The 90 Degree Rotation
Sometimes we can’t solve a problem because we’re too close to it. We work it so much that the prescribed boundaries of the problem become untouchable. What was originally established as an assumption becomes a given.
That’s dangerous thinking that we can all get caught in. Creating a deliberate practice of stepping out of that “can’t see the forest for the trees” mindset is important for our success.
You can do it in a number of ways. The list I come up with is by no means exhaustive:
- Invite in some fresh perspective. Someone who is not familiar with the problem won’t have accepted the same restrictions as you.
- Take a break and do something else. Take a walk, do a puzzle or listen to some music. Give you brain a breather, and a broader perspective.
- Engage in something completely unrelated and connect it back to the problem. How are the essential factors in growing a good wheat crop similar to your challenge? Name ten things that are green and describe how they relate to the challenge.
- Picture your problem from above. Review it from a helicopter. Look different?
- Redefine the timeline. What does it look like five years out? Changing the timeline can remove some barriers.
There’s another practice that I wanted to explore a little more. That’s a technique I sort of intuitively do that I’m calling the 90 degree rotation, though it’s probably more appropriately entitled “Turn it upside down.” It goes like this: take your problem and any sort of organization, hierarchies or linear processes that are part of it. Try and describe your challenge from a direction different than how you’ve been thinking about it.
Trying to complete a work process through a traditional hierarchy? What if the responsibility was given to a cross-functional team?
Trying to spread a message? What if it wasn’t through mass media, but spread through individual followers?
Coordinating a large group through rules and expectations? What happens if they’re given the outcomes they have to achieve and left to their own leadership and organization?
I don’t think my effort to name and systematize this concept has worked, but I needed to share it anyway. It’s the incorporation of a foreign (near opposite) perspective so that the givens can be laid bare. Should they really be off the table, or are they just off YOUR table?
