Thinking Out of the Box – Or Is It?

                 Or

A Cliché By Any Other Name

 

I have worked with a number of people recently who are extolling the virtues of “out of the box” thinking.

First, they amazed me with how many clichés they could string together in one sentence.  Think of something similar to the following sentences and you will know what I mean. 

“There’s no time like the present to seize the bull by the horns so we might as well kill two birds with one stone while we’re at it.  Everyone knows that it’s the early bird that gets the worm so let’s get started – after all, two heads are better than one and the right time to begin is now”.

After you have applied your cliché filter, you realize they didn’t say anything at all.

One of the clichés that doesn’t say much is “thinking out of the box”. 

Recently, I have observed a number of projects where people thought “out of the box” and ended up creating another box that looks the same as the old one except for a minor variation here and there.  Maybe the new box is a different color or is made of a new material.

However, because the desire was to create a different box but the focus was on the old box and how it was created (so that they could avoid recreating it, of course), they ended up creating something that looked slightly different but still had all the primary limitations of the box they were trying to correct in the first place.

I wonder if thinking outside the box provides some comfort to these people, some attachment to that which they know instead of venturing into previously unchartered territory (at least for them).

After all, if you think outside the box but get uncomfortable, you can always climb back inside the old box.  You will be safe there for a while, until the original reasons why the box is insufficient force you to climb out of it again.  For those people, they become trapped in a frustrating, never-ending cycle in their personal or professional life when this happens. 

If you decide, however, that you want to create something totally new, then you may not always have something to retreat to.

You are totally committed.

As I like to say, you are either all in it or not in it at all.

So the next time you are faced with a significant challenge, instead of saying “let’s use out of the box thinking” trying asking yourself this instead.

Forget about what you have.  If you wanted any semblance of it, you wouldn’t be having a conversation to replace it.

Think about what you want.  Don’t think about what current reality looks like because that will take you back to creating a variation of what you have.  This may be insufficient or cause you  to inherit the very thing you are trying to get rid of.

Then think about how you want to get where you want to get to.  Again, don’t focus on how you created that which you are replacing because you will again recreate the very processes that led you down the previous path.

Remember Gerald Weinberg’s wonderful bread recipe rule.

If you use the same ingredients, the same baker and the same recipe, you will always produce the same bread.

Think about this in terms of what you are replacing:

The baker – you or others that baked the previous “loaf”, with your strengths and weaknesses.

The ingredients – the ideas, thoughts and other components that formed the building blocks for the previous “loaf”.

The recipe – the processes by which the previous “loaf” was created.

So, if you want to make something that looks like what you are trying to replace, bring the same people, ideas and processes together and keep thinking about the old solution. 

However, if you really want to create something NEW,  bring in fresh players with different perspectives and different creative ways to create..

After all, you are trying to CREATE something new, aren’t you?

Whether in business, at home, in politics, in your community, in your church in your volunteer organization (or anywhere else), to create something new, you must be truly creative.

Otherwise, you are just hoping for a different result. 

In that case, when you are consumed by “out of the box” thinking, I can’t tell if you are trying to convince me or yourself that utilizing the same ingredients of the past will create something new.

Think about this.

You have just mixed bananas, eggs, chopped nuts and other ingredients and you are hoping it produces a pineapple upside down cake.  It didn’t the last time but because you don’t like banana nut bread (which this is the recipe for), you are hoping that if you do many things in the same way but hope for a different result, then it will hopefully manifest.

Do you want a different result?

Good, then CREATE in a different way.

Otherwise, enjoy your banana nut bread.  :-)

Yours in service and servanthood.

Harry

Incubating passion for excellence and authenticity in strategy and leadership.