A game that I've played, which started with a real problem in my house -- I have three kids.

我玩过的一个游戏在我家里引发了真正的问题——我有三个孩子

All three of my kids are generally messy.

三个孩子都不太讲究

And we have not really successfully mastered persuading them to do their own laundry.

我们也未能成功劝说他们去洗自己的衣服

So my wife and I have children who play sports, and the laundry keeps piling higher and higher and higher.

我们的孩子都喜欢体育运动 于是家里的脏衣服越堆越高

Now, I don't know about you, but anyone else who's got multiple children,

我不知道你什么情况 但任何有多个孩子的人

you have a busy life, and the laundry doesn't just get done by itself.

你的生活手忙脚乱 脏衣服又不会自己变干净

Now you probably would say what my wife said to me:

你可能会说跟我妻子一样的话：

Well, there's lots of obvious things you could do to solve that problem.

这个问题有很多显而易见的解决办法啊

You could send the laundry out, you could have a cleaning lady come and do the laundry.

你可以把衣服拿到洗衣店去洗 也可以请清洁工到家里帮忙洗

You could threaten your children, you could bribe your children.

你可以威胁或贿赂孩子 让他们去洗

And those are all fine.

这些都没问题

But those are what I would call obvious solutions to a complex problem.

但我认为这些都是复杂问题的简单解决办法

So how might you be able to solve this problem of not having enough time to wash and fold your laundry?

那你会如何解决没时间洗叠衣服这个问题呢？

What I would introduce is the idea of a provocative question that pushes us down those lateral paths versus the vertical or logical paths.

我想说的是用一个带有挑衅性的问题 迫使我们去横向看待问题 而不是采取竖向或逻辑方法

So an example might be: What if the laundry washed and folded itself?

比如：如果衣服会自己洗干净叠好 会怎么样？

What if the laundry washed and folded itself?

如果衣服会自己洗干净叠好 会怎么样？

That sounds ridiculous, right?

听起来像是痴人说梦 是吧？

Because laundry does not wash and fold itself.

因为衣服不可能自己洗好叠好

But that is the point of a provocative question.

但这正是挑衅性问题的意义所在

It forces us to now think, well, how could that happen?

它迫使我们去思考 那怎么可能呢？

Well, what if you could have a robot that ingested the clothes and washed and folded it for you immediately, which, by the way,

如果有那种机器人可以把脏衣服吞进去 并迅速给你洗干净叠好呢 顺便说一下

there was a product out there called the Laundroid which came out using a lateral thinking approach,

曾经有种产品叫做自动折衣机 它就是横向思维的产物

all by taking that indirect approach towards solving a problem.

采用间接方法去解决问题

But there's many others that you could come up with.

但你还能想出很多其他办法

What if you didn't have to wear clothes at all?

如果人压根儿就不需要穿衣服呢

What if clothes were invisible? What if you changed the social norm?

如果衣服是隐形的呢 如果我们改变社会规范呢

That could be the idea of a nudist colony.

那可能正合裸体主义群体的意

Not recommending it, but it's a possibility.

我并不是主张这样 但它也是一种可能

So you can see how a wild question -- a 'what if?', like what if the laundry washed and folded itself? --

由此可以看出 一个疯狂的问题——一个“如果” 比如 如果衣服会自己洗干净叠好呢？——

can lead you down non-obvious paths.

会把你导向不明显的办法上去

It can break with tradition.

它可能打破传统

It'll move you out of the normal conventions in which we typically solve problems.

它会让你偏离正常轨道 而这正是我们解决问题的途径

And we could apply it to really serious problems from the environment to corporate staff to technology issues that we face of being too distracted.

我们可以把这种方法应用到很严重的问题上 从环境问题到公司员工到注意力被过度分散的科技问题

It could be very relevant and applied.

说不定真的息息相关 并且很实用

But the example of the laundry, it's just another way that we can solve a conventional problem

但洗衣服这个例子 它只是可以用来解决传统问题的另一种办法

that we may take obvious and normal solutions to.

但我们通常都会选择明显正常的方法