Think Beyond

 

Just think beyond and not outside the box. 

When we think outside the box, the box still remains and acts as a point of reference. However much we want to be away from the box, we will still think in terms of the box. 

Consider, for example, that you are in a car going from one City A to another City B. What’s the fastest way to get there? Most people simply try to map out the most efficient route. Others take it a step further, weighing factors such as traffic, time of day, and rest stops. And still, others develop a plan to rotate drivers so they can limit stops and drive all night.

Most of the possible options you will think of will center on the car and traveling by road. The car becomes the box. The fastest way would be by air travel. When the boxed television sets were around everyone still thought and designed television sets as boxed. It continued till someone pushed the envelope and designed a really flat-screen television set. 

One of the victims of failing to think beyond has been Xerox. Xerox was the first company to stumble upon the graphic user interface and the mouse but failed to leverage it because it failed to look beyond. It thought of itself as an imaging company. 

Likewise, we become so much encapsulated by what we do, what we see, what we capture that it soon becomes all that we see. It becomes an anchor that stops us from looking beyond. There is always something more than what you are looking at.

Apple, Disney, Google were not amongst first in their respective businesses yet they redefined the very essence of the business they entered. Because they intentionally tried to look beyond what was evident.  You can add Amazon, Walmart, Netflix to the list. All of them just looked beyond the obvious. 

But in order to be able to do that, we need to observe, reflect, question, and keep challenging our fundamental assumptions and think beyond.