Page 90 - (DK) The Business Book

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THE WAY FORWARD

MAY NOT BE TO

GO FORWARD

THINKING OUTSIDE THE BOX

he competitive pressures old environment. To avoid this, the
IN CONTEXT that businesses face are idea of “thinking outside the box”
T constantly in flux: new ideas is used to challenge precepts and
FOCUS
and disruptive technologies emerge, assumptions—to consider that
Innovation
the economic power of countries sometimes, the way to move
KEY DATES shifts, and market dynamics forward is not to move forward at all.
1914 The nine-dots puzzle change. Yet business history is The idea of thinking outside the
is published in Sam Loyd’s littered with companies that box emerged in the 1960s and is
Cyclopedia of Puzzles. ignored change and pushed forward based on the nine-dots puzzle, a
with flawed strategies based on the game that was used by management
1967 Edward de Bono coins
the term “lateral thinking” to
describe the process of the
“horizontal imagination,”
which has a broad sweep but Markets are dynamic;
is unconcerned with detail. technologies and competitive
pressures change.
1970s There is a surge of
management consultants
encouraging creativity.
Strategic thinking is said
to embrace retrenchment
and retreat. For businesses to survive,
leaders must motivate staff
2012 Jeff Bezos of Amazon
to avoid fixed thinking.
claims that ”if you’re inventing
and pioneering, you have to be
willing to be misunderstood
for long periods of time.”
Thinking outside the box Sometimes the way
is a leadership tool that to move forward
encourages creative is not to move
responses to problems. forward at all.