False Faces

This is a linear thinkertoy technique that explains how to find ideas by reversing conventional assumptions.

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In the figure above, we assume that the far-away figure is larger because things are supposed to grow smaller as they move away from us. Yet this assumption doesn’t hold up.

For any challenge, if you start with incorrect assumptions, your solutions will be poorly constructed. Sometimes assumptions seem so basic, so fundamental, that we never think to challenge them. At times, an assumption presents a false face that we mistake for something immutable, a truth that cannot be challenged.

Whenever Edison was about to hire a new employee, he would invite the applicant over for a bowl of soup. If the person salted his soup before tasting it, Edison would not offer him the job. He did not hire people who had too many assumptions built into their daily life. Edison wanted people who consistently challenged assumptions.

Problems are often salted with assumptions that hinder creativity.

Any assumption can be challenged. Obviously, many things have to be taken for granted, and the purpose is not to pretend that one has the time to challenge every assumption, but instead to show nothing is sacrosanct. Once you truly realize this, you are open to all sorts of discoveries.

REVERSE ASSUMPTIONS

Reversing your assumptions broadens your thinking.

Alfred Sloan took over GM when it was on the verge of bankruptcy. It had always been assumed that you had to buy a car before you drove it. Sloan reversed this to mean you could buy it while driving, pioneering the concept of installment buying for car dealers.

Reverse some of your basic assumptions about business. For instance, you might start with the idea that “A salesperson organises the sales territory,” then reverse it to “The sales territory organises (controls) the salesperson.” This reversal will lead you to consider the demand for new salespeople as territories become more complex. A salesperson with a large territory may be too well “controlled” by it to react to new accounts and sales possibilities.

HOW TO?

After you reverse your assumption about a challenge, ask yourself how to accomplish the reversals. You are not necessarily looking for one right answer, but a different way of viewing existing information.

Suppose you want to start a new restaurant and are having difficulty coming up with ideas. To initiate ideas, try the following reversals.

List all your assumptions about your subject:

  1. Restaurants have menus
  2. Restaurants charge money for food
  3. Restaurants serve food

Reverse each assumption. Ask yourself how to accomplish each reversal.

  1. Restaurants have no menus of any kind. Chef informs each customer what he bought that day at the meat, fish, and vegetable markets. He asks the customer to select items that he or she finds appealing and creates a dish with those items.
  2. A restaurant that gives away food. Customers pay for time instead of food. Selected food or beverages are free or sold at a cost.
  3. A restaurant that does not serve food. Create a restaurant with a unique decor and an exotic environment and rent out the location. People bring their own food and pay a service charge for using the location.

Reversal destabilises your conventional thinking patterns and free information to come together in provocative new ways.

Challenge all assumptions.

BLUEPRINT

  1. State your challenge
  2. List your assumptions.
  3. Challenge your fundamental assumptions.
  4. Reverse each assumption. Write down the opposite of each one.
  5. Record different view points that might prove useful to you.
  6. Ask yourself how to accomplish each reversal. List as many useful viewpoints and ideas as you can.