually develop habits, or thought patterns, after solving the same kind of problems and processing the same kind of information many times.
Thinking in stereotypes allows us to deal with similar problems faster on the one hand, but on the other hand, it can also limit our thinking. Like the example at the beginning, "Revenue = Unit Price X Number of Cups" is a stereotype.
Also, we've all played the game of having the other person say mouse 10 times, followed by asking him who the cat is afraid of, and 80% of the time the other person will answer mouse.
How do you break the mindset? The central tenet is to reject subconscious conditioning.
So, if we can phrase questions in non-habitual ways or ask ourselves questions we've never thought about before, it can help us break out of our thinking.
With that in mind, here are a few ways to break out of stereotypes: expanding the question, rephrasing the question, reversing the question, and SCAMPER.
A. Extension issues
When you take a question, expand it into six questions to think about: "Who," "What," "Why," "Where," "When," and "How."
Let's say you work for a company that produces stationery and your boss asks you to plan a new notebook. If you follow your past work inertia, you will think about the notebook cover, paper quality, size, number of pages, etc., and then start making it.
Yet with these six questions, you'll find yourself thinking more actively.
Who: Who will design it (myself?)? Get a celebrity to collaborate? Get a comic book artist?) Who will use it (Students or white-collar workers? Men or women?)
What: What style the notebook is (shape, size, color, etc.)
Why: why people buy it, why competitors haven't introduced this style before
Where: where it should be placed for sale, where it should be advertised
When: when the design is finished and when it will be launched
How: How to use the laptop better, how to publicize it
Once these six questions come in, your brain will open up more easily. For yesterday's coffee shop example, you can also try asking yourself the above six questions and you should get more ideas than you did before.
B. Reframing the issue
Try asking yourself this question: what is my purpose in life?
You'd think, that's such a hard question to answer.
But put it another way: what do you want people to say about you at your funeral a hundred years from now?
Maybe, you'll start gushing and even start writing yourself a eulogy.
So, when we are faced with some problem and we don't have any ideas, try to ask the question to ourselves in a different way that
