Crawling out of Your Box

Learn new techniques for turning on your creativity engines by breaking things down. 

People still use an old phrase or business cliche: "You need to think outside the box." While it may sound overused, this phrase carries a powerful message. It's a call to be more innovative and creative. When you are inside the box, you are hemmed in, limited by the walls, and cannot escape your reality. 

But when you break free from these constraints, you open up a world of possibilities. Management consultants popularized this phrase in the 1970s and 1980s to promote more creative thinking, and the benefits of doing so are immense. 

Are you in a box? Are your life, career, and relationships contained within a box or several boxes, as the case may be? Have you decided that perhaps there's somewhere else to go or to thrive? 

Several years ago, I took a self-assessment using Jungian archetype measures. My strong personality trait was "Revolutionary." I took great pride in that idea. I like to be the guy who impacts change by doing things differently. Very differently. 

Sometimes, organizations need a revolutionary to step in and make things happen; sometimes, they don't. I relished being that guy and proudly wore it on my sleeve. However, understanding when to turn on the revolutionary engines is a sign of emotional maturity, and I admit that wasn't always my strong point. It's a journey we all must take to understand when to push the boundaries and when to work within them.  

I have often been accused of being a contrarian or arguing for the sake of arguing. What I am doing is offering different perspectives. I am working on presenting "out-of-the-box" thinking rather than being accused of the former. My former colleagues and family members might not agree. 

In The Obstacles is the Way, Ryan Holiday devotes a chapter called "Think Differently " to describing how Steve Jobs managed ideas and innovation at Apple. Jobs pushed people to their limits, requiring them to be "malleable, adamant, self-confident... to accomplish something, not in a delusional sense."

Most of the inventions and technology we have today would not have been made without someone thinking differently or pushing against the common knowledge of the present moment. It takes courage and fortitude to bring ideas and innovation forward. It takes courage to consider that your ideas might not work, are likely to fail, and have no chance. 

The combination of failing fast and courageous fortitude brings about innovation. Stepping outside your comfort zone can also trigger flow, which triggers creativity.  

One way to relieve yourself of the confines of the "box" and think differently is to take something, an issue, or a problem and break it down. If you are working in a group setting, and many of you are, here is a guide for breaking it down and crawling out of your organizational self-limiting box: 

1. Engage in Collaborative Deconstruction-- Use tools like mind mapping software or physical whiteboards and assign different team members to break down various aspects of the problem. Have other teams break down the same problem and see how it turns out. What perspective did they take? Was it different, or was it all the same? Rotate roles to ensure diverse perspectives on each component.
2. Identify Collective Blind Spots—Encourage questioning of long-standing processes and "givens" in your organization or industry. Use anonymity techniques like secret ballots, surveys, or feedback forms to reduce groupthink and identify false presumptions. 
3. Micro-Task Assignments—Divide the deconstructed steps among team members and ask them to execute some aspect of them. To maintain momentum, set short timeframes for each micro-task and conduct regular check-ins to synthesize findings and adjust course.
4. Undertake Collaborative Reconstruction—Generate team brainstorming sessions to combine or eliminate steps. Then, use voting or ranking systems to prioritize changes and prototype new processes.
5. Implement changes slowly and carefully—Implement changes incrementally and set up feedback loops for continuous refinement. Then, celebrate small wins to maintain motivation.

This process can also work on personal challenges you might be facing. 

Give this a try. Breaking things down into atomic pieces can be a clarifying exercise for you and your team. The two other ways to get creative and think outside the box are taking the opposing view and the concept of "absolutely, positively, yes." I will highlight those in future posts.

If you need help implementing this idea or want to discuss it with your organization, I can help. Let me coach you through some of these issues or any other thorny project holding you back. Reach out to me at martin@martinkarlconsulting.com.