Reframing with Randomness — Using Random Words and Images to Stimulate New Thinking
Learning with ACRE - 047
Let’s explore one of Edward de Bono’s most accessible and practical lateral thinking tools: using random words or images to jolt the mind out of familiar patterns. This deceptively simple yet powerful technique helps individuals and teams escape habitual thinking, develop mental agility, and deepen creative resilience. It enables a fresh, unexpected approach to problem-solving and ideation by introducing novel and unrelated prompts into our thought processes. It’s a tool that rewards curiosity, spontaneity, and a willingness to play.
Why This Matters
Creative thinking often stalls because our brains naturally follow well-trodden neural paths. This “pattern recognition” tendency, while efficient, limits our ability to innovate. When facing familiar problems, we tend to default to known solutions or what worked in the past. While this habit serves us well in predictable contexts, it acts as a barrier in uncertain or evolving situations where originality and reinvention are required.
Introducing a random element disrupts this cycle and interrupts the ‘autopilot’ of thought. It forces the brain to pause, reconsider, and create new mental connections. The result? Unusual insights, surprising combinations, and bold new pathways to action that would not have been considered through conventional reasoning.
In a world where problems are increasingly complex and ambiguous, being able to think laterally is not just a creative bonus — it is an essential capability. Whether you're in business, education, design, entrepreneurship, public service, or community leadership, the ability to reframe challenges and generate alternative perspectives is a hallmark of effective, innovative thinking. It fosters resilience, empathy, and adaptability — skills urgently needed in the 21st century.
What It Is
The random word or image technique involves selecting an unrelated word or visual stimulus and using it as a springboard for new thinking. The purpose is to make deliberate, forced connections between the stimulus and the challenge at hand. These connections spark new neural pathways, enabling you to reframe the problem, generate novel ideas, and move into more flexible, imaginative territory.
Importantly, the power of this technique lies not in the randomness itself but in what the randomness provokes. By challenging our assumptions and usual patterns of thought, random stimuli act like creative provocateurs. They draw our attention to connections we would otherwise overlook and invite us to shift from analytical problem-solving to generative exploration.
It’s a bit like changing the lens on a camera — suddenly, the same landscape appears in a radically different light.
How to Implement It
Define Your Challenge Clearly: Start by writing down a specific problem, question, or opportunity you're working on. Clarity at this stage sets the stage for more fruitful exploration. The more precisely you can articulate the challenge, the easier it becomes to apply the technique in a meaningful and productive way.
For example: "How might we improve the customer onboarding experience for our digital product?"
Select a Random Stimulus: Use a dictionary, image bank, random word generator, stack of magazines, or even street signage. Close your eyes and point to a word or image, or use a digital randomiser to ensure that you are not unconsciously choosing something familiar or relevant. The more random, the better — let go of control.
For example: "Cactus."
Generate Rich Associations: Take a few minutes to list as many ideas, characteristics, or associations related to the word or image as possible. Set a timer for 2–5 minutes to encourage spontaneity and prevent overthinking. Aim for at least 10–15 associations to push your thinking past the obvious.
Example associations for "Cactus": resilient, needs little maintenance, stores water, protective spines, survives in harsh environments, slow-growing, unique shapes, resource-conserving, low demand on resources, blooms under pressure, built-in defences, adaptable to extremes.
You can also sketch the image, create a mind map, or use metaphorical prompts such as: What does this remind me of? How does this relate to systems, people, or time?
Make Lateral Connections: Now, deliberately use these associations to inspire ideas for your challenge. Ask:
How might these features inform our thinking about the problem?
What metaphors or parallels can we draw?
Could we adopt a similar principle or borrow a quality of this object?
What if our challenge was this object — how would we care for it or evolve it?
Example responses:
"Could our onboarding process be more self-sustaining, like a cactus requiring little care once established?"
"What kind of 'protective spines' might help new users avoid early frustration or churn?"
"Could we ‘store’ helpful resources in a way that customers can draw on when needed — like how a cactus stores water for future use?"
"Can we create a slow-release onboarding journey that thrives under pressure but does not overwhelm?"
The aim is not to force a perfect solution but to allow your thinking to stretch. Unrelated ideas act as creative levers, nudging you into more original and adaptable territory.
Expand, Combine, and Refine: Capture all ideas, even the wild and impractical ones. This is the divergent thinking phase where quantity matters. After generating possibilities, shift into a convergent mindset: identify ideas with potential, combine compatible ones, and reshape promising fragments into practical strategies.
If needed, repeat the process using a second or third random stimulus to explore the problem from additional directions. You may even invite others to contribute their stimuli and associations, which enhances the richness and diversity of thought.
What Becomes Possible
By introducing randomness into your thinking process, you unlock a wide range of creative benefits:
Escape from fixed patterns of thought and habitual assumptions
Activate underused neural connections that foster insight and innovation
Strengthen your brain’s capacity to work with ambiguity, surprise, and complexity
Reframe challenges in ways that unlock new emotional and cognitive responses
Generate novel, unexpected ideas that go beyond obvious solutions
Develop resilience, openness, and imaginative fluency in your personal and professional thinking
Cultivate a playful and exploratory mindset that invites experimentation
Over time, practising this technique rewires your creative habits. You become less reliant on predictable logic and more confident in navigating ambiguity. This is not just a creative skill but a life skill — one that equips you to respond with insight and agility in uncertain and fast-changing environments.
Try It Now
Think of a current challenge you're facing. It could be personal, professional, relational, or strategic. Then:
Grab a random book and select a word with your eyes closed
Scroll through your photo gallery and stop at an arbitrary image
Use a random word generator online (many are freely available)
Walk around your environment and notice an object or label at random
Write down the word or describe the image. Spend 3–5 minutes brainstorming associations and qualities. Then begin asking exploratory questions: How could this word change the way I see the problem? What qualities can I borrow, adapt, or invert?
Suspend judgment. Let your thoughts wander. Give yourself full permission to think playfully and expansively. Record your ideas using sketches, sticky notes, flowcharts, or journaling — any method that externalises your thinking.
You may not land on the perfect solution right away. But what you will do is begin cultivating one of the most vital muscles of innovation: flexible, divergent thinking. With regular practice, this method becomes a reliable companion — one that not only sparks creative ideas but transforms the way you see and respond to the world around you.
Over time, you’ll notice your tolerance for uncertainty increases, your confidence in generating ideas strengthens, and your ability to lead creative dialogue, with yourself or others, grows. That is the enduring power of reframing with randomness.
Join us at ACRE29, Africa’s Premier Creativity and Creative Thinking Conference in 2025 at Klein Kariba, South Africa! https://acreconference.com