Thinking Out-of-Box

When you hear the string of words "out-of-box", what is your first reaction?

The reactions could be

"I wish I had the time, can be done in leisure"

"I always think out-of-box"

"I have never been able to figure out this term "

"Oh! R&D, six-sigma, process group etc should be doing this, that’s their job"

"Another management cliché!! Means nothing in practical life."

"You need to be a genius to be able to do that." Etc etc…

I guess understanding what exactly is “out-of-box thinking” is the first step towards it. Lets see.

Out-of-box is “Moving Out of Your Comfort Zone to Find Innovative Solutions”

What is comfort zone in the first place? A simple check on this is to ask your-self following questions:

Is today like yesterday? Isn’t the world changing constantly? Am I adaptable? If I lived a hundred years hence, would I be able to survive staying within my current comfort zone? What has made progress possible, is it a coincidence or sheer innovation? Am I living in a comfort zone innovated by some one else? What is my contribution to it? If home/organization/world were to depend on me, would I still stick to my comfort zone or step right out of it? All right, enough of introspection.

The next question is, can everyone think out-of-box. The answer is, yes!!… But how does one do so? To start with, look for symptoms of falling into comfort zone.

Have you fallen into routine and depend on it, so much that it disturbs your mind frame if your routine is disturbed?

The first step is, break your routine. Staying within the circle makes you blind to everything outside it. Challenge yourself constantly. It will give you something only you can earn…confidence and belief in yourself. Belief, that you can manage every change with positive attitude. Solutions might be close by, albeit lying just outside the circle. Stepping out of your mind’s closed circle makes out-of-box thinking possible.

If you think the above is sufficient to make you reach out to goals, think again, out of box…

You may have the skill and capacity, but you will need expertise and knowledge, and most importantly, motivation, the drive from within to make you truly creative and an out-of-box thinker.

This is the first of the series of posts on this topic. Happy self-discovery.