Genius may appear to be spontaneous — whether we are speaking about literature, science or business. Someone was simply lucky enough to be born a genius, so they broke through.
But many geniuses share one trait that distinguishes them from everyone else: paradoxical thinking. This article is about what it is and how to develop it.
This is not just the author’s speculation. It is supported by studies of genius and creativity conducted by different people, at different times and through different methods.
About thirty years ago, Harvard psychiatrist Albert Rothenberg interviewed 22 Nobel laureates to find common patterns in their thinking. He also studied biographies and works of historical geniuses.
He concluded that they shared a tendency to consider two or more antithetical ideas simultaneously, while most people prefer to adopt one of two opposing views.
Think of Einstein, who proposed that an object may simultaneously be moving and at rest, depending on the frame of reference. The unity of opposites is evident.
Or Niels Bohr, who recognised that a photon can behave as both a wave and a particle. Again, a unity of opposites. These are examples of paradoxical thinking.
There is hardly any need to explain the impact these ideas had on science and quantum physics.
From science to everyday life
“Why should I care about scientists? I am not trying to become the next Einstein,” someone might think. But paradoxical thinking is equally useful in more grounded areas such as business and startups, where unconventional thinking produces innovation.
Ella Miron-Spektor demonstrated this in studies involving senior managers, entrepreneurs and employees. In every group, people with stronger paradoxical thinking were considerably more creative and effective, especially during critical moments for a company.
They tended to be less attached to accepted ways of doing things and therefore found more effective paths with significantly fewer resources. Even a few people with this mindset could noticeably increase the effectiveness of the whole team.
In one experiment, Ella showed that merely reading several paradoxical statements before solving a task could increase cognitive performance by 15%.
The statements did not even need to relate to the task. For example:
- By not working, you can earn more than by working.
- You can become tired faster while sitting than while walking.
- The person standing in front of you is also standing very far behind you.
Generating three sentences and increasing your brain’s efficiency in the moment sounds rather energy-efficient to me.
Now imagine that the paradoxical statements directly concern the problem. How much more could they improve the solution?
Genrich Altshuller — inventor, scientist, teacher and author — arrived at this discovery after analysing tens of thousands of patents. He noticed that breakthrough technologies solved contradictory tasks: an object had to be light yet strong, cold yet hot, and so on.
He proposed and tested the reverse idea: when a problem is formulated correctly as a contradiction, the probability of finding a stronger solution rises dramatically.
This concept later became a foundation of TRIZ and contributed to thousands of inventions and solutions around the world. TRIZ evolved, and the same principles proved useful for business challenges.
How does it work?
The easiest way to understand it in business is through a real example from my practice.
A client was launching a unified food-delivery service but had only about $4,000 for app development. He was looking for someone willing to build the application for that amount.
From my experience, this kind of work cost much more. Hiring a less qualified developer risked wasting a great deal of time and producing a clumsy application.
The point of paradoxical thinking is that making the problem harder filters out weak solutions. Ideas begin to appear that satisfy both conditions. A correctly framed question already contains part of the answer.
We found a solution in literally one hour, and the delivery service began operating the following day. We installed the Gloria Food plugin on the company’s Facebook page. This happened outside Russia.
We saved an enormous amount of time, stress and money simply by activating paradoxical thinking.
Upgrading the brain
The good news is that this skill can be developed. It takes effort to rewire familiar patterns of thought, but both my own experience and that of the people I teach show that it is worth it.
Begin by noticing paradoxes and solutions to contradictory problems around you. Even a supermarket contains a surprising number of them.
Consider the shopping cart. There was a time when carts did not exist. One entrepreneur noticed that people headed for the checkout as soon as their hand baskets became heavy.
The contradiction was clear: the larger the basket, the more a person could buy; yet the larger it became, the heavier it was. The basket needed to be large and still easy to carry when full.
Once the problem is phrased this way, the answer — wheels — seems obvious. Yet nobody had put the two existing resources together before.
The more of these solutions you find and analyse, the more effectively you will frame your own problems as contradictions and solve them. As with any skill, it is a matter of practice. Turn it into a game, a habit or a warm-up for your brain.
Pitfalls
The first difficulty is that contradictory tasks make us uncomfortable. At first they appear impossible and create a little stress.
Even physically, more neurons must engage. This produces resistance: part of the brain tries to protect itself from “overheating” and return to familiar paths.
The second difficulty is learning to formulate contradictions accurately, so they actually lead to new ideas. At first this seems difficult, but every successfully solved problem brings a deeper understanding.
Putting it together
Here are several ways to develop your thinking through paradox:
- Find and formulate paradoxical statements before solving a difficult problem.
- Analyse products, marketing decisions, business models and films. Identify the contradictory tasks they solved. They are everywhere once you begin to notice them.
- Formulate your current challenges as contradictions. Look for contexts in which both sides could become reality.
- For an advanced level, study TRIZ. Alongside methods for framing contradictions, it contains a broad collection of ways to resolve them.
Anyone can learn this skill. Set the intention and practise. The effect extends to many areas of life because you begin to see problems completely differently.
“The level we call genius is the normal operating level of the human mind.”
— Genrich Altshuller
Finally, here are several contradictory challenges that my clients and I have worked on. Try finding your own solutions:
- We spend nothing on advertising our services, yet double our profit.
- I do not fire employees, yet the people I would fire leave on their own.
- Agents have no suitable property, yet we find exactly what we need.
- I do not push my product, yet people buy it well.
- Our property is equipped worse than our competitors’, yet we successfully rent it for three times the price.
- I have several projects, yet I manage to do everything.
- Competitors pay higher salaries, yet our employees remain with us.
- We do not pay for delivery, yet our product is delivered.