Challenging the “Outside the Box” Fallacy

Having spent a career in the conventional Army and a handful of years in Special Operations Forces (SOF), I recognize full well the value of unconventional thinking and innovation in the military arts. Over the years, however, I have seen too many uniformed personnel of all ranks and services attempt to wear the ignorance of their profession as some kind of badge of honor. This often manifests itself in the words “I think outside the box” when a more accurate and objective statement would be, “I don’t really understand the fundamentals of my profession and don’t want to take the time to learn.” This attitude puts them, their people, and the mission at risk.

What many people don’t realize is that the ability to observe, orient, decide, and act “outside the box” usually comes after many years deliberately spent *in* the box, learning the ropes and developing a baseline of what works, what doesn’t work, and what just might work if the situation is desperate enough.

What some chalk up to “outside the box” thinking is simply the result of the flexibility gained from deep experience. It’s not something anyone is born with, it’s something that takes time to develop. But like many skills practiced by special operations forces, people look at the results and misjudge what it took to get to that point. Because SOF often makes innovation, improvisation, and adaption look easy, people think it *is* easy. They never see the years of study, practice, effort, and yes, failure, that it took to get to that point. So they try to emulate what they think they see, and many times they fail. Miserably.

Innovative thinking is key to our nation’s wartime success. What some might see as “outside the box” tactics gave us ODA 595 riding into battle on horseback in Afghanistan. It gave us the F3EAD targeting model that proved so successful in man-hunting operations in support of OEF, OIF, and elsewhere in the War on Terror. It allows us to crack into an enemy network and take it apart piece by piece, at a pace faster than the enemy can withstand. But there is a distinct difference between innovative thinking and simply figuring things out on the fly or just winging it, which is what many “outside the box” thinkers are really doing.

Many years ago, I watched a video wherein a young combat leader explained that he did not do any reading or learning about the place to which he was about to deploy because he wanted to go in “with an open mind.” That is a technique, of course, but it’s a bad one, and perhaps a quintessential example of outside the box thinking run amok. This is because no one approaches any situation with an “open mind.” To one degree or another, and for better or for ill, we are all creatures of our own experiences.

More importantly, doctrine, training, and (some may argue) common sense tell us that the conventional thinking is that you find out as much information as you can about he operational environment before you operate in it. So making a conscious choice not to do that is definitely outside the box. But it may also be outside the bounds of common sense. It’s important to note that the young leader’s comments were a snapshot in time, potentially lacking important context as well as experience; I doubt he’d say or do the same thing now. And to be clear, my issue is with the mindset, not the individual. But it sounds a lot like willful ignorance, if not outright hubris, for someone to come onto a scene without any preparation and to think that his own experience base and knowledge store is so good that it is going to be better than the combined wisdom of everyone else who may have been able to help him understand his operational environment. IS that “outside the box?” Yes, I suppose. Is it smart? Absolutely not.

A close catchphrase cousin of an “out of the box” thinker is the “disruptive” thinker. In fact, the terms are almost interchangeable. But whereas the “outside the box” thinker considers himself an innovator, the “disruptive” thinker seeks to make a name for himself by attacking the status quo. The major problem with some people who think of themselves as disruptive thinkers is that they are actually argumentative, ill-informed non-thinkers. And it’s the easiest thing in the world to toss a conceptual hand grenade into any discussion or process.

Creative thinking is one thing; disruption of the unit and/or mission is something completely different, especially when the “disruptive” idea is nothing other than a poorly implemented application of some theory that was vaguely mentioned in a popular book, seen in a movie, or covered in a military education course or a graduate school business class. Too many “disruptive thinkers” lack the intellectual and experiential depth to understand the fundamentals of both the status quo they are challenging and the ideas they espouse to fix it, so they merely focus on repeating buzzwords and relishing the resulting attention they receive for their “disruptive” ideas.

So what’s the fix? Well, if you have a culture in which creative thinking is encouraged, resourced, and rewarded, as is the case in many SOF units, you will never have “outside the box” thinking. Why? Because the type of things others think are “outside the box” are inherently *inside* the cultural identity box of the unit. That culture and the deep experience base within it allows individuals to mentally and perhaps even subconsciously say “I’ve seen this situation, or one like it, before” and instinctively develop solutions that might elude others. Nor will there be many “disruptive” thinkers, because a learning organization, as many SOF organizations are, is always challenging the status quo and looking for ways to improve; it does not need “disruption” in order to grow because innovation, adaptation, and change is inherently part of the process.

This is true outside of SOF as well. The Army’s leadership model is called Mission Command and it includes seven principles, two of which are exercise disciplined initiative and accept prudent risk. Given that these two things are inherent and explicit parts of the Army’s leadership philosophy, the kinds of things that people associate with outside the box or disruptive thinking are already baked into the process and are therefore both unneeded and redundant.

Additionally, “the box” that so many seem to want to rail against also represents the bounds of the commander’s intent. If you’re acting outside of that box, you’re outside of the leader’s intent. That’s where disciplined initiative gives way and you’re left with something that looks a lot more like insubordination, if not outright chaos.

So, “yes” to disciplined initiative, critical analysis, and innovative thinking. And a hard “no” to thinking outside the box and/or disruptive thinking. If you’re outside the box, you’re coloring outside the lines. and if your ideas are good enough, they will be disruptive all on their own.

In conclusion, people who like to hold themselves out as an “out of the box” or a “disruptive” thinker should really take stock.  Are you really THAT good, that you regularly come up with ideas that no one else could have thought of? It happens… sometimes. But more often than not, what an individual thinks of as creative or “disruptive” is someone’s half-assed, half-baked idea that, with a little more experience, thought, or professional understanding and preparation, might not seem like such great thinking after all.