If you can generate an awareness of what an ideal state of affairs might be, even if it seems unattainable at present, constraints that have loomed as absolute can be seen differently; as potentially surmountable obstacles to the attainment of the ideal solution. Then you can concentrate on ways of removing those obstacles.
To illustrate, let's say that you are in the lumber industry and the key success factors are: owning large forests and maximizing the yield from them. The rate of tree growth is a key variable that is dependent upon the amount of sunshine and amount of water.
If you owned forests in Arizona and Utah, for example, they would get enough sunshine but too little water. The ideal solution would be to give trees in those two states enough water, so they'd be ready in less than fifteen years instead of the thirty it takes today. The most important project you would have would be finding out how to do this.
Try using this out-of-the box thinking to work through opportunities in your business.
Source: Kenichi Ohmae: The Mind Of The Strategist: The Art of Japanese Business