What is Looking Right and Left?

Looking right and left means learning from different perspectives. When you ask a variety of people for their views on a problem, you see it from new angles and can generate creative solutions. It is important to get input from a wide range of people, not just those who have a stake in your organization. Make sure to include people who are often invisible or powerless.

Why Look Right and Left?

• It helps us see new things. We often simplify what we see by categorizing our ideas and insights. Not only does this speed up mental processing, but it also helps us remember. But this categorizing process can also make us biased and short-sighted. We might view a problem too narrowly, overlook its wider context, or come up with only a few solutions. Looking right and left counteracts those biases, as it forces us to see our world from the perspective of others.
• It makes us more creative. Creativity is the ability to think up new and useful outcomes. It happens when what we know “collides” with what we don’t know. By looking left and right, we create collisions of new ideas. We borrow insights from near and far that can generate creative solutions to a problem.