Think Outside The Box With Lateral Thinking

Lateral thinking is a creative way of thinking coined by psychologist and writer Edward De Bono. It allows people to perceive problems from new angles, enabling innovative solutions by thinking outside the box.

Some people are natural lateral thinkers, but most people — rightly so — lean more towards everyday vertical thinking that revolves around logic, past data, and existing solutions. However, it is important to mix both methods of thinking to land the best possible outcomes. While vertical thinking serves its purpose in analyzing information and adhering to established rules, lateral thinking offers a complementary approach that explores imaginative possibilities and generates breakthrough ideas. Vertical thinking is used to develop your ideas, lateral thinking is used to generate new ideas.

While you may think that you may not be the best creative thinker out there, the good news is that lateral thinking can be taught.

Pretend that you’re driving your brand new car, at night, a few miles out of town in the woods. It begins to pour rain, and there are bends and sharp turns in the road so you begin to slow down.

As you slow down around a curve you notice there’s a figure at the side of the road, and as you get closer you realize you recognize this person — they are your best friend in the entire world. In this reality, they had once saved your life from death.

You pull your car over to see if they need a ride home. As you start to pull over you notice there are two more people behind your best friend. The first is a little old lady with a cane getting soaked in the rain storm. The second person behind the old lady is the man/woman of your dreams; in this scenario, this will be the only chance in your life to meet them.

In your new car, you have only one passenger seat. Who would you pick to take with you in your car?

The lateral thinking answer would be to give the keys to your best friend so they can take the old lady home. Now you are left in the rain with the person of your dreams. Arguably, another less altruistic lateral thinking answer would be to keep driving because you don’t want these soaking-wet people to ruin the inside of your new car.

Both these answers use lateral thinking to answer the question of “Who would you pick up?”. These answers skirt around the constraints of the question to give you an optimal response.

Takeaway: use lateral thinking to skirt around the perceived constraints of a problem to get an optimal outcome.

You might imagine with this idea — how the mind categorizes everything into rigid, distinct groups with limited relationships — that it could be hard to form new ideas. Lateral thinking aims to break down some of this rigidity by forming possible new definitions and relationships.

De Bono gives us an example that during WW2 a pilot flying a bomber home was having trouble with the controls due to a leakage in the hydraulic system. However, there was no hydraulic fluid to top it up. They were saved by a member of the crew that thought to use urine to refill the system. Most people would not think of this because urine and hydraulic systems are classified so far apart.

This person broke down the parts/classifications of the problem even further — then re-combined them. We need hydraulic fluid. I have to piss. Piss is fluid. Piss is now hydraulic fluid.

We know that pee can’t solve EVERY situation. However, here are some characteristics and techniques associated with lateral thinking that you can apply yourself:

It will be natural for your mind to be impressed by the most probable outcome and proceed with it. Most of the time the most obvious solution is the best answer. However, It can be a good habit to tackle problems with lateral thinking from the start, and then shift to vertical thinking when necessary. Although it may be slower, lateral thinking will become faster once practiced, and new ideas, patterns, and outcomes can be gleaned from situations and problems.

Thinking creatively is not meant just for creatives, lateral thinking is a skill that can be developed with practice. All of us are born with the power to think and act creatively. By incorporating these strategies into your routine and embracing a mindset of curiosity and exploration, you can spur creative thought to find novel solutions to everyday problems.

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