Secretary can actively operating a filing system, librarian can actively cataloguing books, or computer actively sorting out information. Our mind, however, does not actively sort out the information we receive. Our mind is passive. It only provides environment how information can sort themselves.

Memory is anything that happens and does not completely unhappen. It leaves some trace behind that eventually will decide how the information will self-organize themselves.

You can think of them as earth’s landscape. In the rainy days, raindrops form rivulets and streams on the ground. The streams leave the trace that decides how the following raindrops will flow. It eventually makes the stream deeper and turns into river, lake, and sea.

This pattern, the self-organizing pattern, however, may cause problem if it’s not correctly formed. Edward de Bono presents the following two diagrams to depict the problem.

Imagine that the blocks are the incoming information to our mind. As the information coming in, a pattern is formed, and it influenced how the subsequent information is organized to maintain the same pattern. This can cause problem if the pattern is not created properly as in the first diagram shows above.

A different way of arranging the diagram can be seen below, how the information can be formed properly including the final one. However this method is less likely to be tried because a square is much more obvious than a parallelogram.

It’s the problem with self-maximizing pattern. The most obvious solution may not be the optimal one. One may not be able to continue further without restructuring the pattern, without breaking up the old pattern that has been formed. That leads to the need of insight restructuring to achieve the maximal level.

Lateral Thinking VS Vertical Thinking

Lateral thinking deals with insight restructuring. It’s coined by Edward de Bono in the books titled Lateral Thinking. Many people believe that the only form of effective thinking is what Edward de Bono called as vertical thinking, in which people are going through the logical steps in thinking. These are some of the differences, and how lateral thinking can be beneficial…

Vertical thinking is selective, lateral thinking is generative. While rightness is what matters in vertical thinking, richness is what matters with lateral thinking. Vertical thinking resists irrelevant thinking while lateral thinking welcomes them.

Lateral thinking is provocative in nature. It can make jumps rather than sequential steps. It can make mistakes rather than right move in every step.

That is the exploration that eventually helps in the insight restructuring. Some techniques involves random entries which one must use to think of a solution, while some other provokes wishful thinking, reversal, and alternatives, questioning what most people believe. It is how one can learn from almost anything and take it into an insight that helps in problem solving.

The book comes with many more ideas on how to do lateral thinking. Meanwhile you can also find some idea generating tool in Wikipedia.

Lateral Thinking CS Vertical Thinking

Does that mean vertical thinking is not useful?

People thought that lateral thinking questions the validity of vertical thinking. It’s not so, the two are complementary rather than antagonistic.

Lateral thinking is useful for generating ideas and approaches, and vertical thinking is useful for developing them. Lateral thinking enhances the effectiveness of vertical thinking by offering it more to select from, while vertical thinking multiplies the effectiveness of lateral thinking by making good use of the ideas generated.

I hope this article gives you a brief introduction on the lateral thinking, an awareness of it and the need of it. You may need to get the book if you want to learn more about the techniques available. I will see if I can bring about one or two techniques in this blog as I am also preparing to speak about it for my next Toastmaster project.

Thinking,
Robert

Imagine you are driving, and you find out that you’re almost run out of gas. You stop by at a gas station. Just before you went into the mini market, one person told you that your car has some leak, and ask you to check it out. What will be your reaction? You’ll be happy to double check your car, and you must be thankful for them, even if you eventually found out that they were wrong, you are still happy, at least someone is concerned and making an effort to tell you. It’s always good to check, and to ensure that everything is OK.

photo credit: furryscaly

Now, imagine the one in question wasn’t your car, but your idea or your business decision. How will you react? Rather than happy about it, most people will be turned into defensive mode. They will be trying to defend their idea.

The two scenarios above were taken from Egonomics by David Marcum and Steven Smith (review). The book has given me some insights on defensiveness, and here is what I want to share with you.

What are we defending…, really?

The second scenario above relates with defensiveness, because often it relates with our positive image we’re trying to hold. Car has nothing to do with our self image, but our decision and ideas? Those are things that reflects our intelligence and self image, or in short, our ego. As David and Steven put it…

Fear is the mortar that holds together the wall of defensiveness.
~David Marcum & Steven Smith (Egonomics)

Ego and defensiveness were born by fear. It’s the fear of losing what we have or what we can have. If we are not defending our ego, than who will defend them? If we lose now, will we lose again and again in the future? What will happen if we lose our face? How can we face the future then? It’s interesting to see how we can overestimate the result of our one mistake. It’s the fear of failure that leads us to be defensive.

How are we defending ourselves?

photo credit: mckaysavage

Defensiveness can easily deal with spinning our facts and ideas. We can easily exaggerate, understate, manipulate, and fabricate the information we give.

And seriously, defensiveness blocks our potential to learn. What I experience was that we often rationalize our mistakes. We put our weaknesses as an excuse. We put misunderstanding as the issue, and we daydream if only the other person understand the perspective and motive that we have.

I have read many books on personality, strengths, etc, and in a way they can become an excuse of what our personalities are, and how other people should understand us. It’s good to understand ourselves, but it’s no longer good if we disillusion that as the only reality.

“We defend our enslavements,” said an unknown philosopher, “as if they were our freedoms.” Freedom comes from inviting reality checks while at the same time holding a positive self-view. The feedback we get won’t always be accurate; the data we receive filters through the biased lens of the one giving it, as well as the one on the receiving end. But what other people tell us does represent their perception of us, and we should remember that their perception is their reality. So if we want to work effectively with them, we must understand their reality.
~David Marcum & Steven Smith (Egonomics)

How should we change?

Does that mean we need to be passive to let go defensiveness? The answer is not to be unassertive person. That is the other end of the spectrum where we have lack of ego. The answer is how we can detach our idea from our self-image or identity.

It’s a very strong point that Egonomics emphasize, how we bring the intensity from our identity (that we are defending) to the ideas (that we are proposing).

There is nothing wrong with defending an idea. If our intent is to let the best ideas win, we should be able to take any stance, on any topic, in any arena to test the strength of what we’re debating.
~David Marcum & Steven Smith (Egonomics)

Conclusion

photo credit: lumaxart

Ego is an asset, but it often becomes a very expensive liability in our life. Not only getting defensive, we are also being comparative, showcasing brilliance, and seeking acceptance when we have problem with ego.

Defensiveness, together with comparison and competitiveness, caused us to be blinded by the opportunity to see what the goods that others have. When we need to prove our identity, when we don’t have a secure identity, it’s hard for us to see how others can be better than us. But even worse, it’s hard for us to learn from them. And the big rewards, as David Marcum and Steven Smith put it very well…

If we can drop our defensive posture and listen, it gives us power-power to be influenced and power to influence others.
~David Marcum & Steven Smith (Egonomics)

Hope this article inspired you to manage your ego, and manage your defensiveness. It’s a process, but you have to start now!

Managing ego,
Robert

I have just finished reading the book “egonomics”. It shares about what makes ego our greatest asset (or most expensive liability).

I have bought this book many months ago. It was the result of impulse buying. It’s discounted yet still expensive, even worse when I checked out that the price was getting cheaper in other stores. It was funny that because of the regret, I left the book on the shelf for a long time.

Ego… I thought it was limitation that I can turn into advantages – just like the former motto of this blog, “Turning Limitation into Advantages”. I bought the book with the expectation that it will support my perspective. Alas, the book shared more of how ego is expensive liability rather than asset.

I guess it will be much better to say that the book taught me to manage the ego.

Ego gives you problem when you start noticing its early warnings, those are being comparative, being defensive, showcasing brilliance, and seeking acceptance. Rather than sticking to it, the author has given much guidance on how we can direct ego to something better, those are humility, curiosity, and veracity.

If I have to pick a summary that describes those 3 traits, it will say “detaching our identity from ideas”. You will be amazed at the tremendous power you’ve got if you are secure on your identity. We don’t have to prove how good (or how bad) we are. It’s neither over or lack of confidence, but we have intelligent and genuine self-respect and respect of others (humility).

Humility does not mean gentle and soft, humility can be intense. The intensity to protect our identity can be replaced to the intensity to progress and solutions. Rather than protecting and assuming we know all things, humility will be willing to seek for more answers (curiosity).

Humility will also lead to the desire for truth and stick with it (veracity). We are happy to be corrected when we are detached from our identity. It’s part of our desire to progress, to learn from the truth and what we have mistaken. And even further, to stick with the truth, throughout the process of growing and improving.

This article is a simple summary of the book. I can say that the book speaks so much to my life as it speaks to the circumstances I am in right now. It is the circumstance created by my ego, and something that I have to learn to change.

Grab the book with the link above if you found that it’s important to work on your ego.

For your success,
Robert