Restaurants have much in common with other businesses, especially when it comes to innovation. Like lemmings they copy each other, trying to keep both customers and the Center For Science In The Public Interest happy. Not an easy task.

However, anyone who ever watched Diners, Drive-ins and Dives on the Food Channel knows that not all toe the line; there are plenty that focus on pleasing the former and say to hell with the latter.

It’s called thinking way outside the box and the Heart Attack Grill in Chandler, AZ is the leader of the ‘to hell with’ pack.

Heart Attack Grill is a great example of how an innovative combination of delicious, socially unacceptable food and a culture of exceptional customer care turned a restaurant into a destination and a major hit with people who aren’t intimidated by the food police.

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As I said in the old posts I pointed out yesterday, I don’t believe that anyone ever gets out of their box, but boxes are infinitely enlargeable and the only constraints are the ones you put in place.

I thought I’d offer up two visual mind-expanders today. Fun for you and fun for me.

Did you know that research shows that no matter how scrambled the letters if the first and last are in the correct position you can read the words? Try it now.

Could you read it? If not, try again.

How are you at spatial puzzles? Here’s one that’s been around for a long time, but I haven’t met many people who solved it.

Think abut what you just saw. The MAP that stops most of us from figuring it out is based on what we start hearing as toddlers when we get our first crayons—

“Silly, whoever heard of an orange sky?”

“But cows only have 4 legs.”

And from our first coloring book, and as a metaphor throughout life, we hear over an over “color inside the lines;” then all of a sudden we’re being chided for doing exactly that.

Go ahead, expand the lines; push the boundaries; you’ll be surprised at how easily they move.

Image credit: MykReeve on flickr, tamlac00 on YouTube and macias9133 on YouTube

I’ve always said that no one ever really thinks outside their box, they just keep enlarging it. Rather than reprinting these posts, please read three of them here.

And here’s a riddle for a bit of box stretching and Friday fun.

Many years ago in a small Indian village, a farmer had the misfortune of owing a large sum of money to a village moneylender. The moneylender, who was old and ugly, fancied the farmer’s beautiful daughter. So he proposed a bargain.

He said he would forgo the farmer’s debt if he could marry his daughter.

Both the farmer and his daughter were horrified by the proposal. So the cunning money-lender suggested that they let providence decide the matter. He told them that he would put a black pebble and a white pebble into an empty money bag. Then the girl would have to pick one pebble from the bag.

1) If she picked the black pebble, she would become his wife and her father’s debt would be forgiven.

2) If she picked the white pebble she need not marry him and her father’s debt would still be forgiven.

3) If she refused to pick a pebble, her father would be thrown into jail.

They were standing on a pebble strewn path in the farmer’s field. As they talked, the moneylender bent over to pick up two pebbles. As he picked them up, the sharp-eyed girl noticed that he had picked up two black pebbles and put them into the bag. He then asked the girl to pick a pebble from the bag.

Logically, there are three choices,

• The girl should refuse to take a pebble.
• The girl should show that there were two black pebbles in the bag and expose the money-lender as a cheat.
• The girl should pick a black pebble and sacrifice herself in order to save her father from his debt and imprisonment.

But is there a fourth and better way out of the dilemma?

Take a moment to share your idea in comments and if you’re correct I’ll send you a management book (chosen based on your interests). If more than one of you gets it right the winner will be chosen using random.org.

I’ll post the answer next Friday, be sure to come back and see if your mind achieved what the girl’s did.

Image credit: piblet on flickr

Now take a look at a 2009 Wall Street wizard

Image credit: Combined Media on sxc.hu