Be A Lateral Thinker!

Posted by Jane on 3 December, 2009  Email This Post -  Print This Post

If you want to be a lateral thinker, to creatively solve the problems and issues you encounter in life, you’ve got to challenge your own parameters.

Don’t take things for granted. Don’t assume just because they have always happened that way they always will. Rules can be broken!

Here are a few thoughts and questions to ask yourself to aid your lateral thinking:

• Is the question/problem the right one to be asking? Will asking it in another way be more helpful and creative?
• Can you draw out the problem with out using any words? (This is one of my favourites!)
• Is this the actual problem you need you need to be solving at all, or is it something more fundamental that needs to be addressed?
• Why do we things this way?
• What would happen if we threw away all our assumptions and started again?
• If we had all the money (& staff) in the world how would we look at this problem?

Remember real growth and change in you, your personal life, your career, or your business probably won’t come from what you know now but what you might know. You have to get comfortable with the uncomfortable and allow yourself not to know now and again. Try a bit of lateral thinking about your life and see what emerges!

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