Oblique Strategies
Brian Eno and Peter Schmidt produced the first set of Oblique Strategies cards in 1975. They have much in common with the I Ching and can be used in all kinds of situations - personal and professional. Here's what the authors have to say (quite grandly) about them: "Throughout the world people have realized a universality among these word combinations: they speak to the mind, to the heart and to the gut. Whatever obstacles a person may find in their life, meditating on one of these strategies can help a person focus towards their goal. These oblique strategies never provide answers, but they give a person impetus to look somewhere they hadn't thought of looking before. It's like having someone look over your shoulder and point out something you overlooked. One can mull over the entire list of possibilites and choose the one most appropriate to the moment. One can opt to have a specific personal life issue in mind, or just attempt to grok the wisdom of the list as a whole without a personal issue upon which to reflect. However, we all have issues of one form or another, and exploring the list, most individuals will hear one cry out to them as words of hope, or opportunities to open the mind and think outside the box. These strategies were generally inspired by engineers and creative artists, but they speak to the entire spectrum of mankind, from architects to zoologists, and everyone in between. Traditionally, the strategies are seen separately, on cards. An individual holds the deck in hand, contemplates a personal issue of any kind, and draws a single card from a shuffled deck. If only one card is selected, the proper procedure is to trust implicitly the advice of that strategy, even if its validity to the moment is unclear. One can choose to select more than one card as separate words of advice, or buffer it with the original situation." Oblique Strategies entry at h2g2 Many of the Oblique Strategies offer ideas about how to handle dilemmas. Decision-making is often hampered by our habit of looking for a single solution. So the suggestion here is simply to value dilemmas as moments of creative possibility, rather than looking on them as something that one gets stuck on the horns of. Here are some Oblique Strategies for a strategic planning meeting. And here are 10 Oblique Strategies for an Innovation Team or a Start-Up (as suggested by Sean Murphy and reported in Inside Project Red Stripe). References: Brian Eno and the Enoshop h2g2 Inside Project Red Stripe Sean Murphy |
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