Inversion Thinking (Upside-Down Heuristic)

What Happens If We Turn Everything Upside Down?

You won’t find anyone more resourceful than a Yellow. If there is anything Yellows have an aptitude for, it’s seeing solutions where others do not. Yellows have the unique ability to twist and turn things. To put it simply, they turn everything upside down and think outside the box. Call it what you want, but their thinking doesn’t always follow any set pattern.

They move quickly: The Yellow’s intellect is very fast, which means that it can be difficult to keep up. Sometimes they can even find it difficult to explain their wild ideas.

A good friend of mine likes to work on his home. Everything relating to interior design and garden design fascinates him. I suspect that Robban would secretly rather work in design on a full-time basis instead of his actual job.

I’ve seen this for myself, but I’ve also heard from his wife how he goes about things. He walks around the garden, and she starts counting backwards from ten. On seven, Robban says, “Honey, I have an idea.”

There are a few reasons for Robban’s creativity. It’s easy for him to think in images. He can simply “see” things in front of him long before they even exist. And he has courage; he’s not afraid to try new things. Or to talk about them. Usually, his mouth works parallel to his mind as he discovers these ideas.

I’ve worked with a Yellow who couldn’t even cross the street without coming up with a few really thought-provoking business ideas—just by looking around. How does this work? I don’t really know. For a long time, we asked him to write down his proposals. Recording the proposals would make them available for later evaluation.

Yellows are also helped by the fact that they rarely have any limitations. A Yellow dares to go beyond the usual conventions when he’s in a creative mode. Normally, of course, structure and hierarchy in a business are a kind of limitation, but Yellows are rarely concerned about such things. In fact, they often don’t seem to know that such limitations are there.

Need help with new suggestions or ideas? Hunt out the most Yellow person you know. Are you stuck in the same way of thinking? Do you need a new perspective on an old problem? Speak to a Yellow. You might not be able to use whatever idea scheme they come up with—in fact, realism isn’t a factor for a Yellow—but one thing can lead to another and then all of a sudden you have something that works.