by Piper Wilson

Created on: January 17, 2009   Last Updated: November 16, 2010

Thinking outside the box and creative thinking are terms that are common in today's lexicon and many people use them.  What do they mean?  Why are they important?  Can they be taught?  Ed Bernacki offers this definition for "thinking outside the box":

Thinking outside the box requires different attributes that include:

* Willingness to take new perspectives to day-to-day work.

* Openness to do different things and to do things differently.
* Focusing on the value of finding new ideas and acting on them.
* Striving to create value in new ways.
* Listening to others.
* Supporting and respecting others when they come up with new ideas.

An excellent example of thinking outside the box comes from the sports world.  The Fosbury Flop was made famous by Dick Fosbury at the Mexico City Olympic Games in 1968 and dramatically altered the techniques used in the high jump.  Before 1968, high jumpers used a variety of techniques to clear the bar with varying degrees of success.  Fosbury's method is to "sprint diagonally towards the bar, jump off the outside foot, then curve and leap head-first, back-downwards over the bar in a rolling motion keeping as much of the body as possible below the bar.  When high jumpers perform this jump, they bend their body in such a way that it is possible for the athlete to clear the bar while his or her center of mass does not.  In fact, the body's center of mass can be kept as much as 20 cm under the pole."  Twelve years later, 75% of high jumpers were using the Fosbury Flop at the 1980 Olympics in Moscow.  All of the competitors used it at the 2008 Olympics in Beijing.

In essence, creative thinking is simply reframing the perception of a situation.  It isn't necessary to revolutionize anything to think creatively.  Most people think creatively without being aware of it.  Scrabble players rearrange their letters as they study the board.  Card players rearrange their cards according to suit, numbers or groups during a game.  Choosing a new hair style, rearranging a kitchen or trying to find an alternate route around a traffic jam are all examples of creative thinking.

A common problem at drive thrus in the fast food industry used to be mistakes completing orders correctly because the employee at the window had no way of knowing what the driver had ordered.  Many fast food restaurants now attach a paper ticket to each order so that the window employee can verify

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