"Thinking outside of the box" includes watching where we are physically located when thinking. Nature has some very interesting examples of how we get pulled down by those around us, sometimes even cruelly beat up.

Consider Tiananmen Square. Just a power play by an old guard ideology desperately trying to hang on to a rapidly-changing centralized world, or a perfect example of natural creativity getting slammed by the proverbial box.

Enter the eight apes. Note: my research could not confirm the authenticity of this study which had been forwarded to me via e-mail, but, nonetheless, I believe the spirit of the message is relevant, and it follows with similar messages, including one from Walter Cronkite's book, A Reporter's Life.

An experiment by some behavioral researchers put eight apes in a room with one door. The door had open bars that led to a small landing with a couple of stairs descending to the room's floor. Over the landing, the researchers would hang a bunch of bananas. Each time one of the apes made a run for the bananas, they would use a fire hose and blast water at the apes going for the bananas. Ultimately, the apes made the connection between action and reaction and none of them went for the bananas.

Then the researchers removed one of the original apes and inserted a new one. The new one looked around, saw the bananas and went for them, only to be greeted with severe pummeling by all the other apes. After the thorough beating, no more banana pursuits.

The researchers then removed another one of the original apes, and the newcomer also made a play for the bananas over the landing. This newcomer was also beaten senseless by all the apes, including the previous newcomer who had no knowledge or experience of the water blastings.

The experiment continued until all the original apes had been removed with each newcomer instinctually going for the bananas meeting the same harsh physical punishment despite the fact that none of the attacking apes ever had the direct experience of blasting water.

The eight apes experiment fits together with another story I heard about crabs. Apparently, if one crab is by himself in a crab cage, he can climb out. But when there are several crabs in the cage, as soon as one makes an effort to run for it, all the others start clawing at him, trying to pull him back in.

I first heard of the crab behavior before learning of the ape experiment. My thoughts were that the crabs were showing gravitational pull in attitudes. How many of us in high school would suffer from peers who would antagonistically say, "What do you want to do that for...I'd never do that...Look everybody, guess who is doing xyz..." Often their snickering could force any of us to reconsider our original course of action or thought. Hence the "be careful who our friends are" wisdom.

Up until the eight apes story, I reasoned that human beings, like electricity, follow a path of least resistance and therefore find it is easier to "shoot down" another, then try to make the effort to pull themselves up to a new level demonstrated by climbing peers. Hence the reason why many appear/react negatively (angry, doubtful, envious, jealous) about new ideas and people who hold them.

When growing up, Walter Cronkite's family moved from Kansas City to Houston, Texas. It was in Texas where he recounts witnessing violent racial discrimination and even the death of a beloved coworker. One story he shares about his mother is akin to the group dynamics associated with the primate and crustacean findings:

"Mother drove our maid the three long blocks from our house to the streetcar line at day's end, and invited her to share the front seat with her. Calley (the maid) objected but yielded to Mother's insistence on what Mother considered this small social nicety.

"As they drove up to the corner where other maids were waiting, several of them, with a look of considerable disapproval, flipped their hands over from palm down to palm up. Calley hurried out of the car, her embarrassment muffling her good-bye to Mother.

"The next day, upon Mother's demand she explained that the hand flipping was the blacks' way of emphasizing the difference between the races. The back sides of their hands were black; the front sides white. The message was, according to Calley: 'You'd better know your place and keep your place.' Calley, they were saying, shouldn't share the front seat with Mother. The blacks, by the attitudes they had been forced to adopt to survive, helped to perpetuate the very segregation in which they were trapped."

Moving beyond issues of attitudes and behavior, these primate, crustacean, and racial examples point to something much deeper.

Imagine a young rabbit who wants to wander out and play with a young rattle snake. You can imagine the older rabbits violently slapping the young one saying, "Don't ever, ever play with a snake. We don't want the snake family coming over here and eating our rabbit family so listen good..." The rabbit tribe has learned, perhaps the hard way, that rabbits and snakes share a point on the food chain which is not good if one wants to be a rabbit longterm. So it seems like nature has embedded in us an intelligence that says "...don't rock the boat, respect the tribe's current groove, because this is how we survived thus far, and survival ain't easy baby..."

Even many indigenous cultures have legends about how a young brave was expelled from the tribe as a result of behaviors unacceptable to the tribe elders. The brave goes off into the wilderness and learns many things, including how to speak the tongues of other tribes and use their technology. Years go by and the original tribe elders find themselves in really deep hot water with another tribe when along comes the formerly expelled brave who returns to the tribe a man, just in time, with knowledge that helps his tribe achieve peace or resolution with the threatening tribe.

Once misunderstood and expelled, then returning with the knowledge which could only be gotten by leaving, and participating for a greater success. What a cycle, especially if you are the one expelled.

How many times do we see this human cycle continue in everyday business affairs. The son who leaves the family business because he doesn't get along with an uncle, goes off and learns computing from a large multinational company. Only to return when his father and uncle are older and desperately need the injection of computing knowledge into their enterprise in order to compete.

In a previous chapter, we discussed the importance of frameworks. Social hierarchies are frameworks, too. Accordingly, we need to respect and honor the frameworks in which we find ourselves. However, only by stepping outside of the framework can we truly be entrusted with new thinking. Many times it is exactly this new thinking that can be modified and looped back into the framework for a better result.

The flip side to this hierarchy coin is also interesting and worth a thought. "You can't be a prophet in your own home town" was once shared with me as the reason why a brilliant designer was leaving her corporate team. In this case, the woman leaving had done much research with information design, but because the company president remembered her working as an entry level administrative assistant years ago, the president couldn't or wouldn't accept my colleague's added skill, which from my objective point of view was perhaps the most talented info-design thinking I've ever come across.

Apparently the best of the best are not immune to this cycle of expulsion. A. N. Wilson, in his book, Paul, the Mind of the Apostle, recounts how Jesus was kicked out by his tribe when He stood up and announced He was the Son of God. One can just imagine the reaction, "We have grown up with you. Of course you're the son of God. We all are sons and daughters of God. What nerve you have. Who are you to think you are somehow special, beyond us..."

So perhaps the best way to expel oneself from existing frameworks for creative pursuit is to leverage the concept of today's modern-day vacation.

Warning: Just don't go to Kona Hawaii because you might not come back to your tribe.   top