Who hasn’t heard of lateral thinking? Just about each one of us- at some point we have all had managers or peers who have highlighted about “out of box thinking” and “lateral thinking “ to solve a not so rule- based problem at work.
And then came along the barrage of other thinking approaches….Systems thinking, Parallel thinking, Non- linear thinking, Art of Science thinking and Science of Art thinking, Creative thinking, Critical thinking and on and on…..
By the way for the ones who abuse and over do these concepts, Lateral Thinking is only a tool to get unstuck. After a brainstorming exercise, one should ideally go back to Vertical thinking. Bono in own book says that- we need Lateral Thinking only about 5% of the times — rest of the times, Vertical thinking is what will help us live in the world!
And then these days, you have the overdose of Design thinking- the Human centered and Empathetic thinking. Well, not only in the tech industry — where everyone wants to be/ to hire ‘design thinking’, particularly among product managers and designers. Its also the much talked about training or workshop in most of the analytics companies.
Have you wondered how these all differ? Or ever wondered which of these thinkers do you bracket yourself in?
Or do they all more or less just mean “Structured thinking “ with some glamour sprinkled on it!
