– What is lateral thinking?
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It’s a metaphor.
Think about a problem being a physical obstacle in your path. You could try to figure out a way to get over or through the obstacle, but it might be easier to go sideways off of the path to go around the obstacle or find an easier way through it in another location.
“Lateral” just means things related to the sides including going sideways.
“Lateral thinking” is thinking in that sort of way, even if it doesn’t involve a physical obstacle in a path. If you have a problem, there are probable “straight forward” ways to solve it, but they may also be other ways to deal with it that are not obvious. Trying to think of less obvious solutions is lateral thinking.
Just because an idea is lateral, doesn’t mean it’s better. Often the obvious solution is obvious for a reason, but sometimes the obvious solution is wrong, or inefficient so it’s important to consider lateral solutions. A habit of thinking laterally is insurance against those problems that shouldn’t be approached directly.
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