21 Jun 2021  |   04:32am IST

Outside the Box thinking

Ibonio D’Souza

In a general sense, to think outside the box means to think creatively. It is a catchphrase for creativity, widely used in business environments, especially by management consultants and executive coaches. The box represents your habitual mind and thinking outside it means thinking in newer ways or thinking outside the boundaries of the conventional mind.

In a methaphorical sense the box is your habitual mind, or a world made up of your beliefs, assumptions, irrational thoughts, mental habits, perceptions, desires, expectations, emotions, attachments, and memories. It is the programme which guides your thinking and actions. It also serves as your filtering mechanism by which you perceive the world according to your needs, desires, expectations and conditioning.

How to think outside the box? Thinking outside the box is also described more technically as paradigm shift or paradigm change. In psychology it is termed as creative illumination. Out of the box thinking unleashes your creative and innovative thinking and helps you to generate new ideas and thoughts, or see the world differently from different perspectives. Here are some guidelines:

Change your perspective; Step out of your comfort zone; Embrace the opposites that you dislike; Think in different ways; Jump out of your routine thinking; Refuse to accept the surface thoughts and solutions; Stop acting as if you alone are right; Stop arguing with people that they are wrong; Believe in the possibility that we cannot know the truths of life but only shades of truth; Acknowledge the theory of perspectives according to which truth is relative to the perspective from which it is seen.

If everyone just accepted things the way they are, then there would never be any innovation or improvement in the world. If Thomas Edison had shrugged and figured things were good enough the way they were with gas lamps, light bulbs and the electricity to power them electricity might never have been developed. If he hadn’t thought outside the box, the world could be a very dim place, literally.

When you are thinking in the box as opposed to outside of it, your career growth can be stunted. When there are a finite number of ways that things can be done also means that there is a limit to what you can achieve. Alternatively, when you think outside the box, suddenly there are many more possibilities and opportunities. When you allow for any and every possible solution, you may in fact end up coming up with more creative ways to solve problems.

Consider Netflix, for instance. By dreaming up alternative to the standard video store template with rentals and late fees, they were able to create a worldwide sensation. What creative solutions could you come up with if you think outside the box?

The ability to think outside the box can be an asset to you as an individual or as a business. Professional leaders and pioneering companies know this very well. One famous example? Behemoth tech company Apple, which has built its career on this key principle: “Think different.”