File under: Delightful random email from a Fast Company reader, but I just received the following:
Could you provide a source for the claim that the phrase "Think Outside the Box" originiated as a management tactic/catchphrase?
Googling for the origin of the phrase, I came across a Web site that states:
The phrase think outside the box is an allusion to a well-known puzzle where one has to connect nine dots, arranged in a square grid, with four straight lines drawn continuously without pen leaving paper. The only solution to this puzzle is one where some of the lines extend beyond the border of the grid (or box). This puzzle was a popular gimmick among management consultants in the 1970s and 80s as a demonstration of the need to discard unwarranted assumptions (like the assumption that the lines must remain within the grid).The term dates to at least to 1975.
Any more specific citations?
Update: My colleague Ryan Underwood -- who has clearly read more of the June issue than I have so far -- sheds additional light on the origin of the phrase.
Related Stories: | Topics:Work/Life, culture, Fast Company Magazine, Ryan Underwood |
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Recent Comments | 7 Total
May 18, 2005 at 3:52pm by Mira Furth
it might be a gimmick but it very quickly demonstrates that we respond to what we think we heard (i.e. assumptions we make) not necessarily to what is said. or in this case not said. Specifically the words 'don't go outside of the 'box' are never given as part of the instruction yet most people assume that limitation which is why they can't figure out how to connect the nine dots (without lifting the pencil...)
May 18, 2005 at 5:27pm by Ryan Underwood
Funny you should mention that Heath. FC's intrepid consultant debunker, Martin Kihn, wrote in the June issue about that very topic (subscriber code required):
"The phrase means something like 'think creatively' or 'be original' and its origin is generally attributed to consultants in the 1970s and 1980s who tried to make clients feel inadequate by drawing nine dots on a piece of paper and asking them to connect the dots without lifting their pen, using only four lines:
. . .
. . .
. . .
(Hint: You have to think outside the--oh, you know)"
May 19, 2005 at 7:18am by James Barnes
The nine-dot puzzle is indeed a window on the power of our subconscious context or unconscious assumptions in problem solving, resolving and dissolving. I find the puzzle to be very effective as a frame for discussing context and creativity as a platform for innovation. In The Art of Problem Solving (Wiley, 1978) Russell Ackoff writes about his daughter's experience with the nine-dot puzzle in math class: Her teacher did not like her solution that was farther out of the box than the teacher wanted! Don't get me started on our education system. To experience of some of these beyond "out-of-the-box" solutions see : http://www.jbinnovation.com/Puzzle.htm
Or, read Ackoff. The puzzle is also in The Best of Ackoff (Wiley, 1999)
May 19, 2005 at 8:22pm by Clay
I'm still digging to find confirmation, but I believe the term (or more specifically, the notion) was actually coined by the architect Frank Lloyd Wright. Essentially it was used as a way of explaining his use of windows in corners; removing the visual bounds that cause a room to feel like a box. His line of reasoning: corners define space (more specifically, the intersection of two planes), if you remove the corners, you remove "the box", you no longer delineate what is built and what is natural. He would remind his students at Taliesin West to "think outside the box" in an attempt to help them understand the connection between 'inside' and 'outside', generally of nature and the built environment.
Oddly enough (considering the context of the article), I learned this in design school...
May 30, 2005 at 3:41pm by A.J.
I love the "out of the box" concept. My blog - - blawg - - is www.outoftheboxlawyering.com.
It's "A blawg to help lawyers arrive at practical out-of-the box solutions for their clients -
A site for creative and not-so-creative attorneys."
I sometimes give workshops and continuing legal education sessions on legal creativity and I have used the nine-dot exercise in the past. The most intriguing part for me is getting to connecting all the dots with just one line.
I believe someone somewhere has suggesting using a broad pen, but it could also be as large as a paint brush.
In addition, I don't think this has been mentioned: The dots could be cut from the piece of paper and glued in one continuous line so that one line could go through all of them. (There's usually nothing in the statement of the problem that would preclude this "out of the box" solution.
May 6, 2007 at 10:12pm by James Smith
Out of the box could me the "Skinner Box" which represented a very simplistic, "other controlled", set of limited outcomes.
Instead of acting like a mouse in a Skinner box, think outside of the "setup" and be creative to achieve maximum results of your own making!
September 10, 2007 at 3:21pm by Brett Bellomo
cmts informal as impld by above:
1.Is the idea of the essay (basic no) one for
a strong intellectual action.
2.Is the essay a compilation based on pure data?(no, but infinite theory is taken)
3.Does the author really solicit an emotional reaction?(basic yes)
4.Is the author asking you to study or take a paradigm (formal opinion) loose def.) of studying?
?
5.Is the author telling you a personal view or a intellectually based one (both)
6. Is the author asking for a specific opinion about the answer (more of a next logcl quaest)
Yes,for an exact math or texted answer,no for a
subjective non academic comment.
7.any basic quest? adv email! brett j Bellomo 7,75mwstka gr 1994,basic private response good discreet academic databse credit ok. thanks.prv altered pstngok,