Marketers love buzzwords. We often hear about “thinking outside of the box,” along with many of the other words and sentences that have become overused in business or personal messaging. But what gets lost among the calls for approaching problems with “creativity,” is simply approaching problems with lateral thinking. (Tweet This Quote)
As explained by Shane Snow, in his article How to Apply Lateral Thinking to Your Creative Work, lateral thinking outlines that when you disregard the need to act on a problem immediately, and reframe the questions/problems being posed, that the best answer/solution becomes obvious.
When faced with a problem or question, don’t try and find a solution as fast as possible just because it’s how you always do things.
The problem is, the default for most people is linear thinking, and trying to attack a problem head-on without taking a step back—but it is possible to change your default thinking from linear to lateral. Here are four ways to starting thinking laterally with any problem that comes your way:
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Change Your Perspective
To spark lateral thinking, pretend you’re someone else trying to solve the problem—how would someone with no prior experience or knowledge try to find a solution? Innovation often occurs when new people enter an industry, or varying groups of people meet and create solutions based off of their collective experiences. Start fresh, and ignore all prior conventions or notions.
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Write Down All The Assumptions
When faced with a problem or question, don’t try and find a solution as fast as possible just because it’s how you always do things (Tweet This Quote). Take the time to write down all the assumptions that are implicit to the problem or question.
Now take a step back and verbalize the conventional solutions—the obvious, the straightforward, the typical route. When all the assumptions are written down, and the obvious solutions have been verbalized, take a step back and….
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Rewrite the Question
Assume you couldn’t go the obvious route—the best way to find a solution is to rewrite the question. If you’re picking between two similar pieces of software for your department, instead of asking, “Which software is better?”, you might ask “Why wouldn’t I pick software x?” or “Why do we even need this software?”
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Start With the Solution First
Much like rewriting the initial problem or question, you can also think laterally by taking the solution you have in mind, and then working backwards. For example, when deciding between two pieces of software, asking, “Which software is better?” is too blanketed, and only results in ineffective answers. If you want the software to ultimately provide new leads through your website (the solution), keep the solution in mind and ask yourself a highly-targeted question, such as, “How can we generate new leads through easily customizable landing pages on our mobile site?” and then work backwards. By doing this, you’ll find stronger, more effective solutions to your problems.