Think out of the box

How to Break the Mold and Be an IndependentThinker

To come up with truly creative products and
unique ideas, great business leaders need to
be independent thinkers. Our brains are wired to
recycle ideas we’ve already heard from others,
but you can learn to think independently, or to
comeup with novel ideas, with a few easy
psychological tips and tools. Let's start with an
exercise: Take a blank piece of
paper and draw an animal from an alien planet.
If you're like most people, then what you’ve
drawn looks wacky, but vaguely familiar. It's
probably somewhat symmetric, and it likely has
some combination of arms, legs, ears, eyes, or
noses. In
other words, it looks like a distorted version of
animals on Earth.
"Everything you think is influenced by years of
experience and cultural upbringing," says Art
Markman, a
cognitive psychologist at University of Texas at
Austin and author of Smart Thinking (Perigee
Trade,
2012). "Your natural tendency is to pull a
known solution from your memory."
Independent thinking requires you to break that
mold. Try these three strategies to prompt your
brain to
think more independently:
1. Place a lot of constraints on the problem.
Paradoxically, open-ended problems are the
enemy of independent thinking. "If you don't
have
constraints, the first things you'll come up with
are the most accessible memories," Markman
says.
"They'll be really similar to what others have
done before."
Instead, give yourself limitations. Rule out
elements of the solution that seem expected or
natural. For
example, can you make a bank that has no
tellers? Can you write a book that has no
beginning? The
constraints should force you to consider an
unfamiliar scenario, and you should try many
of them as you
work toward a viable solution.
2. Combine ideas that seem ill-matched.
When you're trying to solve a problem, your
memory will retrieve solutions or concepts that
seem like
logical matches, often because others have
used that match already. To think differently,
consider ideas
that don't seem compatible at all.
For example, what if you made a dating
website that worked like Wikipedia? Or what if
you found a way to
open a can using only airplane parts? "Try to
jam things together that feel like misfits at first,
and see
how far that takes you," Markman says. Many
of your ideas will fail, but any that succeed are
likely to be
unique.
Related: Disrupt Your Thinking, Transform Your
Business
3. Take the bird's eye view.
When you're trying to solve a problem, zoom
out to see variables that others might overlook.
"Thinking
about the bigger picture takes you out of the
familiar way of thinking about the problem,"
Markman says.
Ask yourself, what is the purpose of solving
this problem? What would happen if I succeed?
And how can
I find a solution that makes that outcome
work?
For example, Thomas Edison saw that houses
would need to be wired for electricity if people
were going
to buy lightbulbs. To send power over long
distances, you need a high voltage bulb.
Edison was the only
inventor who realized To come up with truly
creative products and
unique ideas, great business leaders need to
be
independent thinkers. Our brains are wired to
recycle ideas we’ve already heard from others,
but
you can learn to think independently, or to
come
up with novel ideas, with a few easy
psychological tips and tools.
Let's start with an exercise: Take a blank piece
of
paper and draw an animal from an alien planet.
If you're like most people, then what you’ve
drawn looks wacky, but vaguely familiar. It's
probably somewhat symmetric, and it likely has
some combination of arms, legs, ears, eyes, or
noses. In
other words, it looks like a distorted version of
animals on Earth.
"Everything you think is influenced by years of
experience and cultural upbringing," says Art
Markman, a
cognitive psychologist at University of Texas at
Austin and author of Smart Thinking (Perigee
Trade,
2012). "Your natural tendency is to pull a
known solution from your memory."
Independent thinking requires you to break that
mold. Try these three strategies to prompt your
brain to
think more independently:
1. Place a lot of constraints on the problem.
Paradoxically, open-ended problems are the
enemy of independent thinking. "If you don't
have
constraints, the first things you'll come up with
are the most accessible memories," Markman
says.
"They'll be really similar to what others have
done before."
Instead, give yourself limitations. Rule out
elements of the solution that seem expected or
natural. For
example, can you make a bank that has no
tellers? Can you write a book that has no
beginning? The
constraints should force you to consider an
unfamiliar scenario, and you should try many
of them as you
work toward a viable solution.
2. Combine ideas that seem ill-matched.
When you're trying to solve a problem, your
memory will retrieve solutions or concepts that
seem like
logical matches, often because others have
used that match already. To think differently,
consider ideas
that don't seem compatible at all.
For example, what if you made a dating
website that worked like Wikipedia? Or what if
you found a way to
open a can using only airplane parts? "Try to
jam things together that feel like misfits at first,
and see
how far that takes you," Markman says. Many
of your ideas will fail, but any that succeed are
likely to be
unique.
3. Take the bird's eye view.
When you're trying to solve a problem, zoom
out to see variables that others might overlook.
"Thinking
about the bigger picture takes you out of the
familiar way of thinking about the problem,"
Markman says.
Ask yourself, what is the purpose of solving
this problem? What would happen if I succeed?
And how can
I find a solution that makes that outcome
work?
For example, Thomas Edison saw that houses
would need to be wired for electricity if people
were going
to buy lightbulbs. To send power over long
distances, you need a high voltage bulb.
Edison was the only
inventor who realized this, so he was the one
who made history. , so he was the one who
made history.