Lateral thinking forces the mind out of comfortable or conventional ways of thinking. It was pioneered by Edward de Bono in England. One way to illustrate lateral thinking is to remember that when people find themselves in a hole, their natural tendency is to dig the hole deeper. However, the solution may be to go somewhere else and to dig a totally different hole.
Lateral thinking is used to break your pattern of habitual thinking, or the tendency to fall into the trap of the comfort zone and continuing to do things the same way you have always done them in the past.
Reverse Keywords
One method of lateral thinking is the reversal of keywords or phrases. For example, as I mentioned previously, refer to a problem as an opportunity. With that in mind, treat the problem as though it has been sent to you as a gift. Examine it for the opportunity that it might contain.
Instead of saying “Our sales are down,” say, “Purchases are down.” It isn’t that we are not selling enough, but our customers are not buying enough. This changes the whole focus of the situation and leads to completely different solutions from the original definition.
Another method of lateral thinking is to use random association. Here, you pick words and then force them to fit your situation. Take a word such as orange or artichoke and describe your business, product, or problem as that word.
For example, you could say, “Our business is like an orange because . . .” On the outside it looks pretty smooth, but as you get close you see a lot of bumps. Inside you find a lot of seeds and membranes and divisions of the orange into a series of separate departments that may not communicate with each other. Of course, there are some juicy parts of our business (the most profitable parts) that we may not be paying close enough attention to. The practice of random association often triggers creative thinking in a way that you had not expected.
The Dominant Idea
Another approach in lateral thinking is called “the dominant idea.” If the dominant idea is that we have a real problem here, the lateral thinking alternative should be that we have a real profit opportunity or cost-cutting opportunity.
Shift your thinking away from the dominant idea. For example, rather than saying “We need to sell more,” say “Our customers need to buy more.
Maybe a failure you are experiencing or a loss that you are suffering is nature’s way of telling you that you are on the wrong road. Perhaps you should be doing something different, with a different product or service, selling to a different market. Maybe a loss that you’re suffering today will enable you to make a profit by doing or changing something else.
To practice lateral thinking, you should look at the other person’s viewpoint and try to see and describe the situation through that person’s eyes, especially your customers. Lawyers do this when preparing a case for court. They will first of all argue the case from the opponent’s side before preparing their own case against the other party.
Think About Customer Development
The greatest breakthroughs in sales and marketing today, described in The Lean Startup and The Four Steps to the Epiphany, revolve around the focus on “customer development” rather than “product development.” This requires taking the time to thoroughly study the demographics, the psychographics, and then the ethnographics of your potential customers. Take the time to learn who they are and what they really want and need, and then develop your products and services based on that information.
Fantasizing is another way of practicing lateral thinking. Imagine that you had a magic wand and you could wave it to remove all obstacles to achieving your objectives. If that were to happen, if you waved this magic wand and all your problems or obstacles disappeared, what would your situation look like?
Pretend the obstacles are not even there. What difference would that make? What would you do differently? What new possibilities or opportunities would open up for you if you had no limitations in terms of time, money, people, resources, talents, or abilities? Then, figure out a way to achieve these goals even without removing those obstacles, and even without having all of the natural advantages you could desire.
ACTION EXERCISES
1. In what way does your company compare with an orange, and how could you change your structure to become more productive and profitable?
2. What is it that your customers of tomorrow really want and need, and are willing to pay for, that is different from today? How could you bring those products and services to market?