Thinking outside the box

The "nine dots" puzzle. The goal of the puzzle is to link all 9 dots using four straight lines or fewer, without lifting the pen and without tracing the same line more than once. One solution appears below.

Thinking outside the box (also thinking out of the box^[1][2] or thinking beyond the box) is a metaphor that means to think differently, unconventionally, or from a new perspective. This phrase often refers to novel or creative thinking. The term is thought to derive from management consultants in the 1970s and 1980s challenging their clients to solve the "nine dots" puzzle, whose solution requires some lateral thinking.^[3]

The catchphrase, or cliché, has become widely used in business environments, especially by management consultants and executive coaches, and has been referenced in a number of advertising slogans. To think outside the box is to look further and to try not thinking of the obvious things, but to try thinking of the things beyond them.

Analogy

A simplified definition for paradigm is a habit of reasoning or a conceptual framework.

A simplified analogy is "the box" in the commonly used phrase "thinking outside the box". What is encompassed by the words "inside the box" is analogous with the current, and often unnoticed, assumptions about a situation. Creative thinking acknowledges and rejects the accepted paradigm to come up with new ideas.

Nine dots puzzle

The notion of something outside a perceived "box" is related to a traditional topographical puzzle called the nine dots puzzle.^[3]

The origins of the phrase "thinking outside the box" are obscure; but it was popularized in part because of a nine-dot puzzle, which John Adair claims to have introduced in 1969.^[4] Management consultant Mike Vance has claimed that the use of the nine-dot puzzle in consultancy circles stems from the corporate culture of the Walt Disney Company, where the puzzle was used in-house.^[5]

Christopher Columbus's Egg Puzzle as it appeared in Sam Loyd's Cyclopedia of Puzzles.

The nine dots puzzle is much older than the slogan. It appears in Sam Loyd's 1914 Cyclopedia of Puzzles.^[6] In the 1951 compilation The Puzzle-Mine: Puzzles Collected from the Works of the Late Henry Ernest Dudeney, the puzzle is attributed to Dudeney himself.^[7] Sam Loyd's original formulation of the puzzle^[8] entitled it as "Christopher Columbus's egg puzzle." This was an allusion to the story of Egg of Columbus.

One of many solutions to the puzzle at the beginning of this article is to go beyond the boundaries to link all dots in 4 straight lines.

The puzzle proposed an intellectual challenge—to connect the dots by drawing four straight, continuous lines that pass through each of the nine dots, and never lifting the pencil from the paper. The conundrum is easily resolved, but only by drawing the lines outside the confines of the square area defined by the nine dots themselves. The phrase "thinking outside the box" is a restatement of the solution strategy. The puzzle only seems difficult because people commonly imagine a boundary around the edge of the dot array.^[9] The heart of the matter is the unspecified barrier that people typically perceive.

Ironically, telling people to "think outside the box" does not help them think outside the box, at least not with the 9-dot problem.^[10] This is due to the distinction between procedural knowledge (implicit or tacit knowledge) and declarative knowledge (book knowledge). For example, a non-verbal cue such as drawing a square outside the 9 dots does allow people to solve the 9-dot problem better than average.^[11] However, a very particular kind of verbalization did indeed allow people to solve the problem better than average. This is to speak in a non-judgmental, free association style. These were the instructions in a study that showed facilitation in solving the 9-dot problem:

While solving the problems you will be encouraged to think aloud. When thinking aloud you should do the following: Say whatever’s on your mind. Don’t hold back hunches, guesses, wild ideas, images, plans or goals. Speak as continuously as possible. Try to say something at least once every five seconds. Speak audibly. Watch for your voice dropping as you become involved. Don’t worry about complete sentences or eloquence. Don’t over explain or justify. Analyze no more than you would normally. Don’t elaborate on past events. Get into the pattern of saying what you’re thinking about now, not of thinking for a while and then describing your thoughts. Though the experimenter is present you are not talking to the experimenter. Instead, you are to perform this task as if you are talking aloud to yourself.^[12]

The nine-dot problem is a well-defined problem. It has a clearly stated goal, and all necessary information to solve the problem is included (connect all of the dots using four straight lines). Furthermore, well-defined problems have a clear ending (you know when you have reached the solution). Although the solution is "outside the box" and not easy to see at first, once it has been found, it seems obvious. Other examples of well-defined problems are the Tower of Hanoi and the Rubik's Cube.

In contrast, characteristics of ill-defined problems are:

• not clear what the question really is
• not clear how to arrive at a solution
• no idea what the solution looks like

An example of an ill-defined problem is "what is the essence of happiness?" The skills needed to solve this type of problem are the ability to reason and draw inferences, metacognition, and epistemic monitoring.

Metaphor

This flexible English phrase is a rhetorical trope with a range of variant applications.

The metaphorical "box" in the phrase "outside the box" may be married with something real and measurable — for example, perceived budgetary^[13] or organizational^[14] constraints in a Hollywood development project. Speculating beyond its restrictive confines the box can be both:

(a) positive— fostering creative leaps as in generating wild ideas (the conventional use of the term);^[13] and

(b) negative— penetrating through to the "bottom of the box." James Bandrowski states that this could result in a frank and insightful re-appraisal of a situation, oneself, the organization, etc.

On the other hand, Bandrowski argues that the process of thinking "inside the box" need not be construed in a pejorative sense. It is crucial for accurately parsing and executing a variety of tasks — making decisions, analyzing data, and managing the progress of standard operating procedures, etc.

Hollywood screenwriter Ira Steven Behr appropriated this concept to inform plot and character in the context of a television series. Behr imagined a core character:

He is going to be "thinking outside the box," you know, and usually when we use that cliche, we think outside the box means a new thought. So we can situate ourselves back in the box, but in a somewhat better position.^[14]

The phrase can be used as a shorthand way to describe speculation about what happens next in a multi-stage design thinking process.^[14]

See also

Part of a series on
Puzzles
Types Guessing Riddle Situation Logic Dissection Induction Logic grid Self-reference Mechanical Combination Construction Disentanglement Lock Go problems Folding Stick Tiling Transport Tour Sliding Chess Maze (Logic maze) Word Crossword Puzzle video games Mazes Metapuzzles
Topics Brain teaser Dilemma Optical illusion Packing problems Paradox Problem solving Puzzlehunt Syllogism Thinking outside the box
Lists Impossible puzzles Maze video games Nikoli puzzle types Puzzle video games Puzzle topics

• Egg of Columbus
• Einstellung effect
• Eureka effect
• Kobayashi Maru
• Gordian Knot
• Cube of Saturn
• Lateral thinking

References

Further reading

• Adams, J. L. (1979). Conceptual Blockbusting: A Guide to Better Ideas. New York: W. W. Norton. ISBN 978-0-201-10089-1.  ISBN 0-201-10089-4 (more solutions to the nine dots problem - with less than 4 lines!)
• Scheerer, M. (1972). "Problem-solving". Scientific American 208 (4): 118–128. 
• Golomb, Solom W.; Selfridge, John L. (1970). "Unicursal polygonal paths and other graphs on point lattices". Pi Mu Epsilon Journal 5: 107–117. MR 0268063. 

External links

Look up outside the box in Wiktionary, the free dictionary.

• Out-of-the-box vs. outside the box citing Oxford Advanced Learners Dictionary (OALD), Word of the Month
• Think Outside The Box 200 puzzles and Answers Think Outside The Box 200 logic Puzzles and Answers