Module: Decision-Making, Innovation and Lateral Thinking
Focus Area: Innovation and Execution
Description:
Many business problems persist not because they are impossible to solve, but because they are viewed from only one perspective. This article introduces three practical ways of looking at business challenges that help leaders uncover better solutions, avoid habitual thinking, and discover opportunities competitors overlook.
🎯 The Challenge
One of the biggest obstacles to good decision-making is not a lack of intelligence or effort—it is perspective.
When sales decline, many businesses immediately think:
- lower prices
- advertise more
- reduce costs
Sometimes those are exactly the right answers.
Often they are not.
The problem is that our first solution usually comes from the same mental framework that created the problem.
Psychologist Abraham Maslow famously observed:
“If the only tool you have is a hammer, everything looks like a nail.”
Business leaders develop the same tendency.
Marketing people look for marketing solutions.
Lawyers look for legal solutions.
Engineers look for technical solutions.
Financial professionals look for financial solutions.
Experience is valuable—but it also creates invisible blind spots.
The challenge is learning how to deliberately change perspective before committing to action.
🥋 Dojo Solution
Business Warrior’s Dojo encourages approaching difficult problems from three complementary perspectives.
1. Look Deeper
Sometimes the solution lies inside the problem.
Instead of asking:
“Why aren’t we selling enough pizza?”
ask:
- Which pizzas?
- Which locations?
- Which customers?
- Which ingredients?
- Which time of day?
- Which delivery channel?
The closer we examine the problem, the more hidden causes begin to appear.
A decline in sales may actually be caused by:
- slow preparation
- poor online reviews
- inconsistent quality
- inconvenient ordering
- delivery delays
Many problems disappear once their real causes are identified.
2. Look Wider
Sometimes the problem isn’t the product at all.
Imagine a pizza restaurant with declining revenue.
Instead of focusing only on pizza, management widens the lens.
Questions become:
- Are eating habits changing?
- Are customers ordering delivery instead of dining in?
- Are families spending less?
- Has competition increased?
- Would adding pasta, salads or lunch specials create new demand?
Looking wider often reveals opportunities invisible at ground level.
Businesses frequently solve the wrong problem because they define it too narrowly.
3. Look Sideways
The most innovative ideas often come from outside your own industry.
Suppose customers increasingly want meals they can eat while walking.
Instead of designing a better pizza…
What if pizza became portable?
Instead of a traditional pie:
- pizza cups
- pizza cones
- pizza slices designed for delivery
- automated preparation
- subscription pizza plans
None of these ideas come from improving traditional pizza.
They come from borrowing concepts from convenience stores, fast food, logistics or software businesses.
Innovation often comes from asking:
“Who solved a similar problem somewhere else?”
Every Solution Creates New Problems
Good decisions also require looking beyond the initial solution.
Adding delivery might increase revenue.
But it may also require:
- additional staff
- new packaging
- software integration
- more kitchen space
- different inventory management
Every decision changes the business system.
Strong decision-makers think not only about the first move but also the chain of consequences that follows.
🏗️ Applying It in Practice
Whenever your business faces a significant challenge, ask three sets of questions.
Step 1 — Look Deeper
What is really causing the problem?
Can it be broken into smaller pieces?
Where exactly is performance changing?
Step 2 — Look Wider
What larger trends affect this issue?
What customer behaviors have changed?
What assumptions are we making?
Step 3 — Look Sideways
Who has solved a similar problem?
What industries do this better?
Can we borrow an idea from somewhere unexpected?
For example:
Problem: Sales are falling.
Look Deeper
- Which customers stopped buying?
- Which products?
- Which locations?
Look Wider
- Is the market shrinking?
- Have buying habits changed?
- Has technology changed customer expectations?
Look Sideways
- How do subscription businesses create recurring customers?
- How do airlines maximize capacity?
- How do streaming services improve customer retention?
Each perspective produces different solutions.
Together, they dramatically improve decision quality.
📌 Key Takeaways
- Most business problems are limited by perspective before they are limited by resources.
- Looking deeper helps uncover root causes.
- Looking wider reveals larger market forces.
- Looking sideways generates innovative ideas from outside your industry.
- Every solution creates new consequences that should be considered before implementation.
- Great problem-solvers deliberately change perspective rather than relying on their first instinct.
🌿 Reflection
When businesses become stuck, the obstacle is often not the problem itself but the way it is being viewed. The strongest leaders develop the habit of stepping outside their ordinary perspective—looking deeper into the details, wider across the business landscape, and sideways toward ideas from unexpected places. Every new perspective expands the range of possible solutions, making innovation less a matter of inspiration than of disciplined observation.
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