Entrepreneur: Creativity Grows in Boxes
by Miki Saxon
In my work with entrepreneurs the conversation frequently turns to creativity, the importance of “thinking outside the box” and how to encourage it.
With all the focus on entrepreneurs I thought it was a good time to revisit something I wrote a few years ago.
This is my own theory about boxes.
Everybody has a box.
That’s right and no matter how hard you try you’ll never really think outside it.
The idea that boxes are bad is a function of how you interpret them.
It’s not the box that matters, but its size and how you address that.
Steve Jobs’ and Steven Spielberg’s boxes are immense, far larger than most, yet they both continue to enlarge them.
And therein lays one of the secrets of a creative organization.
It’s not about encouraging your people to “think outside the box,” but about helping each to understand their own box and how to enlarge it.
Use up your box’s content, find its sides, move beyond them, a new box forms and the process begins again.
Because that’s how it works—each time you move outside your box, a new one forms.
If you work at it, this process continues throughout your life—although some never start it and some get comfortable in a certain box and retain it.
The most wonderful thing about boxes is that whether you remain, enlarge or retain, it’s always your choice and within your control to make it happen.
There will always be a box, but with effort you can enlarge it enough to encompass galaxies—and even entire universes.
It’s all yours for the choosing.
What do you do to enlarge your box?
Image credit: NASA
April 7th, 2011 at 3:06 pm
[…] Is it really possible to “think outside the box” or is something else going on? Miki Saxon shares her theory in Entrepreneur Creativity Grows in Boxes […]