Outside the Box Thinking

You've probably all heard that phrase  'thinking out of the box'. Everyone tells you, 'Think out of the box.' And it sounds so easy, and yet it's so difficult. If we're talking about theory and creativity, then we've got to think about *de Bono and lateral thinking*. So, if you're thinking out of the box, then lateral thinking is almost, not quite but almost, the same thing in different words.

And this idea of doing things that are breaking the mold, that are not following a line obviously covers a lot of creativity  techniques, but particularly lateral thinking, de Bono's lateral thinking. The idea there is you've got, wherever you are, you've got your problem; you've got your start point. *Linear thinking*, in de Bono's terms, is very much about trying to follow the standard path, going along. So, if you're doing mathematics, you might pull the standard techniques off the shelf.

If you're writing a poem, you might be thinking line by line and thinking how each line fits and rhymes with the one before – if you're doing rhyming poetry, that is. So, it's all about following the same path of reasoning going on and on. *Lateral thinking is about trying to expand.* So, instead of following the same path of  reasoning, are there *different places to start*? You know – are there different ways of thinking  from the way where you are?

So, it's about trying to expand your idea of where you are outwards. So, that might be thinking of different solution strategies, so it might be thinking of different ways to start. Crucially, though, if you want to see out of the box  or get out of the box, you actually often need to *see the box*. If you're literally in a cardboard box, you know you're in it. But mental boxes – you don't actually know you're in them. It's not that there's a cardboard wall and you don't go beyond it.

It's more like a hall of mirrors, so you  never realize there's anything outside at all. Sometimes, *unusual examples* can help you see that. And that's, again, part of the reason for the bad ideas method, like *random metaphors* – things that, as soon as you've got something that *isn't in the box*, even if it's not a very good thing, it  helps you to realize because you say, 'Well, *why* isn't this a good solution? Why doesn't it *work* as a solution?'

And as you answer that question about why, what you're doing is you're *naming that cardboard wall*. And once you've named the cardboard wall and you know it's there, you can start to think of what might be outside of that box but perhaps is a better solution. If you think about some of the analytic method— combining those, those are about building a map of the territory, which is very much about naming the box, naming the walls, naming the boundaries, and by naming them, by seeing from a  distance what is there,

being able to then think of alternative solutions that are completely different. So, both alternative solutions help you to see the territory, help you to see the box. Of course, by seeing the box, that gives you the potential to have alternative solutions and actually you can iterate back and forth between those and hopefully build a better understanding  of what is there and what is constraining you. If you understand what's constraining you, then you can start to break those constraints.

Let's now talk a little bit about roles in creativity, taking on a role. We'll start off by looking at de Bono again and the thinking hats. So, I think the two things if you've heard of de Bono will be lateral thinking and thinking hats. So, de Bono talks about *six hats*. One of the hats, what he calls the *white hat* is the information-seeking hat.

I think the white is supposed to be like the blank slate, blank piece of paper you write on. So, you're seeking information – you're finding  out about things that are similar and related, and doing that kind of thing; it's a gathering stage. Then there's the *yellow hat*, which is the positive, bright, looking for the pros in everything, as opposed to the *black hat*, where you look at all the negative things, all the cons, all the reasons why something is bad. So, with those positive and negative, again – with the bad ideas, recall deliberately how do you think about what are the positive things about this idea?

What are the bad things about this idea? And then actually, once you've thought of the good things to critique those; so, alternating you between taking this sort of positive, active role of thinking what are good things, and taking the negative role. Then there's this *red hat*, which is about listening to your feelings, trying to get that gut reaction to something, getting that out without necessarily thinking about why you think that, just getting it out there. You can use some of these others to question it. The *green hat*, which is all about bright ideas,

thinking of just lots and lots and lots of ideas. And then, finally, and possibly most important the *blue hat* – the role management hat, actually looking back and saying, 'Have I actually thought about all of the (inaud.)? Have I spent time thinking about the positive aspects of this? Have I spent time listening to what I feel about this?' Actually, I'm going to pop back to that feeling one because I've – one of the techniques that I often suggest people use when they do qualitative research is

to deliberately do things that incite  those gut feelings. So, what I suggest doing is if they've got some sort of model, some sort of vocabulary, is to look back to the original data to use their model to describe their data  or use their vocabulary to describe their data. Perhaps it's something that somebody said,  something that somebody did, and then say, 'it's just a...' – you know – so, 'it's just a...'

and then the words will be vocabulary. And see how much that rankles inside. So, effectively what you can do is create  situations. And this is the role management thing; it's saying, 'Can I create a situation where I can apply the red hat, where I can generate feelings?' So, I think it's a quite useful set of –  they're not the only things you could have. And there are different roles you can have; you might have roles which are perhaps more to do with – should we say – customer-focus or client-focus roles.

You know – so, one of you might say, 'I'm going to be thinking about – I'm going to be the problem owner.' And another person might decide to act as the technology provider, another person as perhaps the management role, and then think about each, taking that viewpoint to look at a problem. So, there are different ways you might choose roles. So, why are roles useful – taking a role on at times? Sometimes it's to help you *notice that you've neglected something*.

So, for instance, I mentioned the feeling one or it might be that you spent so much time thinking about positive things, you've not actually considered some of the negative features. So, by thinking about the roles, by putting a role hat on, you force yourself to think about things from *different  viewpoints* and to not neglect some aspect. Particularly on that positive and negative hat, if you say, 'I am going to be the devil's advocate for a period,'

by stating that, by saying 'I am  putting that hat on, I am taking that role on,' it can avoid a level of rancor in groups. So, if you're doing a group, if you're working together and somebody's being the proponent's idea,  if you start saying negative things about it, everybody gets upset. If you say, 'Not because I think it's a bad idea, but because I'm going to take this negative role,  I'm going to try and think of all the negative aspects about it,' it can make it a little bit easier. I mean, they still might hate you if you do it. So, it's a good idea to rotate the negative hat  around. Everyone will love you while you're taking

the positive hat on; they'll hate you when you have the negative hat on, but by *knowing* it's a hat, it can help allow you to be – particularly in this critical role – without causing ill will. It might also help you to *go beyond your norms of behavior*. So, if you tend to be the sort of person who always sees the negative aspect, then actually deliberately taking the positive role, or vice versa, if you're the person who just, particularly if you don't like hurting people's feelings,

you might tend to encourage people. Think of all the positive things, think of things that help them, but actually sometimes it's *more* helpful to be critical, and so actually saying,  'Okay, just for a moment, I'm going to take that devil's advocate role, take that negative role and see where that leads me.' And it can help you to escape the patternings that you have. And particularly we mentioned the stepping back, the way that roles, actually thinking

'I am taking on a role' helps you think about the role. It makes you think that there are different roles you can take and that they can apply. So... thinking about roles helps you to step back from the problem, step back from you as a solution (inaud.)— whether it's a team or it's you as an individual, you might alternate roles yourself within a project; you might choose to take roles if you're working as a group. But that stepping back is quite an important bit and *seeing that it's a role* and therefore helping you to adopt them.

And they really make a difference. Taking on roles helps you think in *different* ways. So, this is seen particularly in  work on gender studies and also work on issues to do with racial bias in things like job markets and examinations and things like that. And this is partly about the bias – we  talked about bias earlier – but also about the way in which you tell stories to yourself. So, I come from a working-class background.

So, one of the stories I might tell myself if I'm not careful is – you know – 'Working-class boys don't do this' – as a child going to university or whatever it was. And I went to Cambridge University. You know – 'Working-class boys don't go to Cambridge University. Posh kids go there, not working-class boys.' We tell ourselves stories. What you find is when you do experiments and you get people to think just before an examination or a test about  different kinds of roles

– now, that might be gender-reversal roles, it might be trying to think – of boys to think about more female things and vice versa. It might be about social background, a variety of things. You find it actually makes a substantial difference in the test scores. So, by just having people *think about different roles*, they suddenly *behave differently* because it's so easy to get trapped in the expectations we have of ourselves

built up individually over time;  sometimes it's about our social situation. This also works for creativity. So, if you ask people to think about things that, shall we say, are creative things (inaud.), and it might be you spend time thinking about Einstein or DeRidder or Picasso, as opposed to, say, thinking about  a foot soldier who's ordered what to do all the time or somebody who's sleeping – you know. So, if you think about creative things and then go into a creative situation,

that can actually help you be more creative. Throughout these videos, I constantly emphasize that we're all individual and different, and one of the most powerful things you could do  is understand the way you are and then use it. But part of that is also – it's a bit like seeing outside the box – by understanding that, sometimes you can create these things and roles, and building these roles

for yourself is one of the mechanisms that allows you to for a period, for a purpose to actually reinvent yourself so that when you're addressing a particular problem sometimes you can literally address it as a different person.