Unbox Thyself
The need to “think outside the box” is a common refrain.
But how does one do it?
It’s not nearly as complicated as you might think.
As Nobel Laureate Paul Nurse (2001 Prize for Medicine) said in his Nobel Inspiration Initiative Lecture, “You have to read other sorts of papers that are a bit outside your area, so somehow you’ll link something. If you just read the papers that are in your area, everybody is often thinking the same thing. If you read a paper over here, then sometimes you look upon the problem differently… Read other things outside your immediate area, see if that stimulates (ideas). Creativity is putting things together that you don’t often put together.”
Sounds a lot like what fellow Nobel winner Richard Feynman did when he deliberately spent time eating lunch with and attending courses of folks from other departments.
But reaching outside one’s field isn’t only for Nobel-caliber breakthroughs! It’s a fantastic mindset for courting run-of-the-mill business breakthroughs, too!
When we were conducting research for Ideaflow, our friend Claudia Kotchka (former Head of Design Innovation at Proctor & Gamble) told us that she’d use a similar tactic to think outside the box: “I read a lot. I try to read things that aren’t related to my field. I even go to conferences that aren’t in my field! Coming from marketing, I would go to design conferences… I even went to a psychotherapy conference!”
If it’s that easy, why don’t we do it?
Ask yourself: Why don’t I read outside my field? Why don’t I attend seemingly-unrelated conferences?
Answer: Because it’s not efficient!
The only thing you have to give up is your sense of efficiency. As is the case with so many tactics for breakthrough thinking, you have to be willing to indulge a little irresponsibility.
If you have no time to get out of the box, you will not be able to think out of the box, either.
Step one: Get out of the box.
Step two: Think out there.
Related: Visit Other Fields
Related: Make Connections
Related: Don’t Be Efficient
Related: Be Irresponsible
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One of the defining contributions the d.school is helping teams ask themselves, “What kind of thinking is appropriate, when?” We call such clarity being “Mindful of Process.” And it can seem like semantics until you realize we need to show up in different ways.