My very 1st seminar course!

Today was a very very interesting day.

Yesterday, at the very last minute, my boss called me and asked me to replace her at today's seminar because she simply had no time to attend...

Righto, you didn't see wrongly, neither did I type wrongly... she really called me YESTERDAY, on a SUNDAY! Oh yeah, I just remembered, she did tell me that her pc was going in for service today (mon) so maybe she went back to clear her last minute things before her pc goes into repair.

So anyway, she told me that there was no way she could attend today's seminar so I went in her stead. Boy was it a good one! I absolutely enjoyed myself and I learnt so many new things!

Today's course was all about thinking Laterally.. that's Sideways for us laymen.. Not, up, not down but left and right. It's really cool because Lateral Thinking employs the use of various hats that actually help to segregate problems for effective problem solving.

Better still, being equipped with lateral thinking tools actually help us to think out of the box, truly! I know this is a very common phrase that is often used, this Out of the Box thingy, but the fact is, the box is born out of the environment that embodies our community and the logic in which we function. Hence, therefore, since our experiences are part of what forms our logic, we cannot really effectively think out of the box because the best brainstorming ideas will only come from the richest experiences that we have ever been through.

Therefore, if you are faced with a situation that you have never encountered, there is no way for you to effectively come up with a "think out of the box" answer because you have never had the relevant experience.

But, though the help of the 6 hats and lateral thinking tools, you can actually create innovative solutions to situations you have never encountered because of the mere fact that the way of thinking is different.

I am of course barely equipped with the mere basics and therefore cannot endeavour to teach you guys reading my blog anything with depth.. However a simplified form of such creative problem solving is using a random word to spout into related solutions for a focus issue.

E.g. Focus ---> To be the voice of The Clan
Random word ----> Lemon

From the word LEMON, we can think of various associative words, e.g. sour, yellow, tangy, flavouring, fragrant, dishwashing detergent, fruit, cooking, pickling, etc..

Then from our choice of associative words, pick a few and create solutions out of them. At this stage, we are employing the Green Hat, the hat of possibilities and therefore there is no solution too stupid that we cannot listen to..

E.g. Sour - Even if the relationships between our colleagues sour, we should still retain our role as ambassdors of The Clan

E.g. Yellow - We should always maintain a bright and positive attitude like the colour yellow despite the shit we have to go through..

E.g. Dishwashing Detergent - Always keep our professionalism clean, bright and shiny even when others try to tarnish us..

Try this with any focus and any random word that springs into your mind and you'll be surprised at the results! Of course, if your random word doesn't work out for you within 20 minutes then change one.. and make sure that your random word has absolutely nothing to do with the focus... e.g. Work and Boss... Clean and Clothes etc...