Step Four
Think in Opposites

Life today is full of wonderful paradoxes:

• A baby bottle nipple company also makes condoms.
  Aren't they self defeating?
  

• Our parents had grocers deliver to their home.
  Then we invented Sam's Club and bought minivans to carry it all home. Now we order online for home delivery.

• "Go to your room!" used to be a childhood punishment.
  Now "your room" is a multi-media amphitheater of games, music and online chat sessions.
  

"All behavior consists of opposites.
Learn to see backward, inside out and upside down."
- Lao Tzu, Tao Te Ching

The advertising industry uses opposites to capture human attention. When a form of packaging was invented to prevent dehydration of foods stored in electric freezers, advertisers came up with the oxymoron "freezer burn" to describe the problem the packaging would solve.

By holding opposites together, we suspend our thought and our mind moves to a new level. Leonardo da Vinci believed that the first way he looked at a problem was too biased towards his usual way of seeing things. Pablo Picasso believed in opposites by stating, "Every act of creation is first of all an act of destruction."

The Opposite Formula

1. The Negative Definition
   Ask, "What isn't our problem."
   
2. Flip-Flop Actions
   Ask, "What would we never do?"
   
3. destroyyourbusiness.com
   At GE they ask, "What internet solution can we create that will capture our existing business?"
   
4. Snatching Victory from the Jaws of Defeat
   Ask, "How can we profit from this problem?"

The Opposite Model

Most charting occurs with two-dimensional XY axis models. To think in opposites, one way is to chart a spiral using a three-dimensional XYZ axis model.

Spirals evolve to their opposite sides as they swing around their center. This is like an organization considering opposite strategies that are all based on their core competencies.

"History evolves upward
through inventions and discoveries."
- Abraham Lincoln

To apply the spiral model to your brainstorming, just label each level of the spiral a different variable. Then ask, "What if we doubled the (resources)... now what if we cut the (resources) in half?"

By looking at the opposites together, you suspend your thought bias and your mind moves to a new level.

The "What If... "Compass

1. Describe your problem and then pick two opposing actions.

   Stretch It... Shrink It.
   Put it to music... Put it in pictures.
   Combine it... Separate it.
   Make it stronger... Make it weaker.
   Winterize it... Summerize it.
   Speed it up... Slow it down.
   Make it invisible... Make it visible.
   Force it... Relax it.
   Make it fly... Make it float.
   Raise price... Offer it free.
   Magnetize it... Demagnetize it.
   Jump over it... Go under it.

2. Ask "What if..." for each action.
   
3. Then look for possibilities.