Why does lateral thinking work?

From the earliest age and particularly through schooling we are taught there are right answers and wrong answers. This binary thinking stems from Greco-Roman philosophy when logic first began replacing mythology as a guiding principle.

And it’s not a bad way to be. It has certainly brought civilisation a long way. However times change.

This binary thinking tends to result in a right/wrong or good/bad view that dominates our thinking. Behaviourally this often results in defensive or aggressive positions to support one’s view, or change someone else’s. It becomes an argument about not what’s best, but who’s right.

Binary thinking also creates silos, processes, rigid methodologies and an inability to simply stop and look sideways for something else. It rejects fresh thinking - it even punishes it. Who wants to put forward an idea that might be considered wrong. It is this fear of making mistakes - and being judged for it - that inhibits the creation of new ideas.

Lateral thinking, originally developed by Edward de Bono and then carried forward by the brilliant Michael Hewitt Gleeson, offers a better way to think. Instead of yes or no it offers a third approach.

Lateral thinking is “trinary” thinking. Instead of evaluating an idea in terms of right and wrong, it offers right, wrong and BETTER.

Lateral thinking greatly encourages a 360 degree view of problems. It removes judgement from ideation processes, it institutes the search for better and provides the tools to do so. Better still it’s within all of us to integrate lateral thinking into our daily lives.

Businesses that integrate lateral thinking do better. The evidence is there.