Hey Friends,
I distinctly remember a thumb rule taught to me – ‘ Why fix something which is not broken’. Although, there is some wisdom is involved in such advice, however, they severely restrict your ‘ lateral Thinking’ and promote ‘complacency’.
We are constantly reading and asking about the best practices various leaders follow in their respective domain. Ask just about any leader to offer you a set of best practices they use in their company and they probably would say ” think different” Or ” Think out of the box” .
The trouble is, best practices tend to fit the often-quoted definition of insanity. You want innovation, but you just keep doing the same thing over and over based on your set of standards, but all these while expecting a different result.
If you really want to create something unique, lateral thinking is a far better bet.____Joe Sehrawat
Most of the people from various walks of life are tend to idolize — i.e., Elon Musk, Steve Jobs — make lateral thinking their calling card. No doubt, they’re incredibly good at questioning systems or ways of doing, and they’re constantly tossing best practices into the trash can to avoid complacency. You can learn to think the way they do. It simply requires an attitude that’s accepting flexibility.
What Is Lateral Thinking?
Lateral thinking simply means finding solutions with unconventional logic or reasoning that might not be easy to see initially. It’s what people mean when they say they want you to think “out of the box” and it’s invaluable. It can encourage you to take needed risks, embrace change and improve the culture of your set up or organization.
Lateral Thinking at Work
NO, RATHER A BIG NO. At first, the risk isn’t exactly welcomed with open arms. But it’s our risk-taking ability that puts us ahead. In the same way, if you want to make sure that your work or business doesn’t fizzle out or become irrelevant, then you have to stop running the same old playbook.
By being willing to embrace and promote change, you’ll naturally inspire the kind of lateral thinking that’s at the heart of innovation.__ Joe Sehrawat
Learn How to Break the Mold :-
To be clear, lateral thinking doesn’t have to mean you have to go all-in right off the bat. That can be too scary and translate to a lot of pushback from your surroundings.
The good news is that ‘Lateral thinking, like other skills, is something you can learn over time‘. And one big key to doing this is to just try to observe well and be more aware. You won’t see opportunities, after all, unless you look at all the different aspects of your domain/ industry or life and see what you can apply in totally different domains. It’s a soft skill that ties back to empathy and the ability to set your biases aside. For example, kids often think laterally with ease, because they don’t have as much experience or as many rules dictating what “should” be.
Your observation and awareness need to continue even after you’ve started to make changes. It’s OK if it doesn’t always pan out to be great. In those cases, always pivot. In other cases, you might look and get the sense that what you’re doing actually is working. That’s where you double down. But you have to be willing to take those initial risks and be willing to change.
Here is the KEY :-
Don’t bet everything on one big change and hope it works out. Instead, experiment constantly on a small scale. Do frequent, small changes that aren’t as risky and see if those can be successful. Get a lot of big insight from those small shifts. Then, if your observations show that there’s a tremendous opportunity, you can go after it on a large scale and have the best chance of having the change be successful.
Lateral Thinking has always defined the Leaders of past and present — and you can be one of them.__ Joe Sehrawat
Most of the people and professionals tend to idolize — i.e., Elon Musk, Steve Jobs — make lateral thinking their calling card. They’re incredibly good at questioning systems or ways of doing, and they’re constantly tossing best practices into the trash can to avoid complacency. You can learn to think the way they do. It simply requires an attitude that’s accepting of flexibility. Question everything, observe and try out what you can bit by bit. Trust, growth on both personal and professional will follow.
JOE
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