Out Of The Box Thinking: Not Just a Cliché by Richard Taylor Edwards

The first and most obvious thing to note is that 'out of the box thinking' is indeed a cliché and one that anyone previously unaware of it would get entirely wrong. For we don't mean taking ideas out of a box, the pre-wrapped and pre-thought ideas at all. Rather, exactly the opposite, that we are looking for, hoping for, ideas that are outside the box of conventional thinking, unconstrained by the rigidities of currently accepted practice. Ah well, won't be the last such phrase that can be wildly misunderstood.

What we are actually hoping for when we use this cliché is exactly that people will stop thinking in clichés. It seem odd to use a figure of speech in that way, to ask people to do exactly the opposite but just think of it as one of the joys of the English language. It happens to all of us, in every walk of life, job, home and sports. We tend to think along the same lines as we have done before, as those around us do. In fact, there's very definite social pressure not to start thinking too far outside that acceptable box. People start to think that you might be a little odd if you offer explanations or proposals that are just that bit too outre. In the case of David Icke of course they'd be right but think back 15 years. Who would have listened to you if you had said that banks ought to answer the phones in India? Whether or not you think it's a good idea right now is a different thing but it's certainly been a profitable business decision for them and is now a commonplace.

That's a bit of a warning actually: the difference between being forward looking and thought to be mad might actually only be a result of which decade you have the thought in.

What people really want when they say thinking out of the box is for people to pull away the accepted ideas that surround a particular problem and actually begin to address it again from first principles, without necessarily following the same paths that thoughts did the first time around.

For example, when Talisman wanted to think through the problem of how to make a better recruitment agency it was generally accepted that the fee for a successful placement should be a percentage of the first year's remuneration (usually salary and benefits). Sure, that's the way everyone does it so why not? But thinking outside of that box, the accepted practices of the industry, they saw that there was an agency problem there. They as recruiter were supposedly working for the company, they who paid the bills. But there would be higher fees if they increased the salary package of the person who took the job in the end. An obvious conflict, so they now work for a fixed fee: thinking outside the box has made them different, in a good way, from everyone else in the industry.

Richard Taylor Edwards, Managing Director of Talisman Executive Resourcing, the leading provider of employment services in UK.

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