What Is Lateral Thinking?

Coined by psychologist Edward de Bono in the 1960s, lateral thinking is the practice of approaching problems from unexpected angles — side-stepping the obvious to arrive at surprising, often more effective solutions. Unlike vertical thinking (going deeper into what you already know), lateral thinking deliberately disrupts your assumptions.

The good news? It's a learnable skill. Here are six concrete techniques you can add to your creative toolkit right now.

1. Random Entry

Pick a completely random word, image, or object — then force a connection between it and your problem. Open a dictionary to a random page, grab a nearby object, or use a random word generator online.

For example, if you're stuck on how to improve customer onboarding and you land on the word "telescope," you might think: zooming in on details, a long view of the journey, bringing distant things closer. Each association can unlock a new direction.

2. Provocation (Po)

De Bono's "Po" technique involves making a deliberately absurd or impossible statement about your situation, then extracting useful ideas from it. Start a statement with "Po:" to signal you're in provocation mode.

  • Po: Cars have square wheels. → Thinking this through might lead you to ideas about slower, more deliberate movement, or unconventional surfaces.
  • Po: Our customers pay us before we solve their problem. → This could spark ideas about subscription models or retainers.

3. Reverse the Problem

Instead of asking "How do I achieve X?", ask "How would I make X worse?" or "How could I guarantee failure?" Then reverse those answers into actionable strategies. This technique is powerful because it's often easier to identify what breaks things than what fixes them.

4. The Six Thinking Hats

Another de Bono classic. Assign six different "hats" (modes of thinking) to a problem:

  1. White Hat — Facts and data only
  2. Red Hat — Emotions and gut feelings
  3. Black Hat — Caution and critical judgment
  4. Yellow Hat — Optimism and benefits
  5. Green Hat — Creative ideas and possibilities
  6. Blue Hat — Process and meta-thinking

By deliberately switching hats, you force yourself (and your team) to explore a problem from every angle systematically.

5. SCAMPER

SCAMPER is a checklist of prompts for modifying an existing idea or product:

  • Substitute — What can you replace?
  • Combine — What can you merge?
  • Adapt — What can you borrow from elsewhere?
  • Modify / Magnify — What can you change or amplify?
  • Put to other uses — How else could this be used?
  • Eliminate — What can you remove?
  • Reverse / Rearrange — What if you flipped it?

6. Analogical Thinking

Ask: "Who else has solved a problem like this?" Look outside your industry entirely. How do hospitals manage handoffs? How do airlines manage safety checklists? How does nature solve distribution problems (hint: look at how trees transport water).

The further your analogy is from your domain, the more creative your solution is likely to be.

Getting Started

You don't need to use all six techniques at once. Pick one problem you're wrestling with today and spend 15 minutes applying just the Random Entry or Reversal method. The goal isn't to find the perfect answer immediately — it's to train your brain to look sideways before it looks straight ahead.