Break out of conventional boxes to discover new solutions

When you face a dilemma, it’s natural to think within the box you’ve grown up in. After all, that’s what everyone does—pros and cons lists, standard playbooks, familiar tactics. Yet conventional thinking often yields only conventional results.

Psychologists call this “functional fixedness,” the tendency to see objects or problems only in their usual roles. In the 1940s, experiments showed that people couldn’t use a hammer’s handle to tie a string because they fixated on its typical function. The same trap snags our big decisions.

Take Carlos, a mid-level manager poised for a promotion. He drafted the standard development plan: more training, longer hours, finding a mentor. Then he applied an unconventional prompt: What if he pitched a new internal project instead? That shift led him to propose a cross-department innovation hackathon. Leadership loved it—he stood out and earned the role.

To break free, you must consciously generate alternative frameworks. Map your box, then sketch three wild paths outside it. Testing just one can deliver breakthroughs you’d never see by staying inside the lines.

First, define the usual way you’ve been solving your challenge, then set a timer to brainstorm three radically different routes—reverse assumptions or borrow from another field. Finally, pick one and outline your first two steps this week. You’ll break functional fixedness and open up unexpected possibilities. Start this afternoon.