THINKING OUTSIDE THE BOX

'Thinking outside the box' is a cliché or catchphrase used to refer to looking at a problem from a new perspective without preconceptions, sometimes called a process of lateral thought. The catchphrase has become widely used in business environments, especially by management consultants and executive coaches, and has spawned a number of advertising slogans.

Contents

Origin

Culture

References

See also

External links

Origin

The first appearance of the phrase is not obscure to people that worked in the Disney organization in the 1950's and 1960's. The nine dot puzzle was used in training sessions within the company. Each dot has a meaning and the two points outside of the box where labeled as "The Vision" and "The Method". After Walt Disney's death in 1966, everyone would ask, "How did Walt think?" Mike Vance, then Dean of Disney University would explain the nine dot puzzle and how you had to Think Outside of the Box to solve it, as how Walt Disney's thought process always worked. This term became common in the Disney organization from then on. Upon leaving Disney in the late 1970's, international speaker Mike Vance would talk extensively about the nine dot puzzle and how Walt Disney would "Think Outside The Box" in all of his speeches and seminars. Mike was encouraged to write a book about thinking outside the box, which he did in 1995. There is no doubt that the thousands of speeches that Mike gave in the 1980's and 1990's popularized the term "Thinking Outside the Box". Mike is so lined to that phrase that when he worked with Taco Bell on a new commercial they came up with the slogan "Think Outside the Bun" and it stuck. Mike Vance is considered the Dean of Creative Thinking. http://www.creativethinkingassoc.com However, both Martin Kihn of Fast Company^[1] and the Random House Word Mavens^[2] concur that the phrase relates to a traditional topographical puzzle called the 'nine dots puzzle'.

According to Kihn, consultants of the 1970s and 1980s tried to make their prospective clients feel inferior by presenting them with the puzzle. The challenge is to connect the dots by drawing four straight, continuous lines, and never lifting the pencil from the paper. The puzzle is easily solved, but only if you draw the lines outside of the confines of the square area defined by the nine dots themselves. Thus, the phrase "thinking outside the box" was born. The Word Mavens refer to Prof. Daniel Kies of the College of DuPage, who observes that the puzzle is only difficult because "we imagine a boundary around the edge of the dot array."
The nine dots puzzle is much older than the slogan. It appears in Sam Loyd's 1914 ''Cyclopedia of Puzzles''.^[3] 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.^[4] Lexicographer David Barnhart reports that he encountered the phrase in 1975.^[5]

Sam Loyd's original formulation of the puzzle^[6] called it "Christopher Columbus's egg puzzle." Envisioning the target dots of the puzzle as eggs makes it clear that they have area and are not infinitesimally small points, or that the strokes that connect them have width. Either of these features allows a three-line solution (near-parallel lines that meet far away from the nine points) or even a one-line solution (using a line thick enough to touch all nine points).

Culture

Taco Bell's ad to "Think outside the Bun" is in reference to this buzzword.

References

1. "Outside the Box": The Inside Story, retr/ Aug. 2, 2006.
2. The Mavens' Word of the Day, "Outside the Box Thinking", retr. Aug. 2, 2006.
3. Sam Loyd, ''Cyclopedia of Puzzles''. (The Lamb Publishing Company, 1914)
4. J. Travers, ''The Puzzle-Mine: Puzzles Collected from the Works of the Late Henry Ernest Dudeney''. (Thos. Nelson, 1951)
5. Research by "RonButters" posted to American Dialect Society mailing list June 2, 2000, retrieved Aug. 2, 2006.
6. Facsimile from ''Cyclopedia of Puzzles'' - Columbus's Egg Puzzle is on right-hand page at http://www.mathpuzzle.com

See also

★ Seven Bridges of Königsberg

External links

★ Nine Dots (answer)

★ Nine Dots

★ The Nine Dots Puzzle - page on the puzzle by Prof. Daniel Kies

★ The Nine Dot Puzzle

★ Explanation of the sixteen dot puzzle

★ Article on Tips To Think Outside The Box

★ Aha! Puzzles - lots of NEW outside the box puzzles

★ e-workshop - the Thinking Outside the Box Training Package