The best human thinkers have always been able to see things from other perspectives, from other people's points of view. Let's say you're speaking in front of an audience or selling to a particular market. Or maybe you want to convince a specific person of something. Putting yourself in the other person's shoes is essential. And that takes imagination, even if, or especially if, the other person or audience lacks imagination.

Imaginative thinkers can put themselves in situations that are foreign to them, even situations that couldn't possibly exist, just to get their mental juices flowing. They say “What if? Then what?” They become skilled at asking the right questions.

When someone else's point of view is a factor for you, it's not always easy to take it. But you can take steps toward getting closer to the other person's viewpoint. The first step should be obvious: get out of your own personal box. Until you take a vacation from the way you think and stand outside that process, you cannot project yourself into another mode of looking at things. Once you're on neutral ground you're automatically closer to the other person. In turn, they might change and be accessible to you once you've pushed your premises and agendas to the sidelines. No matter how smart and creative you are, you can learn by jumping into the way other people think.

And while we're on the subject, here's our next little bit of poetry, this time from the immortal quill of Robert Burns:

Oh wad some power the giftie gie us
To see oursels as others see us!
It wad frae monie a blunder free us,
An' foolish notion.

But Mousie, thou art no thy lane,
In proving foresight may be vain:
The best laid schemes o' mice an' men
Gang aft a-gley,
An' lea'e us nought but grief an' pain
For promis'd joy.

Still thou art blest compar'd wi' me!
The present only toucheth thee:
But oh! I backward cast my e'e
On prospects drear!
An' forward tho' I canna see
I guess an' fear!

Exercise: “What If” Thinking

Try to rev up your imagination like a chess player planning many possible combinations of moves 10 moves ahead. Let's say you have a problem to solve, perhaps a career decision to make.

• Why stick to your own present experience? How can you enlarge the experience base that you use to approach the problem?

• Ask yourself how would you have handled this five years before, or how you would handle it five years in the future.

• What would your parents or grandparents have done? Your friends? Your siblings or cousins?

• What would Captain Kirk do in the same situation—or Elvis Presley or George Washington?

• You've probably had a situation in your life where you thought you had a problem you couldn't solve, then a little time passed and you were able to solve it. Can you apply any lessons you learned or perspectives you gained from that situation to the present situation?