Stay inside the box and know your comfort zone well
What happens to you when someone tells you that you need to "think outside the box"? And when you are told, in the same sequence, that you need to "get out of your comfort zone"? If you are like me, when I hear either of those two expressions, that I get a kind of metaphysical hives, the least will be something close to rolling your eyes. I believe there are good reasons for an adverse reaction.
In the "outside the box" case, there still seems to be some good theoretical reasons for this advice. In a recent example, the well-known American psychologist Adam Grant dedicated his latest book - Think Again - to the advantages we can obtain from the exercises of rethinking and unlearning, especially in this world of ours where uncertainty and change are constant. In fact, it is well known that we have almost two hundred reasons to make us think "inside the box": the well-known and again fashionable unconscious biases. Even after delighting myself with this very complete map, I still believe that among these 188 biases there is one that reigns all: thinking that we are not biased. In other words, our box is transparent to us and its walls have filters that lead us to see others' as opaque. When we combine this phenomenon with the presumption of knowing what is best for others, we are naturally guided to make others think outside their box.
Still, it seems risky to push someone outside their "four walls". First, this indication assumes that inside is not the solution. And there may be. Secondly, because, for some people, it may lead to a posture of victimhood, looking for justification in something external that is beyond the control and influence of the person in question. It is often easier to blame the traffic for our delays and there are still dogs who find "homework" a very nutritious snack. We know that it is not always easy to assume our responsibility.
In relation to "getting out of the comfort zone" my resistance is even greater. It is true that some doyens of psychology, even if from different "psychologies", like Freud or Piaget, have told us that learning, development and evolution result from some kind of conflict, discomfort or even suffering. We even find reinforcement of this idea in our own locomotion. Being bipedal mammals, walking on two legs permanently, our centre of gravity is more unstable than that of another animal that uses all four to move. So, to move forward, we need to provoke a succession of imbalances: to take steps forward we need to give up being balanced. To learn to do this, to make it comfortable, we need to fall hundreds of times. Linked to these ideas is another, Protestant-inspired, very present in the world of work, about which I have already written: what costs has value. What does not cost is not worth, or is worth less. So, for those who think and feel this way, it seems obvious that the solution will be in discomfort.
However, as is often the case, common sense makes partial interpretations from academic and scientific knowledge. The story is almost never all or well told. It is certain that we are beings that hang towards homeostasis. For this reason, anything that throws us off balance is not comfortable for us. For learning to be sustained and sustainable, it is fundamental that we feel comfortable. The aim is not to be constantly out of balance or uncomfortable. The idea is to be able to make inroads into areas that are outside our comfort zone knowing that we can return to our "box". It is there that, given time and space to do so, we can reflect on the experience we have had in unfamiliar territory. By making those journeys as often as necessary, we get to know those territories better until they become familiar. When this happens, it means that our comfort zone has expanded. Being, even pushed by others, too long without comfort leads us to one of two things: panic, which makes us flee, fight or paralyse, or, just as bad or worse, by the growing conformism or languor caused by constantly pointing out our shortcomings, to feeling discomfort or even suffering with the space that was our safe haven.
One last idea, to finish. Another reason for this "allergic" reaction has to do with the banalisation of these expressions. More than common places, they have become empty spaces that reflect the vacuum and laziness of those who offer them as advice. This is a suggestion for those who advise in this way, when it is the best way to help someone, because it is not always the best: advising is more useful when there is substance in the grounds and precision in the indication. For what reasons and for what purposes should someone, that particular person you are addressing, "think outside the box"? What do you consider to be "the box" for that person and how might you be limiting it? Does the person you are asking or ordering to step outside your comfort zone seem comfortable to you? What are you basing this on? What does that person think about all of this? Perhaps, with questions like these, you can help yourself and others to know more about the boxes we live in, and what precious things we have stored there, and to know in what direction it would be better to expand our comfort zone.
Written for Link to Leaders on 13 June 2021; published 17 June 2021.
