Lateral thinking enhances strategic thinking – and you can build this capability; it is not something that is limited to a few “creative thinkers”.
Edward De Bono discovered the term ‘lateral thinking’ and has spent years educating us about the importance of 
thinking as a critical business tool. It is incredibly crucial to business mastery and yet overall as business people we are not given either enough tools or take enough time to develop a strong arsenal of business thinking capability. I have always found Edward De Bono’s explanation for why he wanted to help people improve their thinking incredibly powerful:
“Intelligence is like the horsepower of a car. Thinking is like the skill of the car driver. Many highly intelligent people are poor thinkers and get caught in the ‘intelligence trap’. Many less intelligent people have developed a high degree of skill in thinking”.
He saw the need to introduce a new way of thinking. He wanted a framework that did not solely rely on the more traditional way of thinking developed by what he called the ‘Gang of Three’ – Socrates, Plato and Aristotle. This traditional thinking is based on analysis, judgement, argument and criticism. We are educated to use these traditional modes – especially in our technical area of expertise. His work has liberated people to “think” and feel valued while investing the energy to engage in this kind of thinking.
So take some time to reflect now on your thinking capability – do you tend to have an over reliance on the more traditional models of thinking and get caught in the intelligence trap or do you truly stretch and think laterally? Do you invest time and energy just thinking? Have you heard of Blue Ocean Thinking?
A colleague shared with me how she engages in a “Think Week” each year – taking time and investing energy to read all those books and magazines you’ve put aside to “read one day” – and she allows herself to do just that and to “think”. What a brilliant idea and I am planning to do the same each year. Some may perceive this as a luxury – I believe as a leader it is a “necessity”.
image courtesy of debonothinkingsystems.com
