Be A Lateral Thinker!
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!
Think Weird!
When I’m working with groups at seminars, or one to one coaching, I often ask them to think weird!
Surprisingly, weird thinking can produce amazing results. When we have an issue or problem to work on I’ll often ask people to come up with as many solutions as they can. They can have as many sensible thoughts as they like as long as they include at least one that is completely bonkers and off the wall!
It is amazing how often the off the wall idea can be tamed into submission and become the one eventually used to solve the problem. This is because when we’re thinking in a left brain logical way we continually judge and censor our thoughts. When we really let our imagination run wild we are accessing the right side of brain which is creative. It helps us tap into our subconscious and produce more original thoughts. And it makes us smile!
So, next time you are faced with what seems an insoluble problem, think weird. It’ll really open your mind to life’s possibilities!
Slow Down Your Thinking
Slow Thinking
The idea of slow thinking feels contrary to our Western take on problem solving. However, there has been some scientific research that demonstrates that the more patient, slow type of thinking is more effective than deliberate, logical thinking when we are trying to solve a problem that is ill defined; when we don’t know exactly what we are looking for, what the parameters are, or simply where to start.
You will probably have experienced this already. For example, how often do good ideas come to you at odd moments, maybe in the shower, or when you are on the brink of sleep and your brain waves have slowed but you are still awake? (Incidentally, this is why visualisations are so successful as they take your mind to that point just before sleep but leave you mentally alert).
Allowing your mind time to unwind is not a luxury, or being lazy, but positively good for you. So when you next have a problem to solve don’t force yourself to an answer.
Contemplate
To tap into these slow ways of knowing, or our inner wisdom, we need to throw off for a time our Western need to do everything fast, know why we are doing it, and have a theory to explain it. This was well 
understood by many of the great thinkers of our time. Einstein, for example, was often found just sitting in his office staring into space and Sir John Harvey Jones (ex-Chair of ICI) said that a meeting without long silences meant that no one was thinking.
In my seminars and courses I always try to build in some reflective space. I encourage participants just to wander for a while, actually or figuratively, to allow some of the ideas and strategies simply to percolate round in their head. It’s something we rarely get a chance to do in the fast paced world of work but it costs little and can greatly enhance your problem solving capacities, your mental well being, and your enjoyment of life!
Slow Thinking Time
Put some time in your diary now. Slow Thinking Time (STT), and see what happens – you may be surprised! And if colleagues scoff, tell them you are employing a well known technique from Einstein!
Suggestions for Further Reading available from Amazon or your local library,
Hare Brain, Tortoise Mind by Guy Cla
