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Thinking Outside the Box Moving Out of Your Comfort Zone to Find Innovative Solutions |
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By Vadim Kotelnikov, Founder, The first-ever BUSINESS e-COACH for Innovative Leaders, 1000ventures.com
"Only the hand that erases can write a true thing" - Eramus
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The Powerful Concept The notion 'thinking outside the box' is far more than just another management cliché. It is a very powerful concept worthy of deeper consideration in today's complex and rapidly changing world. Leaving Your Comfort Zone Thinking outside the box is never easy, nor is it merely a reflection of mental brightness. To leave your psychological comfort zone and explore "solutions in the unknown world on the outside requires large measures of mental agility, boldness, and creativity - and/or a leader who makes life in the old box so uncomfortable that getting out is the only option. The future rests in those willing and able to do so."1 Challenging Assumptions "The best assumption to have is that any commonly held belief is wrong," says Ken Olson, CEO of DEC. The natural thing to do is the thing you have always done. Every time you approach a problem you bring your accumulated experience, knowledge and training to bear on it. But this includes you accumulated assumptions and biases - conscious and unconscious. The more experienced and expert you are, the more likely you are to assume outcomes by extrapolating from the known facts and experiences to predict a result. This mental baggage can prevent you from accepting innovative ideas. Sometimes the way you frame a problem contains an assumption that prevents you from solving it. In Middle Ages the definition of astronomy was the 'study of how the heavenly bodies move around the Earth', i.e. the Earth was considered to be the centre of universe which resulted in the chain of wrong explanations of various phenomena. "Similar ideas exist in most businesses - assumptions that underpin most strategies and decisions, and that are so fundamental that they are never challenged."3 Challenging assumptions means questioning the everyday things you take for granted. Paradigm Crisis as a Catalyst of Outside-the-Box Thinking Your concepts of business environment, organizational structures and management are based on paradigms. If your organizational structures and management systems are no longer able to perform as effectively as alternative ones based on entirely different paradigms you will at first experience a paradigm crisis. Jokes: A Car as Collateral A Russian businessman walks into a Swiss bank in Geneva and asks for a $100 loan. He offers his luxury Mercedes car as collateral. The collateral is too good, and the bank manager approves the loan. A year later, the Russian comes back. He repays the loan and the 10% interest and is ready to collect his car. Finally, the puzzled bank manager dares to ask him: "Excuse me, sir, could you tell me: did you really need that $100 so badly? In order to get the money, you left your luxury car with us for a whole year!" The Russian replied, "That's simple - just think outside the box: where else in Geneva can I find such a great parking place for just $10 a year?" |
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Bibliography:
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"Thinking Outside the Comfort Zone", Jerry Sentell, 2003
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"Lateral Thinking", Edward de Bono, 1970
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"Lateral Thinking Skills", Paul Sloan, 2003
