How to think out of the box? Why!
Prakash Ramaswamy
Coach, Trainer & Writer with 3 decades of leadership experience, helping fellow Sapiens 'Be Joyful & Spread the Cheer'. Experience spans Talent Development/L&D, Coaching, Product Engg GCC, Innovation, IT Services, CSR.
How to think out of the box? Why should we think like that?
A few decades ago, everyone went to a friendly neighbourhood petty shop to buy grocery. The items will be mostly loose, kept in gunny bags or tin containers (dabbas). The shopkeeper pretty much knew everyone in the neighbourhood and invariably has a chit-chat (think of it like WhatsApp chat, sans the phone) with the buyer, discussing current affairs and local (neighbours') affairs, while packing the items, mostly with pieces of paper (typically hand-folded). Buyers bought whatever brand the shopkeeper recommended (sold, rather), without any qualms, since the transaction was based on trust. And buyers either walked or rode a bicycle to the store, which also kept them healthy.
I still remember my father bicycling to the weekly sandhai (unstructured, but regularly organised, public marketplace – still happens near my parents’ home) and bringing some new items, saying 'the shopkeeper told this one's good!' And the same shopping experience was repeated, multiple times, for different kind of items - such as electrical goods, sweets & savouries, medicine, books, etc.
Fast forward to a decade or two…
People started going to a neighbourhood supermarket, to buy grocery and other stuff, all under the same roof. The interaction, if any, were limited to the people who worked there and the owner of the supermarket remained unknown or unreachable to most shoppers. Brands were chosen based on advertisements or discounts. People rode on two or four wheelers and cursed the traffic and parking woes, whenever they went shopping.
I vividly remember riding with my newlywed spouse, on a TVS Scooty (which I bought on loan, just ahead of the wedding), to a Spencer’s store in the other side of the town, to buy an Iron box, during the new-year sale (we've gifted it to someone later and it's probably still functional). And we could buy grocery, magazines, confectionery and even a few gadgets in the same supermarket.
In the present time, even before COVID-19 pandemic lockdown started, fairly large number of people were ordering grocery and gadgets online, on Amazon, Flipkart, Big Basket, Croma, Reliance Digital, JioMart, et al. Even the (not that friendly anymore) neighbourhood stores started 'home delivery' service.
In essence, the store where one went to buy stuff has become virtual, and as an inevitable outcome of this change, the joyful (for the kids at least) store-going experience has simply vanished into thin air.
Physically going to a store to buy something is an example of 'boxed thinking' or 'In-the-box-thinking'. That was not only the norm for buying anything, but that was also pretty much the only way to buy stuff. Since there weren't any viable alternatives, everyone did the same thing, the same way, so you also do it just like the rest.
“The boundaries of a(ny) model or framework is well-defined, mostly rigid, and one can only operate within that boundary or limitations.”
When people were buying things the old tried-and-tested (and trusted, needless to say) way, someone was obviously thinking 'What if people can go to one store and buy everything there?'
Voila, the idea for supermarkets like Spencer’s, Nilgiris, More, etc. was born. That eventually led to the concept of hypermarkets such as Big Bazaar and D-Mart. And then inevitably to the online mega stores, where there's really no physical store, yet one can shop for almost anything under the sun. This type of
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“Breakthrough thinking that leads to significant changes in an established model or framework, or results in creation of a radically new model, is out-of-the-box thinking.”
It requires a bit of daring, willingness to question the existing norm, a healthy dose of creativity, plenty of enthusiasm and dogged pursuit for widespread adoption & implementation.
From transportation to farming to construction to manufacturing to shopping to entertainment to medicine to banking to what-not, wherever notable progress has been made in making human lives easier (not necessarily simpler, though) and efficient (not always effective), there would've always been some kind of 'out-of-the-box thinking', usually starting with a spark in an individual's mind and then spreading like a wildfire, eventually engulfing the entire planet.
and umpteen online classroom apps, et al were all given birth in someone’s head, as a result of out-of-the-box thinking. Same goes for popular EV makers as well.
While the creation of the aforementioned apps & utilities is inevitable in the digital age, the reason for their creation is undoubtedly the abject refusal of tradition businesses to let go of inside-the-box thinking. One might even wonder, if any of them were thinking at all! So,
The answer to 'Why out-of-the-box thinking' is quite obvious. It's simply 'Why not!'
‘Inside-the-box thinking’ is sufficient for leading a predictable, mundane existence. But if one desires to elevate one's individual existence, or the collective survival of beings on this tiny planet (not just humans, btw) in a significant way, through a breakthrough discovery or invention or even a simple idea (to start with), then the only choice is to do some ‘Out-of-the-box thinking’.
Try it in some well-known situation in this lifetime, and you'll probably end up finding an entirely different way of doing that thing, most likely better than how it's done by everyone, until now!
Happy thinking!
Be Joyful & Spread the Cheer…
~Swamy | ‘@PrakashSwamy