| Here at Your Excellency HQ we are starting the week off with a smile having received the news that Josh is a finalists for the 2026 Strategic PA Network Awards. If you’ve experienced Josh’s professional and friendly training style, I’m sure you will join me in congratulating him. There’s a Your Excellency post on LinkedIn here and if you’d like to comment there, we’d be hugely appreciative. In today’s Issue I’m inviting you to step into a “solution-focused mindset” (sounds fancy doesn’t it?!). I know you are often the “go to” person when things don’t go to plan in the office and you need to be adept at problem solving. Did you know, the most effective problem solving combines both logical and lateral thinking? Logical thinking is about identifying the hard facts – the “what’s what” evidence. Lateral thinking is about thinking differently and creatively. It’s about coming at a problem from a different angle or perspective. And because lateral thinking is a different way of thinking, it takes practice. Below is an extract from our LATERAL THINKING QUIZ which will help you practice lateral thinking. Consider these 8 questions: 1. What can you put in a wooden box that would make it lighter? The more of them you put in the lighter it becomes, yet the box stays empty. 2. Which side of a cat contains the most hair? 3. The 60th and 62nd British Prime Ministers of the UK had the same mother and father but were not brothers. How do you account for this? 4. A window cleaner is cleaning the windows on the 25th floor of a skyscraper when he slips and falls. He is not wearing a safety harness and nothing slows his fall, yet he suffered no injuries. Explain. 5. If a red house is made of red bricks and a blue house is made of blue bricks, what is a green house made of? 6. John’s mother has three children, one is named April, one is named May. What is the third one named? 7. A cowboy rode into town on Friday, spent one night there and left on Friday. How do you account for this? |
8. Using just ONE straight cut, how can you cut a rectangular cake into two equal parts when a rectangular piece has already been removed from it?
I will be providing the answers in next week’s #LunchNLearnWithLindsay and would love to know how many you get right.
