A Thought On The Box
09.23.2005 | Chris Bailey | Focused on MediaI went to a facilitors workshop this morning and the one thing that the presenter just kept hammering away at was the need to "think outside the box." Can we bury this overused phrase now? Pretty Please? Seriously, if you find that it’s necessary to think outside the box, you better take a good look at the box itself. You may in fact have a circle and don’t know it.
Okay, short rant over. The reason for my lack of writing lately is that this week is Pre-Conference Week. Next week, I’ll be traveling to Minneapolis for my organization’s Board Meeting and Annual Conference so hopefully that explains why postings will be very, very light until the first week of October. BTW, anyone living in Minneapolis who would like to meet up, let me know.
3 Responses to “A Thought On The Box”
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Yes….lets ban the box! I think by definition using the phrase “ban the box” constitutes the very thing that the phrase was originally “invented” to define as b-a-d!
Marianne
I’m 7 hours north of Minneapolis and guess what we just got dusted with snow!!! Apparently it’s all to melt – pretty wild seeing as last week we had temps +25 celsius – i think that’s around 80 degree F (although it’s been awhile since i’ve used that scale).
G
Okay our snow has all melted and we’ve had a balmy Canadian thanksgiving weekend thus far! And so I have a more focused mind to actually comment than more than the weather. Yes – thinking outside the box is an overused expression but the concept behind it still remains as valid. I think very few people have actually mastered this type of thinking. However, I should also add that boxes or schemata (would be the more accurate term) are useful in that they help speed up the amount of time that we size up a given situation or issue.
When we go to a restaurant we have certain expectations that the procedure of ordering and being served food will occur in a certain way. This type of schemata is known as a script – waiter comes to order after you’ve had time to read the menu, then he or she asks whether you are ready to order, you then proceed to order and expect the food to arrive in a timely fashion. If any of those different expectations does not occur – we are naturally upset.
There is a value to “thinking in the box” in meeting customer expectations. Thinking outside the box, hopefully means that we go beyond the expectations of our customers but it could just as well go the other way right? Hmmm – maybe I should get back to marking papers! At least my packers finally won a game!
G