Thinking outside the box isn't enough

- [Narrator] Thinking outside the box is not enough. At a conventional workshop on creativity or innovation, you are encouraged to think outside the box. Leaders of such seminars have been imploring people to do this for decades. But there are three basic problems with this advice. First, it is very hard to get out of the box. Second, it is tricky to determine which of your many boxes to think outside of. And third, even if you do manage the trick, and get out of a specific box, it often isn't enough. You still need a new one. Suppose you are an executive at a bank in downtown Chicago. And during a corporate workshop, someone asks you to think outside the box. In that context, outside the box doesn't mean outside the bank, but rather outside the way you perceive your bank, and perhaps outside your working hypothesis about banks in general. In other words, a box is not a tangible thing. Rather, it is a model in your mind.…