In Smartcuts, Shane Snow explains thde breakghrough power of lateral thinking: how and why it usually (not always) answers questions and solves problems faster and better than can any other thought process.

The concept of thinking outside of a box was popularized by motivational speaker Mike Vance. Citing a box puzzle that Disney employees were encouraged to solve by “thinking outside the box,” Vance started delivering speeches about “out-of-box thinking” 35 years ago.

With regard to lateral thinking, Edward de Bono is generally credited with popularizing it  in 1967 with the publication of his eponymous book. In Smartcuts, Snow has “catalogued the patterns through which rapid successes and breakthroughs innovators achieved the incredible through lateral thinking. The nine principles comprise a framework for breaking conventions that explains how many of the world’s most successful people and businesses do so much with less.”

Here are the principles:

1. Hacking the Ladder
2. Training with Masters
3. Rapid Feedback
4. Platforms
5. Catching Waves
6. Superconnecting
7. Momentum
8. Simplicity
9. 10X Thinking

Check out Pages 195-198 for a explanation of each.

As I worked my way through Snow’s book, I was again reminded that Sun Tzu strongly recommends lateral or alternative thinking in Art of War. In the “Estimates” chapter, for example, he urges military leaders to make their army seem huge when depleted and minimal when at full strength, to seem exhausted when fresh and eager to engage when exhausted…you get the idea.