Since I started spending most of my time working with innovation there has been an awful lot of talk of “out of the box thinking” and “out of the box” in general. It seems that the general view is that all you need to do to be creative is to manage to get “out of the box”. It is easy to fall into the way of talking and start using expressions like these without thinking about it, and certainly without thinking of what they actually mean. Lately, in our quest to reframe and question whatever we come across in this project, me and David has started to question the concept of “out of the box”. Yes, it is a cliché, and very over-used. That is not the problem though.
The problem we find with “out of the box” is in the meaning of the expression. Generally, when people use it they seem to mean that one should get rid of one’s usual assumptions and limitations to be able to be creative. So far so good. But if you leave your box, then where do you end up? Is it really possible to be floating around in “nothing” around the box, meaning that you can leave all your assumptions behind and think creatively without any limitations or frames at all?
Well no. That where we find the problem. The first problem with that way of thinking is that a person is always in a box, in the sense that a person cannot loose all assumptions, limitations and frames. If you move out of one box, you automatically end up in another box. You might have got rid of some of the assumptions and limitations from the old box, but only to end up in a new box with new assumptions and limitations.
The second problem is that the box isn’t really the problem. In fact, the frames of the box is what enables creative thinking. It is very difficult, maybe even impossible, to start with a blank page and no limitations or frames and from that achieve a creative outcome.
Naturally we are not the only ones tired of this concept and how it is used. At a creative workshop arranged by GU Holding David came across the notion of “jumping between boxes”. That expression got us thinking and after a while we found ourselves starting to use the concept of “re-boxing”. The clue to all this is knowing which box you are in, and knowing which box you want to be in. In other words, knowing the assumptions and limitations of the box you are in today to be able to get rid of these for a while and use different ones. The clue to being creative is not “thinking out of the box”, it is “thinking in a different box”. Of course we need to be able to move out of our usual box of limitations and assumptions, but trying to just get rid of the box entirely is an impossible quest.
Re-box yourself and start being creative!
...DRIVEN INNOVATION 