– What is lateral thinking?
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Lateral thinking is approaching a problem in a creative or unexpected way to solve it.
For example, imagine that a person has been stabbed, and the police sealed off the building and are investigating everyone present.
“We passed everyone through a metal detector and no one is carrying a weapon.” “Well, metal detectors only detect metal. Could there have been a knife made out of wood or plastic?”
“We frisked everyone, and no one is carrying a weapon.” “Does anyone have a prosthetic leg or other accessory they could hide the weapon in?”
“No one does.” “Is it possible the weapon no longer exists?”
“How could a solid weapon disappear?” “Perhaps it is not solid anymore. Is there a pool of water anywhere that was left behind by a knife made of ice?”
No one would ever leap immediately to the idea of an ice blade, or a leg prosthetic, or a wooden blade. It requires thinking creatively and questioning your own assumptions and biases to see how an unexpected situation could have occurred.
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