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| Fish weather vane - thinking differently |
Let’s start with the good news first. The phrase began with good intentions. It is based on the Nine Dots Puzzle in which you have to connect nine dots using four straight lines AND without lifting your pencil. The solution to the puzzle involves drawing outside the rows and columns of the dots; that is, to think outside the box. Although the puzzle was from 1914, management consultants of the 1960s and 70s used it extensively in their work. For them, it was meant to signify new approaches and fresh solutions. And in a way it still means that, though it seems to be so universally used that it’s almost meaningless.
But why is it still universally used? Managers, employers, almost everyone in businesses cry out that they want people to be thinking outside the box. To be thinking outside the box means to be thinking differently, to be original, creative, innovative; to move beyond our closed, static, humdrum way of doing things. So to be using this phrase implies that many people at work want things to be different. The phrase seems to capture a desire to do things differently.
Economies have moved from making things to marketing thinking. The service, knowledge and now creative/innovative economies are basically reliant on thinking. They are about the individual employee and by extension those who manage him/her and how they think about their job, their customer, and their business. Business based on thinking need that thinking to be different from everyone else’s thinking. “We are NOT like them, do business with us because we are like THIS." So, when some people use the phrase, thinking outside the box, they are appealing for thinking that moves beyond what everyone else is doing and instead is different and perhaps a competitive advantage. For some, the phrase truly is a desire to do business differently.
BAD NEWS
The bad news is that it is an overused phrase that has in many ways become meaningless and worse many do not want any thinking outside the box. Indeed, the Telegraph newspaper in the UK, reported, “‘Thinking outside the box’ has been voted Britain's most despised business jargon by researchers in a new poll.” Yikes!
Why would people use the phrase and not actually mean it? They use because they can. It is part of everyday business speech and is an easy short-hand way for suggesting innovation. We all know what they mean by it. And as the poll suggests, we do all know what many mean by it - nothing. As Steve Adubato found, “Employees aren't really convinced that senior organizational leaders want them to take risks. They hear the rhetoric, but aren't sure that their bosses will still stand behind them if the risk goes bad and things don't turn out right.” This sense of thinking outside the box as meaningless rhetoric has prompted an awareness of the importance of acting outside the box. Increasingly, the phrase “think and act outside the box” has become popular to suggest that really without the act part, the thinking is pretty meaningless. Although as a phrase it is a bit of a mouthful.
Yet, let’s be frank here. There is resistance to any sort of thinking outside of the box - not just the phrase but actual real thinking and acting that challenges present ways of doing. For some breaking down boxes makes things inconvenient, more complicated, and harder. Simply, boxes allow us to categorize easily and from there to behave based on preset assumptions of what the box is like. We put companies in boxes - oh, they’re a shipping company, so they’re traditional and old-fashioned. And they’re a software company, so they’re full of innovative, dynamic people. They’re in engineering, so they all go around with pocket protectors measuring things. Boxes are how we organize and make sense of the world. And although we know that not all shipping companies are old-fashioned and not all software companies are innovative and many engineering companies are very dynamic, it is an easy way to categorize them.
So at the base of it, we don’t like people to be outside of their boxes, because it gives us trouble in categorizing them. And even if they are outside the traditional box - say, a dynamic, colorful type in a shipping company, we still try to assign them a new box. Because otherwise, the world doesn’t make sense to us. It is the easy way to go.
THE UGLY
And truth be told, in our experience, there are individuals and companies who don’t really want thinking outside the box at all. As soon as there truly is thinking and acting outside the box, there are those who begin to fear it and penalize it. The story of B. is illustrative.
B. was hired by a very large corporation because she epitomized thinking outside the box. She was an expert in her field and had a reputation for affecting dynamic change. She was hired by the new corporation to bring new thinking to a number of programs. This involved reorganizing and changing key functions within her department. Although these key functions were her responsibility, it soon became clear that the changes upset personnel with vested interests in the old systems.
The first hint of trouble was when she was told by her manager that other employees complained about how she dressed. Particularly, that her outfits were too dressy, too professional and were not what the other women wore to work. In reality, her suits were a lot like what the men in the office were wearing. Rather than supporting her acting and thinking outside the box, which the manager had hired her for, the manager simply repeated the gossip about how she did not dress like the others dressed.
This was another way of expressing that she wasn’t fitting into what were the company’s norms and culture - she was actually a bit too far outside the box. Sometimes thinking and acting outside the box, even if one has been given the mandate, can threaten and challenge individuals and the larger working culture. There can be backlash to such thinking. The result was that B. didn’t fit and wasn’t able to affect the change for which she had been hired and she left the position with disappointment on both sides. She was disappointed that her manager didn’t support her in the mandate he had given and the company was disappointed because it became apparent that they were not ready for the change they thought they wanted.
Reclaiming thinking:
Thinking and acting outside the box is a complicated story. At some level, clearly businesses recognize a need for thinking that’s not ordinary or stuck in a rut, or the phrase wouldn’t be as widely used as it is. Is there a way to put meaning back into it? A way of thinking outside the box without calling it that?
If you really want people to think outside the box, perhaps start by not using that phrase. Be more precise about what you desire. Do you want thinking that challenges a particular routine? Do you want thinking about how to be flexible about say, scheduling? Do you want thinking that pushes the boundaries on how to deliver training? Do you want thinking about risk and safety? Be thoughtful in what type of thinking you really want. Be clear in your expectations. Have meaningful meetings and workshops where people can bring divergent ideas together to be more creative and innovative. Make sure those meetings and workshops are well organized and prepared for though because meaningless meetings are as annoying as meaningless phrases. And most importantly, support those who do question, who are examples of unconstrained thinking, support thinking that doesn’t follow a prescribed school of thought, thinking that recognizes context, individual situations and individuals, thinking that is not expressed in rote platitudes. That will really have you thinking outside the box.
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