If you’re faced with a unique and complicated issue at work, you may need to think outside the box to find a solution.
When you think outside the box, you try to use your imagination to come up with new and unusual ideas. The purpose of thinking outside the box is to challenge yourself to think differently about a subject, so that you can approach it from a new perspective and ideally, produce original ideas and solutions.
This expression is used in both personal and professional contexts, especially in situations that require creativity or innovation. If someone asks you to think outside the box, they are asking you to abandon conventional ways of thinking. For example:
- If we want to start our own company, then we have to think outside the box and come up with a unique product or service that's not already on the market.
- We've never faced a problem like this before, so our usual solutions won't work. We need to think outside the box on this one.
A. What makes you a good candidate for our marketing team?
B. Well... I'm an extremely creative person with five years of experience as a marketing specialist. I always push myself to think outside the box so that I can come up with fresh ideas that grab the attention of consumers.
Did you know? This expression is linked to the advertising and marketing world, where originality and creativity is crucial. The "box" symbolizes the constraints of traditional and predictable ways of thinking, which is why the goal is to think freely beyond those limitations.