Sometimes, creative design and problem-solving are indistinguishable.  Developers and technology leaders use advanced resources to deal with challenging design scenarios.  But occasionally, the nature of the problem itself may defy explanation.

This was the case on November 13^th, 2019; when Oregon, Ohio 911 emergency dispatcher Tim Teneyck received a call from a local resident apparently wanting to order a pizza.

But it was no ordinary prank call, as a redacted transcript released by the Toledo Blade revealed:

• Teneyck: “Oregon 911,” Teneyck says.
• Caller: “I would like to order a pizza.” (also giving her address)
• Teneyck: “You called 911 to order a pizza?”
• Caller: “Uh, yeah,” (the caller gives her apartment number)
• Teneyck: “This is the wrong number to call for a pizza.”
• Caller: “No, no, no, no, no … You’re not understanding.”
• Teneyck: (Moment of realization) “I’m getting you now. I got it,” Teneyck says.

The caller was actually seeking help after an alleged domestic disturbance at her location.  The assailant was close enough to overhear her side of the phone call, which she disguised as an ordinary pizza delivery call.  The dispatcher picked up on this fact and police were directed to the address.

“He picked up on a woman who was in distress, but was in a position where she couldn’t convey it to him in those words,” Oregon, Ohio’s Police Chief Michael Navarre told the Toledo Blade.

Within days, word of their quick thinking made national news.  According to the Associated Press, recognizing this type of call as a sign of trouble is not a standard practice.  Instead, authorities recommend you discreetly text 911 instead.

So how did the dispatcher pick up on what was really going on?

Lateral Thinking

This scenario is an example of a real-life situation puzzle, also called a lateral thinking puzzle.  At any point in this exchange, a different dispatcher may have been tempted to take the call at face value and hang up.  But by paying attention to other possibilities, listening carefully, and by asking questions; he was able to find the correct explanation for the strange call.

Lateral thinking is a form of creative thinking.  The term was coined by Dr. Edward De Bono with regard to a set of creative thinking skills generally not taught in education. 

According to De Bono: “With lateral thinking one acknowledges the most promising approach but instead of following it one sets out to generate as many alternative approaches as possible.”  In the case of the 911 call, a lateral thought process would consider the many non-obvious explanations for the caller’s unusual behavior:

• Is it a practical joke?
• Is the call accidental?
• Is the caller intoxicated?
• Is the caller suffering a medical event?
• Is the caller being monitored?
• Is the phone service faulty?
• Is this some kind of a test?
• Is the caller under duress?

This style of brainstorming distinguishes lateral thinking from vertical thinking.  Vertical thinking essentially means choosing the “obvious” explanation, singling it out, and running with it without regarding other alternatives.

Challenges for Lateral Thinking

In an experiment, participants were asked to rearrange thin slips of plastic shapes.  The challenge was to combine them into a new shape with a very simple description, such as a rectangle or a square.

In the initial challenge, participants were given these…

And they were able to successfully build a rectangle accordingly…

Next, a new shape was introduced, as seen in Figure 4 below.  Again, the challenge was to arrange them into a very basic shape, and all 3 shapes are free to move. 

Some people may have trouble with this one, and then kick themselves for not seeing a “simple” answer like the one below…

Finally, more pieces were added…

Most participants had a great deal of difficulty with this final challenge.  Many gave up and declared that it could not be done.  Others start off with a rush, but then ended up with unsuccessful builds like the pair below…

And yet the correct answer is surprisingly simple.

Limits in Vertical Thinking

The tripping point appears to happen in the 2^nd challenge.  There are 3 shapes to rearrange, and one could certainly use the rectangle seen above in Figure 5.  But there is also an easily overlooked second way to arrange the shapes…

Having this squarish arrangement in mind by the time you reach the final challenge makes solving the final puzzle a little more doable because of its similarity to the final solution.

Naturally, our thought process is to work step by step in increments that seem to work.  We then immediately rush to the next logical step without exploring other available options.  In the innovation process, this can lead to mental hang-ups, jumping to conclusions, or at the very least: chasing after a sub-optimal solution.

In the 911 call, other subtle factors such as the caller’s tone of voice, and very good active listening (i.e. “reading between the lines”) played a role in solving the puzzle.

De Bono argues that ironically, the lateral thought process can begin once one breaks past the fear of being wrong.  This frees the imagination to pursue all manner of explanations that would otherwise be too easy to dismiss.

A Few Caveats about Lateral Thinking

It’s important to note, there’s a difference between reading between the lines and distorting what a person says.  In English, we often say the latter is like “putting words in someone’s mouth.”

It’s fair to say that distorting is not an effective way to listen, and the inference made in Figure 11 can’t be logically justified.

When a person misrepresents what the other means to say; it’s a good indication the listener has used a logical fallacy or is motivated by some confirmation biases rather than authentic curiosity about the message.  Other times, the person may have simply misread or misheard the message by accident.

Possibly a good way to distinguish distortion from lateral thinking in conversation is through consensus.  For example, in the Ohio 911 call:

• The verbal exchange became gradually more congruous as time increased;
• Confusion decreased as time increased;
• Both avoided becoming adversarial;
• By the end of the call, the two people were communicating quite effectively.

Contrast this with heated debates, which are generally policy-driven events.  When these encounters become adversarial, individuals might build up a “perceptual screen” to shield out the lateral thinking process.  Sometimes, one or both sides then become too fixated on counter-arguing to reach any consensus, and their efforts backfire.

Conclusions

What we can take away from the 911 call is that the obvious answer is not necessarily the best answer.  Compared to vertical thinking, the lateral thinking approach has been notoriously difficult to integrate into traditional education: being both difficult to teach and difficult to score.  But this style of problem-solving is increasingly demanded in the industry, where the path to tomorrow’s solutions is left up to the developer’s imagination.

References

[1]	K. Durbin, “911 call: Oregon woman reports domestic violence by ‘ordering a pizza’,” The Blade, 20 Nov. 2019.
[2]	C. Pinckard, “Ohio woman ‘orders pizza’ in 911 call to alert dispatcher of domestic violence situation,” Cleveland.com, 22 Nov. 2019. [Online]. Available: https://www.cleveland.com/metro/2019/11/ohio-woman-orders-pizza-in-911-call-to-alert-dispatcher-of-domestic-violence-situation.html. [Accessed 16 Dec. 2019].
[3]	K. Chloe, “Calling 911 with a pizza delivery order not an official way to secretly seek help,” The Associated Press, 7 Dec. 2018.
[4]	J. Bailey, “Profile Lateral thinking – Edward De Bono,” Engineering Management Journal, vol. 17, no. 5, p. 46, 2007.
[5]	E. De Bono, “Information Processing and New Ideas — Lateral and Vertical Thinking *,” The Journal of Creative Behavior, vol. 3, no. 3, p. July, 1969.
[6]	F. MacRitchie, The Need for Critical Thinking and the Scientific Method, Boca Raton, FL, USA: CRC Press, 2018.
[7]	W. Thomas and P. Ethan, “The Elusive Backfire Effect: Mass Attitudes’ Steadfast Factual Adherence,” Political Behavior, vol. 41, no. 1, pp. 136-163, 2018.

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