After a discussion with a friend today, I realised how certain problems need a different lens to look them from. This different lens can open up multiple approaches to solving that problem.

What is lateral thinking?

Lateral Thinking is a deliberate, systematic creative-thinking process that deliberately looks at challenges from completely different angles. By introducing specific, unconventional thinking techniques, lateral thinking enables thinkers to find novel solutions that would otherwise remain uncovered. Lateral thinking focuses on what could be rather than what is possible and centers around four directives:

  • Recognize the dominant ideas that polarize the perception of a problem.
  • Search for different ways of looking at things.
  • Relax rigid control of thinking.
  • Use chance to encourage other ideas

So, what does lateral thinking look like in practice?

We all talk about thinking outside the box but most of the time, we don’t even notice the box we’re stuck in.

Try this:

A man and his son are in a car accident. The father dies on the spot, and the son is rushed to the hospital. The surgeon looks at the boy and says, “I can’t operate on him — he’s my son.”

How can that be?

Or this:

Two twins are born, but one celebrates their birthday two days before the other. How’s that possible?

Both make you pause because your brain instantly fills in gaps. You assume the surgeon’s a man. You assume time always moves neatly forward. Lateral thinking begins when you stop and ask, what else could be true?

Answers:

  1. The surgeon is his mother.
  2. The twins were born in different time zones - one just before midnight, the other after crossing the date line.

That’s really what lateral thinking is: moving sideways when your mind wants to go straight ahead. It’s not about being clever or finding trick answers, it’s about questioning the frame you’re using to look at the problem. The shift doesn’t come from thinking harder, it comes from thinking differently. Sometimes the most useful question is: “what assumption am I making here?”

The road to out-thinking people wouldn’t come from first or second-order thinking. It comes from seeing the same thing from an unconventional or a non-linear lens that other people can’t see. So yes, lateral thinking can be developed. It comes from practicing how to frame the same problem through different lenses and from stepping back to continuously question our assumptions. If this topic resonated with you, here are a few articles you might find interesting.