Outside The Box
Thinking
"outside the box" or as it is sometimes called, "coloring outside the
lines" is a popular idea in the business world today. People and
organizations are told to think outside the box or color outside the
lines as a way to stimulate creativity when they need to solve problems
like streamlining production, establishing a new product, or developing a
new process. And it's true that creativity and innovation often arise
from unexpected and unconventional thinking.
But there is a serious problem with trying to apply such thinking too broadly.
For
instance, creativity is valued in art and advertising, but not in
banking and accounting. An accounting firm recently ran an ad suggesting
that it could think "outside the box." Do you really want your business
to be associated with creative accounting? Aren't accountants supposed
to put the numbers in the right box? Wasn't creative accounting a
serious problem for Enron?
In reality, clear thinking and the
creativity that it produces are rarely a matter of thinking outside the
box. And coloring outside the lines is for the most part just sloppy
workmanship. The art of clear thinking is a matter of putting thoughts
in to the right boxes or categories. Clear thinking is a matter of
mental organization. Conversely, sloppy thinking involves the confusion
of categories, of putting ideas into the wrong boxes or not putting them
in order at all. Is a child who will not straighten his or her room
creative or just sloppy? There is a significant difference. While
creativity sometimes looks sloppy to an outside observer, it does not
issue from sloppiness.
Picasso was a creative artist.
But
his creativity was not a matter of the art he produced. In reality his
abstract work is technically sloppy. It looks like the work of a child.
Picasso could sell his abstract art only because he had previously
established himself as an artist who could color inside the lines very
well. Had he not first proven his artistic talent in the traditional
way, his abstract art would have been worth much less. He used his
reputation as a traditional artist to establish a new direction in art.
He didn't so much color outside the box, as he expanded the boundaries
and definition of the box. But the point is that his abstract creations
were valuable only because of his proven abilities in the traditional
arts.
Contrast my own efforts to establish myself as an abstract
artist. My art has gone unnoticed because I have not been able to prove
myself as a traditional artist. Not that I actually tried to do so, but I
am using myself as an example to make the point. The creativity of a
novel idea requires the discipline of order and structure to be
valuable. Picasso's art is valuable because he was an accomplished
painter who intentionally colored outside the lines. My art is not
valuable because I am not an accomplished painter and I accidentally
color outside the lines. While the two products may look similar, the
difference is critical.
Creativity is more than breaking the rules.
Similarly,
Joseph Heller was able to break the rules of English grammar in his
book, Something Happened (Scribner, 1974), only because he was
intimately familiar with them. Having taught English at the University
of South Carolina, he was a master of grammar. And only out of his
expertise could he creatively exploit, expand and redefine the
boundaries of grammar. And so it is with regard to thinking outside the
box.
Thinking outside the box apart from being able to think inside the box is worthless.
Such
thought is just plain sloppy. Thus, the suggestion that creativity lies
in the ability to think outside the box is mostly nonsense. Creativity
issues from talent, ability and discipline. Talent must be forged and
shaped on the anvil of discipline in order to develop ability. Great
ability is always the result of study, discipline and practice.
Creativity
is more a matter of seeing that the boxes themselves are inadequate and
suggesting a better arrangement or a better definition. Creativity
doesn't simply discard the boxes, it redefines and/or rearranges them
after becoming intimately familiar with them. Real creativity is always
the fruit of discipline and order. Creativity, in order to be genuinely
creative and not simply sloppy disorganization, must emerge out of
discipline and order as an intentional effort.
While a creative
idea often comes unbidden out of unexpected places, it requires
discipline, study and order to make something of it. Apart from
discipline and order, what passes for creativity is nonsense, and to
suggest otherwise actually undermines and/or weakens the creative
process.
What does this mean for our industry? Distributors and
suppliers should apply themselves to mastering the basics before
attempting to break the rules in the name of creativity. Don't start
outside the box. First, establish your ability to think within the box.
Master the rules before you suggest breaking them. For example, before a
distributorship presents a wild, innovative concept to a client for a
campaign, it should first establish its expertise with campaigns and/or
ideas that have a track record of yielding good ROI. Designers, artists,
and copy writers should establish their mastery of basics before
experimenting outside the box. For the most part the important stuff is
inside the box.
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