Thinking Out of the Box

Creativity

“Thinking Out of the Box”

by Jun Salipsip

We were having a business problem and a meeting was set up to come up with a creative solution.  Our boss said, “Think out of the box.”  As soon as he said that, I recalled an exercise we went through in one of our creativity and innovation training programs.  

One exercise in the workshop was this paper with nine dots arranged in a set of three rows that was handed to us.  The facilitator said, “Draw four straight lines which go through all of the dots without taking your pencil off the paper.”

                                              

I thought it was cinch.  I said, “This is easy… four straight lines only.”

But now when I think back on how I tried to solve the puzzle I remember the difficulty I had. At the beginning I tried thinking how the lines should be drawn but it did not take me long to see that one dot remained unconnected. The other alternatives that I came up with did not also work.  I concluded that it couldn’t be done with only four lines but five lines. 

I tried the “trial and error” method by drawing the lines with the pencil that was given to us, and I came up with more lines than four. I tried many more times but I only succeeded in reducing the size of the eraser on the pencil because I had to keep erasing the lines I had previously drawn. 

After a few minutes, my initial conclusion became a little bit more established.  There must be five or more lines to include all the dots.  I expected no less.

But as you will know later, I couldn’t be further from the truth.  The solution as you must have already known is related to what our boss said, “Think out of the box.”  

When the facilitator revealed the solution to the puzzle, there was a lot of astonishment and complaint, “You did not tell us we could get out of the box.”

And the reply of the facilitator was, “But I didn’t tell you that you could not go out of the box.”  

The comment of the facilitator was met with a lot groaning and complaining about the lack of fairness.  Above the din, the facilitator said that we were having difficulty solving the problem creatively by thinking inside the box.  He said that our box is our assumptions created by our traditions, culture, values, beliefs, education and the rules that we live by day by day.  It is the filter by which we interpret or perceive reality.

The facilitator said, “When we are working on a problem, we need to look at it in more detail rather than jumping into conclusion.”  

Then he presented a picture on the screen and asked us what we see.  The answers were mixed.  Some said that they see an old lady; another group said it’s a young lady; and a few said that they see both the old and young lady.  To some of us who only saw one image it was frustrating, to say the least.  We couldn’t figure out where or how the other figure could be seen.  We tried looking at the image with half closed eyes, and then with one eye covered with the hope that a blurred view would somehow miraculously force the unseen image to appear.

                                               

The facilitator smiled and asked us to do the opposite.  He said that by looking at the details of the picture, like looking at the black dot in the middle of the image and the dark line below it, causes the image of the old woman to come out. And by paying attention on the small curved line in the middle of the image on the left hand side and the feather coming out of the dark hair on the upper left-hand side, the young lady emerges.  When he pointed out those details it was amazing how it became easier to see both images.

He said that for us to find creative solution we must define and understand the real problem by getting more details about the situation.  He said that we must spend more time analyzing the details of the situation and by being more thorough before arriving at the real problem.

Next, he flashed a sign on the screen and asked, “What do the sign say?”

                                               

Practically everyone read it as “Paris in the spring.”  The facilitator asked us to read again, and we repeated, “Paris in the spring.”  He asked us to read again several times and we read it the same way.  The facilitator asked if we were sure of what we read and most of our responses were positive. 

He said there are 2 "THE" in the sentence.  He said  most people are blind to this and automatically filter out one of the "THEs" and read it out loud as "Paris in the spring"  He said that our brains twist or bend information to fit our experience or what we know.  If something is missing or odd, the brain compensates for it.  He cautioned us to look more closely, to ask more questions to find out what the real situation is.  He said that when we talk to people we need to actively listen and observe more carefully for the verbal and nonverbal cues that we get.  

Most of us were surprised why we did not see the double “THE”.

The workshop facilitator said that our biases may lead us to only see what we want to see and to hear only what we want to hear thereby preventing us from really coming up with a creative solution.  He said it is always good to seek and be open to differing or opposing opinions.

Finally, we were presented with another figure that has an unexpected configuration (see figure below) and were asked, “How would you feel if your expectations were not met?  For example, at the beginning you probably thought there are more lines than four… how did you feel when I showed you that you really only need four lines?”

                                               

Many of the participants repeated what they said earlier, “We felt it was unfair because you did not tell us we could get out of the box.  We had difficulty accepting the result.”  

The facilitator said those feelings are understandable because of the risk of being wrong or being laughed at if perchance getting out of the box is not allowed.  To a structured mind, everything must be clear to minimize risk.  But we know that in today’s world change creates more complexity thereby increasing ambiguity.  To succeed in today’s world, one must learn how to deal with ambiguity.

Asking questions could have clarified the ambiguity of the situation.  But one would need to know what questions to ask to get the information one needs to solve the puzzle.  As information becomes available, i.e. that one is allowed to get out of the box, one should begin to anticipate or expect the possibility of different outcomes.

He concluded by saying that getting out of the box is done by becoming more familiar with the details of the problem, by questioning our assumptions to find out what is allowed and what is not allowed and by dealing with ambiguity.

In spite of what the facilitator said, I thought that getting out of the box is easier said than done.   I am the box.  How do I get out of myself?  How can I take the same information that everyone else has and look at it differently, often finding a better way to solve problems and make any business more efficient and profitable?

Over time, I took what the facilitator said to mean as practicing to open our boxes more often so that new ideas could come in and interact with other ideas already inside our boxes.  As a result I became less judgmental so that new ideas could be understood and accepted.  I began to have more patience and spent more time in trying to understand different points of view and in gaining the same perspective that others have so that it was easier to accept new ideas.  I became more aware of my own prejudices thereby allowing me not to always insist on being right all the time.

“Think out of the box,” said our boss again.  

The reminder jolted me back to the meeting we were having.  The discussions had already started in earnest and as you may have already expected, there were multiple solutions that came up constituting breaks with traditions, exploitation of loopholes, and flouting of conventions.

It reminded me of what Thomas A. Edison once said, “There are no rules here… we are trying to accomplish something.”