• to think outside the box – v., to attempt to solve a difficult or persistent problem with a creative or non-obvious solution.

The implication of this corporate jargon is that preconceived expectations, tradition, and past practice have muddied our ability to think creatively about a problem. When you encourage someone to “think outside the box,” you’re stressing the need to escape the trap of looking at the issue in these traditional ways.

As with other pieces of corporate jargon, the phrase “to think outside the box” is sometimes misused. At best, it’s a useful phrase encouraging creativity. At worst, it has become into a destructive “inside the box” tradition all of its own. To deal with these different uses, I’ve divided this post into the Good, the Bad, and the Ugly.

The Good:

The optimistic message is that if we can escape these constraints (thinking “inside the box”), we can approach the problem in a fresh way and through innovation, creativity, and intelligence, we can solve a problem that has not yet been solved. Nice image, no? After all, who wants to be in a box? Or a cubicle for that matter?

The Bad:

The point of thinking outside the box isn’t to ignore past constraints, but to try to think around them. There’s a difference. In the hands of the mentally lazy, this corporate jargon becomes shorthand for “ignore what happened before,” or “don’t think about the potential consequences.”

Sometimes there’s a very good reason why something hasn’t been done before (e.g., adding aerosolized asbestos to a can of hairspray to reduce flammability).  Sure, fresh and innovative thinking often comes from those who are ignorant of the past and therefore not seduced by it.  Out of the mouths of babes. However, when making the ultimate decision, ignorance of the past is rarely a valuable trait.  It’s why you don’t see many 7-year-olds in senior management positions, Tom Hanks in “Big” notwithstanding.

The Ugly:

Even worse than when it’s used to cheerlead a team into ignorance, is when this piece of corporate jargon becomes a mantle for corporate bullies who rely on it’s rhetorical power to shut down any criticism of their proposals. The corporate bully throws it as an accusation at his or her critics. “Disagree with me? You’re thinking inside the box!”