In part, it's something you can only learn through experience. But looking at an issue from all sides is as important as learning to clear your head. [Cain's ability to put two and two together, even when it wasn't obvious where or what the twos were, saved him more than a few times during his career.]
Start with something simple. Like an apple. [It's a horrible example, but it was the easiest thing he could think of so quickly.] An apple simply is, but the seeds inside want to become a tree. And the tree that made it was an apple long, long ago.
Events and people operate in the same way. You just have to learn to look under the skin of it.