Never think outside the box
Neha Parashar (MCC-ICF)
Executive Leadership Coach & thinking partner of CXOs and senior leaders ? Interview Prep mid-senior roles, Career growth and transitions coaching ? Global Employment Advisor, US Dept of State ? Former HR Director
My four year old is learning to write numbers. The math pages in the notebook are printed in grey check, a box each for a number. She gets a red mark every time a number is written such that it spills out of the box. Several such red marks and one may get a ‘bad’ remark in the records- “The student does not follow instructions in class” or the parents could be called for an out- of- schedule meeting. No red marks on a page and one gets a star. These are children (just as we were once) who are being slowly but surely conditioned with notional carrots and sticks to stay in the box, literally. Fast forward twenty or so years and they become another class room (now called a training room) of people such as one that I stand facing. They have been nominated for a workshop on Thinking Out of the box. The nomination forms from their managers say that it’s a ‘critical problem solving skill’ required for advancement, strong ‘area for development’, and such. Why don’t we just start right in first place?
AWS Engineering Leader | Technical Leadership
5 年Children also need to be taught to follow rules. What if one crosses the road when there is a red or amber traffic signal?? But enforcing them too much with lots of red marks and stars may be bad. I see these days schools give more importance to free hand drawing, where they do not enforce the child to draw within boundaries. They can just out pour the creativity in the paper. I believe they need to be trained for both, so that they can apply as the situation deems.
Managing Director at Accenture
8 年I wonder why a box even exists... How about just "Think" and "envision"... The concept of box means you first need to learn what that box is.. Quite irrelevant and kills creativity .. Don't you think!!
Corporate Manager - Health & Safety (APAC)
8 年I agree. The system drives creative kids to a faliure mode. It is really dissapointing as the ones to improve the system don't think out of the box to get it better.
On a break
8 年i completely agree, this need a sea change in education system and they way parents educate their child at home.
Portfolio Head- Strategic Marketing
8 年Truly said by Ankur.. First we need to master the box. And when we are left with no option we have to go for out of the box. BTW many times if you give something out of the box is not palatable to many..