Thinking Straight
THERE is strength in diversity. There always has been. Very few people know it. Fewer still, are willing to accept it. Like it or not, this is an age of prejudices. The persecution is subtle but the pathos could not be more obvious. Only, the biases are different. We no longer (at least not in public) discriminate against men because their skin is coloured differently, or because they invest their faith in a different God, but we do have a mental block against people who think differently, or rather people who don't. Tucked deep inside layers of clothing, skin, lard and bone, we nourish a bristling antagonism towards people who don't quite fit the bill in our opinion. We are talking about lateral thinking - not that lateral thinkers have it hard, but that they have it good. And as a consequence, people with sequential thought processes find themselves shunned, banned, ostracised and pushed to the ever-narrowing periphery of employment.
Ever since Edward De Bono made this considerate present to the corporate world, a lot of people have been forced to contemplate whether it was a gift or a curse. Recruiters are constantly looking for people who are able to think out of the box. That catch phrase is now so popular; your chances of getting a job in a creative line would be very slim if it stays unmentioned in your résumé. If you can't think out of the box, the least you could do is not admit it. You would be a pariah if you did, a Philistine. You would be Gaddafi trying to crash Prince Charles and Camilla's nuptials. You would be stared at, scorned, spat at and God-knows-what-elsed at if you came out of the closet and said you were a dyed-in-the-wool in-the-box thinker. Your situation would be dire indeed.
This is not to take anything away from lateral thinkers or from lateral thinking. They have redefined a lot of concepts that needed redefining and changed much of what is now perceived archaic. But, as with everything, the corporate habit of carrying things to an extreme has created problems here as well. Offices are now crowded with lateral thinkers, or rather self-professed lateral thinkers jostling for promotions and having heated arguments over ideas and concepts that often make little sense to anybody but them. And even that is doubtful.
What does this do for a company that puts quality on a pedestal and cares not for piquancies like productivity? Absolutely nothing at all! Employees can get away with murder as long as they are able to convince a jury of managers that the only reason they killed time on a project was because their creative juices were at an all-time low and they just couldn't get their act together.
The fundamental flaw with lateral thought is its apparent randomness. It rarely seems to follow a pattern and is therefore subject to much misuse. Things that are based on chance almost always are. In a creative line dominated by lateral thinking, an idea therefore is a lot like a lottery. You are lucky if you get it, and if you don't, there's always next time.
While that may be true, it is wise to remember that aphorism - time and tide wait for no one. And while the creative excuses put their feet up on cafeteria tables and imbibe copious amounts of coffee and stay blissfully impervious to creeping deadlines, managers can do little except bite their fingernails in anguish.
Is that enough justification to have a `vertical' thinker in your team? Somebody whose ideas may be rarely as good, but whose virtues lie in a persevering knack for mind-bending work and unyielding concentration? Somebody who should have been an accountant but accidentally wound up in a copywriter's chair? It is a rhetoric question. The answer is an unequivocal yes.
What such a person will do is provide a counterpoint to the rest of the herd. He will anchor the team to reality during brainstorming sessions when ideas start to fly and incredulity is suspended in favour of innovation. He may not be able to provide this innovation, but he will provide reliability. He will be the person who furiously types away at his desktop while his peers sit in cafeterias. Besides, there are often problems that require analytical, procedural thought patterns rather than lateral thinking processes. And, this is where `vertical' thinkers come in.
In fact, combinations of different kinds of individuals forge the best teams. The more varied your team is, the better your chances of success. Remember, there sometimes is unity in diversity.
ARJUN SENGUPTA
arjuns.hyd@cnkonline.com
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