When people refer to creativity, most of them would talk about ones unique ability to come up with an innovative approach to a specific problem. As a result, the problem is solved and it looks so good “you want to lick it”. How did they come up with such solution? Something tells me that didn’t come in or outside the box.

Modern age thinking outside the box cliché is a form of plague that has gone viral not only across creative industries but also marketing, management, psychology, engineering, and even self help. Thinking outside the box comes from the experiment conducted in 1970s’ called the “nine dots” puzzle by psychologist named J. P. Guilford. The goal of the puzzle is to link all 9 dots using four straight lines or fewer, without lifting the pen and without tracing the same line more than once. This seemingly basic puzzle became one of the most overused metaphors for problem solving in literally everything.

Problem with out of the box thinking experiment is the fact that nobody actually checked if it was absolutely true. No one before two different research teams—Clarke Burnham with Kenneth Davis, and Joseph Alba with Robert Weisberg—ran another experiment using the same puzzle but a different research procedure. Two groups were given a task of solving a puzzle. First group was given the same conditions as group in Guilford experiment, and the second group were actually given a “tip” suggesting that participants are allowed to go outside of the boxes invisible boundaries.

Results were not what you probably think. Only 25% of the second group were able to solve the problem despite being given a suggestion. This is merely 5% difference from the initial experiment result. Such findings show that outside the box isn’t the only source of innovation and idea development, it is merely thinking outside-the-box as spacious ability and that does not classify people into a creative lot and not. Good news — the ability to solve the puzzle does not define you as a creative person or a hulk of creative thinking.

Another problem with thinking outside the box is the creation of the metaphorical box itself. 9-dot puzzle has not one but two problems — original task (connect the dots) and a box. Although limitations in creativity is a good way of keeping production and budget on track, placing a box creates a mental barrier of what we think we know. We begin focusing on the box that we can’t define because we don’t know what the box implies. In the experiment we know where the box is, but when a client hands you a brief, where is the box in the brief? All the conditions aren’t limits, they are merely guidelines that can help you shape your ideas. Eventually, start thinking outside of the box and the box comes back to bite you in the arse.

If thinking outside the box is so original, how about questioning the box itself! If we are encouraged to challenge traditional thinking then why most of the people are still relying on a theory developed only some 40 years ago that have now become a headache for contemporary minds? Perhaps thinking outside the box is a limitation? There are so many wonderful theories on creativity yet we are sticking to one that is hardly comprehensible by 75% of the population. Research into creativity is still in it’s infancy and there are many wonderful theories on it yet to be unraveled.

Using one method and applying it to the entire population to define creativity is deceptive just as we now see that it is pointless to use general IQ test to determine average intellect of the average human simply because we now know that there are many types of intelligence that cannot be tested against one general test compiled by a handful of academic experts. Think beyond boxes.

Think outside things you cannot see because true creativity doesn’t come from limitations, it comes from expansion.