ReInventing Life & Work Blog

The recent election seems to indicate a general desire for change, a new set of solutions to old economic and social problems.  The particular challenge that is posed right now is that as these problems continue to grow and the old solutions (e.g. the Wall Street bailout) are not having the desired effect,  less time and fewer financial resources are available to invest in the kind of creative thinking that is useful for breaking patterns of problem-solving.  Happily, however, the resource of creative minds remains widely available and the question becomes how to best apply this wonderful resource to the challenges we face in our shared national life, our individual organizations and  and our personal lives. 

I admit that I think a great deal about thinking and about the behaviors associated with thinking in a rut and thinking outside the box.  In my view, it’s the lenses we use to frame challenges that will hinder or facilitate the way we go about solving problems.  In a recent effort to explore the issue, I sought input from others by posting a question on LinkedIn:  “What are your best strategies for thinking outside the box?”  There was considerable real-world wisdom in the responses, which I grouped into themes:

1. Change perspectives.  These strategies included sitting in another person’s seat (metaphorically); “sitting on the moon”, taking a step away or a walk, looking ten years down the line and creating backwards from the vision, revisiting the question, turning it “inside out and upside down” and seeking input from others who are completely unlike oneself.
2. Take the lid off.  These strategies included open brainstorming with self or others, questioning the status quo and intentionally thinking against the prevailing wisdom.
3. Add information by taking a class or learning something new.
4. Personal.  The advice here was don’t go into the box or acknowledge the box.

In poking around a little further (on my bookshelf), I found that these themes were consistent with strategies suggested in books about creativity and breakthrough thinking.  Frans Johansson (The Medici Effect) proposes that breakthrough insights occur when ideas, concepts and cultures intersect, where innovators observe, listen and borrow ideas from unexpected and diverse sources.  Coupling this with concepts and theories of adult learning and the human change process, I’d propose five general steps to nurture the thinking that supports innovative responses.

1. Start with curiosity instead of knowing
2. Reach across borders- whether it’s across departments within an organization, across disciplines or professional fields, racial groups, or political parties, or even (as in some of Johansson’s examples) across species.
3. Collectively explore the challenge (both the way the question is framed and the status quo) every which way to Tuesday until a problem becomes a solvable possibility.
4. Track all of the ideas that emerge and examine the places where they might intersect, align or be beneficially symbiotic.
5. Acknowledge the risks and develop the resilience to recover no matter what the outcome.

Before I fall into a mental rabbit hole on the topic, I’ll stop here and leave you with some teasers:  (1) where might you be stuck inside a thinking box?  (2) What other conversations could you have that would take the lid off the box?