Thinking outside the box about thinking inside the box

First Published in Kankakee Daily Journal October 7, 2015

We cannot solve our problems with the same thinking we used when we created them. Albert Einstein

Oh those cliques that we all use and claim we hate. For a while it was all about everything being “24/7.” I remember attending a Chicago Advertising Federation workshop and all we heard was “At the end of the day.” University of Michigan professor and Psychology Today blogger, Chris Peterson has written in one of his rants (self-described) about the ridiculous over-use of the phrase “Thinking outside the box.” Dr. Peterson did a simple Google search (this was done about 2012 or 2013) and got over a million hits. Today I did a search and got several million hits.

Peterson goes onto to say, though, that he understands the well-intentioned idea of “thinking outside the box.” It can give us a new perspective or insight. Albert Einstein was correct when he said we need new ways of thinking from time to time. But here is Peterson’s objection, which I share: way too often those who claim to be thinking outside the box really aren’t creative or are they offering anything new. Why? Because they have not mastered what’s inside the box first. Peterson goes onto to say that scientists, artists, and musicians have long known that it takes a minimum of 10,000 hours of practice to do something notable in one’s field. But the same is true in most areas of our lives whether we are accountants, management professionals, parents, teachers or almost any of job. Goodness only knows that for medical doctors with college, medical school, and a residency it may be twenty, thirty, or forty thousand hours.

The point Peterson makes is to be able to think outside the box you must first master what’s inside the box. Without that mastering, you are susceptible to making grievous errors in judgment such as suggesting changes that will make things worst not better; seen as someone flying off the handle; or being seen as a self-proclaimed expert who is really quite foolish. This is not to say that you have to be a total master or an old guy like me to think creativity. We have all experienced the “brilliance” of a five year old simply questioning our conventional wisdom. But the larger point is that mainstream thinking, established knowledge –sometimes referred to “extant” or surviving knowledge exists for a reason. It has undergone vigorous scientific research and/or in many cases hundreds of years testing. Of course we do have breakthroughs that overturn conventional thinking but rarely by the uninformed or those who do not understand what’s inside the box. Without a doubt, formal education is helpful, but some of the greatest breakthroughs are by people who possess little formal education, Rather they have a life time of hands-on experience.

Assume for a few minutes that Peterson and I (since I agree with him) are right. Below are my three brief suggestions about mastering what’s inside the box. First, develop and nurture a sense of curiosity. My friend and former site leader for the Bourbonnais Cigna facility is now a vice-president with Chicago-based EIIA. He has told me and Olivet students that having a sense of curiosity is one of the most important things he looks at when hiring employees. Not only staying current, but being a knowledge leader inside your box gives you the possibility of knowing when and if you need to move outside of the box.

Secondly, business and life is complex and we need to acquire knowledge about many, many things. That having been said, focusing on one or two things to become truly an expert is a powerful concept. A consultant friend of mine told me something over thirty years ago that has stuck with me. He said if you read thirty minutes a day for a few years in a focused area, you will become an acknowledged expert. It goes back to the 10,000 hour maxim. Finding people today that have both breadth and depth is extremely hard. Frankly, we seem to be developing a generation of low-information people. How tragic when we are surrounded by a 100 times more knowledge than a 100 years ago, that the levels of unawareness have never been so high. For low-information people, thinking outside the box is not only unwise but likely downright dangerous.

Thirdly, mastering what’s in the box requires a sense of history and context. While I treasure my business education that I received at the University of Iowa (MBA) and Florida State University (Ph.D.), in many ways my history degree and the broad liberal arts education from Kansas State University has not only served me well in life but in business too. Frankly, understanding inside the box involves knowing where we have come from. I suppose if I were to get another Ph.D. (believe me getting one was traumatic enough) it would be in business history. As breath-taking and revolutionary as the changes that we are going though, a sense of history I believe helps us to neither over nor under react.
The business literature over the last twenty years has described very well what is going on in our world with terms such as frame-breaking change, disruptive change, and hyper-turbulence change. Thinking outside the box in creative new ways is the only way we can continue to prosper, but a reminder is that the ability to think outside box in wise rather than foolish ways is based on an inside strategy first. Jim Collins in his landmark book, Good to Great, presented a three circle Venn diagram that focuses on three key questions we must ask and I submit we must start inside the box in answering these. They are: what is the one or two things you can be the very best at; what are you the most passionate about; and finally what drives your economic engine.

In summary, master the inside first so you can either push the borders of your current box outward or when called for, move completely outside the box. As Terry Patchett so wryly puts it “I'll be more enthusiastic about encouraging thinking outside the box when there's evidence of any thinking going on inside it.”

Dr. Don Daake holds a degree in South Asian history from Kansas State University, a marketing MBA from the University of Iowa and a strategy Ph.D. from the Florida State University. He maintains a blog at daakecomments.wordpress.com Contact him at ddaake@olivet.edu