Lateral Thinking vs Brainstorming: Edward de Bono's Method Against the Standard Meeting Ritual
How Edward de Bono's lateral thinking differs from Alex Osborn's brainstorming, what the research says about each, and how to use them together to generate better ideas.
Most teams run a brainstorm when they need ideas: gather in a room, defer judgment, shout things out. A smaller number use techniques drawn from Edward de Bono, whose lateral thinking promised a more deliberate way to get unusual ideas. People compare the two because they want to know whether the ritual they were taught is the best way to be creative.
What is the core difference?
Brainstorming assumes creativity is held back by criticism and low energy. Remove the criticism, set a target for quantity, and ideas will flow. The method works on the social conditions of a meeting.
De Bono assumed the mind is a pattern-making system that tends to follow established paths, and that you need deliberate devices to jump out of them. The method works on how thinking moves.
So brainstorming changes the room. Lateral thinking changes the thinking.
What is brainstorming, as designed?
Alex Osborn, an advertising executive, described the approach in Your Creative Power (1948) and in Applied Imagination (1953). His rules asked participants to withhold criticism, welcome free-wheeling and unusual ideas, aim for a large number of ideas, and combine and improve each other's suggestions.
The method spread through business, education, and design. There is no trademark or certification attached. Because it is so widely practiced, versions differ, and many are looser than Osborn's original, with little structure beyond a whiteboard and a timer.
What is lateral thinking, as de Bono described it?
Edward de Bono used the term lateral thinking from the late 1960s and set it out in Lateral Thinking (1970). He contrasted it with vertical thinking, which proceeds step by step along a logical path. Lateral techniques deliberately step sideways: challenging assumptions, generating alternatives, and using provocation.
A provocation is a statement that is deliberately unreasonable, marked in his writing with the word po, from which you look for a useful movement of thought. Random input introduces an unrelated word or object to force new connections. His separate Six Thinking Hats (1985) is a method of parallel thinking, not a creativity technique in the same sense, and is a registered trademark.
How do they compare?
| Dimension | Brainstorming (Osborn) | Lateral thinking (de Bono) |
|---|---|---|
| Assumption | Criticism and low energy block ideas | Habitual patterns block ideas |
| Main device | A group session with rules | Deliberate techniques such as provocation and random input |
| Unit of work | The session | The technique applied to a problem |
| Needs a group | Usually | No, techniques work alone or in groups |
| Evidence | Studies often find lower idea counts in groups than alone | Largely practitioner reports and de Bono's own books |
| Main risk | Lots of familiar ideas and production blocking | Techniques that feel gimmicky without a clear problem |
| Best known for | Applied Imagination (1953) | Lateral Thinking (1970), Six Thinking Hats (1985) |
When does each one fit?
Brainstorming fits when a group needs shared understanding and buy-in, or when the aim is to gather a wide set of perspectives quickly. Its social benefits are real even where its raw output is not larger.
Lateral thinking fits when ideas are stuck in the obvious zone: you keep producing variations on the same answer. A provocation or random input can shift the problem so that a genuinely different option appears.
Where the problem is poorly defined, neither helps until you have stated what you are trying to solve.
What does this look like in practice?
A team needs new ways to reduce customer wait times at a service desk. A conventional brainstorm produces hiring more staff, adding a chatbot, and extending hours. They are sensible and familiar.
A de Bono-style move adds a provocation, such as "customers should arrive before they need us," and asks what useful idea sits inside it. That might lead to proactive notifications or scheduling. Random input, say the word "umbrella," might suggest shelter, shared cover, or a queue that protects people from the rain of delay. Not every output is usable, but the set widens.
"My problem is: [describe]. Generate five provocations in the style of Edward de Bono, each a deliberately unreasonable statement about the problem. For each, tell me what useful idea might be hiding inside it and how I could test that idea cheaply. Then suggest a random word to use as input and the connections it might spark."
Why it works: provocations move you away from the obvious answers that a standard list of ideas keeps returning.
Can you use both together?
Yes, and a hybrid often outperforms either. A common structure is to have each person generate ideas alone first, which sidesteps the blocking problems the studies found. Then the group shares and builds, which keeps the social benefits. When the list feels familiar, add a provocation or random input to widen it.
This is a suggestion drawn from combining the two sets of findings, not a method either author prescribed.
"Design a 60-minute idea session for [problem] with [number] people. Include 10 minutes of silent individual generation, 15 minutes of sharing and building without criticism, 15 minutes of provocation and random-input rounds, and 20 minutes of selection with criteria set in advance. Include the instructions I should read aloud for each stage."
Why it works: each stage addresses a weakness of the others, so the full session uses both methods deliberately.
For how de Bono's thinking modes apply to running a meeting, see Meetings That Produce Nothing, and for his PMI tool in prioritizing, see Deciding What Not to Work On When Everything Looks Important.
Where to go next
Edward de Bono sits in the Educator category; brainstorming is a practice rather than a person, so it has no page of its own. For de Bono's own words, read Lateral Thinking and Six Thinking Hats, and for the original method, Alex Osborn's Applied Imagination. Six Thinking Hats is a registered trademark, and formal training in it is licensed separately.
Frequently asked questions
Who invented brainstorming?
Alex Osborn, an advertising executive, popularized it. He described the method in Your Creative Power (1948) and in Applied Imagination (1953). His rules were to defer criticism, welcome unusual ideas, aim for quantity, and combine and improve ideas. The practice is now so common that many people don't know it has a named originator and a specific design. That naming matters because modern sessions often drop his rules, such as strict deferral of criticism, and then get blamed for the results.
Does brainstorming work?
The evidence is mixed. Studies since the 1950s, including work by Taylor, Berry, and Block in 1958 and a meta-analysis by Mullen, Johnson, and Salas in 1991, found that people working alone and pooling ideas often produce more than the same number in a group. Groups can still help with shared understanding and buy-in, so the method has uses beyond raw idea counts. One reason is production blocking, where people wait for a turn to speak and forget or censor ideas while they wait.
What is lateral thinking?
It is Edward de Bono's term, introduced around 1967 and developed in Lateral Thinking (1970), for deliberately restructuring a problem instead of following the obvious logical path. His techniques include provocation, where you state something deliberately unreasonable and look for a useful idea in it, random input, and challenging assumptions. The two are often confused, but you can use lateral techniques without any hats, and use hats without seeking novel ideas.
Is lateral thinking the same as Six Thinking Hats?
No. Six Thinking Hats (1985) is a separate method for parallel thinking, in which a group looks at a topic from one mode at a time, such as facts or risks. Lateral thinking is about generating new ideas. The Six Thinking Hats name is a registered trademark, and this guide is an independent summary of de Bono's published ideas, not that licensed training. Run the solo stage in writing first, so the quietest voices contribute before the loudest set the direction of the room.
Should I stop brainstorming?
Not necessarily. The research suggests changing how you run it rather than discarding it. Many teams have people generate ideas alone first, then share and build as a group. That keeps the group benefits while reducing the problems the studies found, such as people waiting their turn to speak or holding back. Ask it for deliberately odd starting points and then evaluate them yourself, since its defaults are the very ideas a group already has.
Can AI replace a brainstorm?
It can produce a long list quickly and apply de Bono-style prompts such as random words and provocations. Its output tends toward common ideas unless you steer it. Use it as an extra participant and as a source of provocations, and keep human judgment for choosing. Keep a short list of the provocations that led somewhere useful, so the technique improves with your own record rather than with theory.
Written by Gareth Hoyle. Last updated 8 October 2026. Part of the authority.md guides library.
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