From Shake That Brain by Joel Saltzman:
[I]magine that a ship is sinking and that the lifeboat isn't big enough to accommodate all the survivors. Which survivors should be thrown overboard? This is a true story:
In 1943, the SS Deer Lodge was torpedoed. Men were sick, injured, and the too-small lifeboat was in danger of sinking. With little discussion and no debate, here's what they did. While the stronger men stayed on board to bail, others took turns going over the side, hanging on to the gunwales as their only support. In the end, every crewman was saved.
Instead of thinking "someone has to go," their assumption was "no one has to go."
When approaching a particular challenge, make a list of all your assumptions – everything you know to be true about your product, service, industry or problem du jour. Then go back and question each assumption. Avoid either/or thinking. Look to combine solutions with the genius of AND, and keep looking for more solutions.
