Analogies: Bionics, for example, has long been technically implementing in inventions what nature provides – find analogies for your business in disciplines that are as distant as possible.
Analogies are the comparison of characteristics of two things. The Chinese philosopher and military strategist Sun Tzu (born 544 BC) described the defense of the Shuai Jan snake: „If you strike its head, it attacks with its tail; if you strike its tail, it attacks with its head; if you strike its middle, it attacks with its head and tail simultaneously.“ From this he derived a fighting attitude for a military unit: toughness, reliability and the solidarity to cooperate immediately intuitively elsewhere.
For example, the method of bionics observes details in nature to use them for inventions: Bats use sonar for orientation and hunting; anesthesia snakes perform on their prey before eating it, and so on. But you can compare your challenge not only with phenomena in nature, but with any other discipline to come up with new ideas.
When we encounter something completely foreign, we analyze the individual aspects in order to understand the foreign. We compare the fragments with circumstances or objects known to us until we have understood the foreign whole by dissection. If we reverse this method, we gain an extremely effective tool for creative thinking. When you compare your challenge to a discipline or profession that is as distant as possible, the familiar becomes foreign at first. So you see your challenge from a new perspective. The more remote or strange your comparison object is, the greater the chance of generating an original idea. This is how this method got its name: The comparison of rattlesnakes and roses.
In the implementation you will find instructions for four basic analogies presented by Michael Michalko:
– personal analogy
– direct analogy
– Symbol analogy
– Fantasy analogy
