"We need to think out of the box," you say. But you can't. Sorry about that...but could I interest you in a bigger box?
We can't think or act without boxes, any more than we can make our way around the world without our skeletons. Scientists call their boxes "paradigms," and these have been quite well studied. Ptolemy states a paradigm of the sun moving around the earth, until Copernicus suggests that astronomy would make more sense if we assumed the opposite. Newton explains motion and gravitation, but anomalies start to emerge. Einstein resolves them.
Now we know quite a lot about how scientific paradigms change, and one of things we know is that we don't change paradigms just because they are broken. However poorly they explain the world, however many anomalies we are aware of, we can't change the paradigm until we have a better one ready. You can't think out of the box, so where do you find a better one?
First, look at people in your industry who are doing things differently. What is your organization's reflex response to these? If it is, as often, something like "they are stupid we are smart/ it would never work for us/yes but..." then you have a problem. You need to change your reflex reaction to "that's interesting..."
Second, look at other industries. Here, the reflex reaction is "they are different from us because..." This needs to change to "they are similar to us because..." There are always points of difference, and there are always points of similarity. We seem to be programmed to home in on the points of difference, but it is actually more productive to look for the points of similarity.
Third, look outside business altogether. I did this at the start of this article - the stuff about paradigms comes from a box labelled " history and philosophy of science" and specifically a book called The History of Scientific Revolutions. At the moment social science, particularly cognitive psychology, is a very good source of better boxes.
If life is starting to feel uncomfortable, nothing makes sense and you can't find the way to fix things, it's probably because you are in box that is now too small for you. Don't panic - you need only raise your eyes, look beyond the current borders of your mental world and find a better, more productive box.
