Blaise Pascal, A French philosopher, described humans as “reed”. He was referring to the fact that humans are vulnerable. But a human can become great as they can think. 

We often hear people tell us to think, but rarely mention how to think. The inertia of humans tends to use the simplest method to get the answer, but thinking is quite exhausting. Therefore, people nowadays are used to searching from Google/Baidu/Zhihu if they have any questions and get the answers from others directly. However, many questions do not have a standard answer. And the unsolved problems will always wait for us to solve. As a result, the problem will accumulate if you do not think. 

There are three types of thinking: vertical thinking, horizontal thinking, and critical thinking. 

Vertical Thinking

It means the ability to deduce the causal relationship of a thing from first to last, and the most famous one is called logical thinking. This kind of thinking ability is the most common in traditional schools. Almost all subjects emphasize logical thinking, so the students who have good skill of vertical thinking ability will do well in their academics. Vertical thinking goes in 2 directions, top-down and bottom-up. Top-down follow the general logic, while bottom-up is about reverse inference. For example, when we see a pen on the ground, we infer that someone dropped it rather than appearing out of nowhere.

The variability of the world makes it possible for the same concept to have different interpretation methods. The longer the vertical thinking is, the more branches there will be. Therefore, sometimes it will not help you more in business development even if you are good at vertical thinking. I think that having the basics of judgment is sufficient. 

Horizontal Thinking

Another ability is Horizontal Thinking, also called “Analogical Thinking”. It is to observe and find the similarity of the two unrelated things. Then apply the processing method of the known to the unknown situation. Horizontal thinking is a highly respected in recent years. It can connect unrelated things to explore the creative imagination. When Apple Company is developing products, they like to seek advice from someone who is not a technology professional. The purpose is to use their analogical thinking to introduce the advantages of other things into Apple products. This approach has been very successful when creating new products. 

Besides the creativity from analogical thinking, using it on unknown problems would get the best result. You can also use it to solve problems from any company department. The more in-depth analogy, the more we can discover the relevance of unrelated things and the more we can create unprecedented innovation. The astronomer, Keppler in the early 17th century, used the analogy, to sum up, the "Three laws of motion of planets". He successfully used the limited knowledge of physics at that moment to analyze the correct astronomical knowledge without relevant knowledge. That is useful for the inspiration of Newton's discovery of universal gravitation at a later time. 

Humour itself is also a kind of horizontal thinking, bringing two different things together to create unexpected joy. From my own experience, many interpersonal problems can also be solved by humour. If you would like to train your ability of humour, you might as well put some effort into horizontal thinking. 

Critical Thinking

The last one is to think in a way by constantly revolving. It is the ability to question and reason, mainly to reflect on things. Through continuous self-questioning and rhetorical questions, we constantly analyze, evaluate, and reconstruct the core of the problem to ensure that our solution is the most correct. In the process of solving problems, it is easy to get lost. This kind of thinking is a kind of self-correction so that we can stay on the target. Thus, it is effective only if we are honest with ourselves. 

The first step is understanding how you think and what is your thinking patterns. We can know which of our thinking perform better, or which one we need to work harder through our observation. The next step is to build up an effective thinking pattern.

Simon So Head of Digital Marketing