It's such a cliche -- "I need someone who thinks out of the box." You hear it all the time. What does it mean? What's out of the box thinking anyway, and what's so great about it?
Let's think about the box, first, and then let's figure out how and whether to climb out of it. What is the box that people are always talking about? The box is a frame, the traditional way of thinking about a problem. In business, we are very good at in the box thinking because business is structured around the box, aka the Standard Operating Procedure. "Here are the facts, here's the problem. Let's look at solutions A, B and C and pick the best one." That's in the box thinking. It's a break/fix model, and it's not known for generating radically new or interesting solutions to vexing problems.
To read the full, original article click on this link: Liz Ryan: What Does "Out of the Box Thinking" Really Mean?
