What a cliche: “You must think out of the box”
It is almost as overused as “thinking strategically”. When everybody thinks that he or she are thinking strategically, then you can be sure nobody can discern anymore when somebody is really thinking strategically.
It’s the same with thinking outside of the box. Apparantly everybody is doing it nowadays (not!!). Yet, what does it mean
The phrase has its origins from the simple nine dots challenge: Connect the nine dots with four straight lines without lifting your pen or pencil. Have you done it? If not, try and do it without peeping at the solution further down.
Most people, when trying to solve this puzzle for the first time (and often repeatedly) get stuck and conclude it cannot be done. This is the result of a neurological process which is the source of the most limiting thought patterns that exists on the planet.
Rosamund Zander, co-author of “The Art of Possibility” states it is the “…assumptions am I making that I don’t know I’m making” that is most limiting to our thought creative processes.
So what assumption do most people make about the nine-dot puzzle? Most people make the assumption that firstly, the dots are part of a square or box and secondly, that the instruction to connect the dots is accompanied by a further (unspoken) instruction that you may not leave the boundaries of the square or box.
The moment that subtle yet powerful assumption is introduced to this, very simple problem, it becomes impossible to solve.
Now, there are a couple of interesting things that happen here. Firstly, if one can resist the temptation of imposing the “stay in the box” constraint long enough, the solution to the problem emerges rather quickly. Secondly, once you snapped into that constraining thought, very few people can escape it to reach the very simple solution.
Thought patterns are neurological pathways. Much like golf-swings or riding a bicycle – ways neurons connect in quick succession to create a particular outcome. They are, in a way, comfort zones for the brain, easy-outs, quick-thinking tunnels through which the primordial humans had to think to escape life and death situations. Our ancestors relied on these pathways to assess the data observed through the senses to discern fight or flights modes, food sources and other survival scenarios. So the brain is quite used to running down these pathways.
Back to the problem.
Once your eyes observed the nine dots, your brain cannot help but see the square, which incidentally, is not there.
It is only there when you draw for lines to make a square. Yet, it happens so quickly that as far as most people are concerned there is a square with nine dots in it. That is the battle half lost.
Realising there is no square and developing the thought patterns to look at the world differently, or as Apple put it “Think different” takes practice.
Anybody can do it, much like anybody can learn to play golf or ride a bicycle. You may not become a proverbial Tiger Woods or in thinking terms, Einstein, yet you can train your neurons to fire differently. But you have to practice as your brain’s urges to run down those easy pathways that match observations to a library full of known shapes.
And that’s the thing. Your brain wants to recognise patterns and shapes it had observed before as it has footnotes next to them: Looks like fire: Stay away. Looks like food: Eat it, etc. etc. So it doesn’t like finding new pathways or looking for new solutions as it goes against our evolutionary programming.
So this is the wonderful thing. Once you’ve set your mind free (like Neo!) the world is a different place. Once your neurological pathways have been training to look for the dots that are not visible or, to not snap into shapes (the square) that are not there, new patterns, solutions and possibilities emerge.
If you think about it, that is what innovation is. To think different. Yet, you can only think different if you recognise that your brain has a tendency to limit your thoughts and to run down pathways that are dead ends too quickly.
So for those that are still scratching for the solution, here it is.
So, is that it? Are you chuffed that you got it right? Did you see the dots that are not in the image? Did you see the other solutions? Ok, I’ll admit this is a bit of mental-masturbation but it illustrates a further point.
There are always more dots to discover, more dots to connect and a greater approach to your current thought process.
Just because you see a box doesn’t mean it is there and much as you want to argue that there is a box if someone suggests there are other invisible dots – listen!! They might free your mind.
How often don’t leaders shut out new ideas, creative thoughts and possible solutions because they don’t see the dots and therefore conclude that there are no more dots.
Really?
So while this is merely a metaphor it is a powerful one. When faced with problems what does your brain do? Does it see only boxes or do you allow it to roam freely to see the “other” dots so that your solutions and creativity can be more unbound? Therein lies liberty. Therein lies freedom to create and that is what thinking outside the box really means. Use the phrase sparingly, please!