Thinking in New Boxes

Anita Brick: Hi, this is Anita Brick and welcome to CareerCast at Chicago Booth. To help you advance in your career. Today, we're actually more than delighted to be speaking with Alan Heaney. He has spent his entire career working on creativity and business with the Boston Consulting Group since 2003. He has trained thousands of people on how to think creatively, and he works on a wide range of clients across industries worldwide.

He also has a deep focus on uncertainty, using scenarios to help clients think more expansively about the future. Alan is a member of the firm's strategy practice leadership team and has expertise in innovation, transformation and organizational design. He coauthored Thinking in New Boxes A New Paradigm for Business Creativity. Alan, thank you so much for making time. I know you're a busy guy.

Alan Heaney: My pleasure. Anita. I've been looking forward to it.

Anita Brick: Me too. So to start us off, tell me how you define thinking in new boxes.

Alan Heaney: Happy to do that. It's a great place to start. Look, we have been told now for 50, 60 years to think outside the box. This is a fun and useful and ubiquitous phrase that we keep hearing. And yet so many of my clients, really, across industries and around the world, are frustrated because everybody has been in some sort of brainstorm where you show up and there's snacks and flip charts, and everybody said, okay, think outside the box, off we go, and we have fun for three hours, and then it goes nowhere practically.

And so we came up with this model because we have to start with how we think. And if we start by understanding the boxes that we use to think, you know, some people call them mental models, working hypotheses. But the boxes that we use to make sense of this fantastic and ambiguous and uncertain and massive world in front of us, instead of simply telling somebody, think outside the box. Which is like saying your existing ways of thinking are no good. Why not start by understanding what are some of our existing boxes, in which of them might be ready for a change? And then let's find some useful new ones.

Anita Brick: Great. Use the D-word a lot, and it was kind of scary for people. A weekend student said. You mentioned doubt being an important first step. How have you seen people get over the unsettling nature of doubt and uncertainty, especially when you recommend to doubt everything?

Alan Heaney: It's a lovely question and it made me smile. And the d-word indeed. Look, we love certainty. We are human beings. We crave certainty. Everything we do is is about focusing on the way things are. We make bar charts that go out to 2030 and it makes us feel better, even though of course we can't predict what's going to happen.

And the idea of doubt is to just recognize that our boxes are just that. Our boxes are mental models that are subject to change. So if we say this is how we think about our industry, or this is how I think about my career, or this is how I think about pricing this product that I'm creating, or this is how I think about my competition, whatever.

Any of these are mental models and they are subject to change. It doesn't mean they're all wrong and that we have to throw them all away. It just means we have to be willing to challenge some of them. We have to be willing to doubt. We have to be ready to doubt if we are so locked in to our existing ways of thinking, then it becomes impossible to make any change happen.

I will give you an example. Today we're all familiar with this concept of the low cost airline. But 5060 years ago, when southwest was the first low cost airline to be created, they had to change some fundamental boxes inherent in the mind of everyone in the industry, like everyone in the airline industry would have said, well, we need many different types of planes, big planes, small planes to serve different markets.

No, we're going to have one type of plane because it's cheaper. Well, this was a fundamental shift in the mental model. We use travel agents. Everybody uses travel agents. No, we're not going to use a travel agent. I mean, that was heresy. We have assigned seats. We don't have open seats. We have all in pricing. We're going to have unbundled pricing.

We have a hub and spoke system. We're going to do a point to point system. And systematically doubting and challenging some of these assumptions that were inherent in everyone's mind is what led to the creation of a fantastic new business model. And by the way, not every mental model needed to be changed. If the traditional airlines would have said, we consider safety our number one top priority, we didn't challenge that particular box, but to be willing to doubt things that seemed to be set in stone, to be willing to try looking at them differently, is what I'm getting at here with the word doubt.

Anita Brick: I know it's still scary though, and an Alum said, I work for a pretty traditional company and our values are super important. I'm concerned that if I suggest questioning them as part of doubting everything, the leadership may show me the door. How can I facilitate a dialog while respecting the company's values and traditions?

Alan Heaney: That's right. Like if you're an airline exec and you suddenly say, you know what? Forget this safety thing. Let's de-prioritize all our safety inspections and only have one pilot. And it's okay if they drink a little bit. That's not a recipe for career success in the airline industry, right? There are absolutely some things that should be set in stone.

Maybe it's the company's values and traditions at the same time to be willing to doubt. So to be willing to challenge these perspectives is a sign of being open minded. When you look at a politician or a CEO, they get deemed for flip flopping. They get dinged for changing their mind. To me, the concept of being willing to change your mind in the face of new information and to update your working hypothesis is nothing more than what it is to be human.

And it's the scientific method. Even when you get new information, you should be willing to adapt and change your hypothesis. Recognizing the company's values and traditions is absolutely fine, absolutely appropriate and reasonable. But if there are some things that might be ready for a change, then there are ways to raise it diplomatically. There are ways to raise it thoughtfully. Ways of opening the door. That's all I'm getting at.

Anita Brick: I like it. I know your book is really about doing this within an organization, but there are a few questions around how do you use the same process that you talk about in the book for one's career? Another alum said, I like the idea of applying inductive reasoning to my potential career change. I have 20 years of experience in tech and want to do strategy consulting. When I use deductive reasoning, my goal seems unlikely at best. How can I think in new boxes to find a viable entry point?

Alan Heaney: It's true that my normal day to day clients might be a large fortune 500 type company, but at the end of the day, companies are full of individuals who are all thinking about their own careers and midlife crisis or whatever else the case may be. I'm completely with you. In this business of deductive versus inductive reasoning is really important here.

One thought exercise I often do with clients. I'll stick with air travel because it's familiar to everyone. You know, if I ask somebody, what is the probability that five years from now, the amount of air travel in the world will have gone down by 96%? So everybody's going to say right away, well, zero, that's not going to happen.

And then they hedge their bets and they go, okay, 1% or 0.0001% something. Okay. But then I say, all right, now imagine it's five years hence. And this happened. Imagine air travel did go down 96%. How did it happen? How did we get there? Then people immediately start proposing things like, oh, well, we have fantastic video conferencing or there's a bunch of cyber attacks and people are scared to fly or there's an Ebola breakout, or energy prices are so high that only the rich can afford to fly.

I mean, you can go on and on as much as you want, and people are suddenly coming up with different hypotheses for this thing. If the group is large enough, there's studies that show that if you ask the first question again, the probability of one person's answers on average will change. And that's really interesting to me because their answers to a very deductive, logical, analytical probability type question change not because you gave them more facts and trends and customer research about technology and air travel and what have you.

But purely as a result of 45 seconds of wild hypothesis generation, which is just showing that this inductive process of coming up with a wild hypotheses can help us come up with better answers to the more deductive, analytical questions we face every day in business or in thinking about our career. So now, a more specific answer to this question is to say that, look, if we want to apply inductive reasoning, you know, it's not how can I take my 20 years of experience in tech and shift that into strategy consulting?

And there you sit there and you scratch your head and you're stuck. And I can't blame you. I mean, this is not an easy question, otherwise you'd have solved it already. Imagine that it's five years from now and you are doing very, very well at BCG or wherever else. How did this happen? What specifically did you do in 2018 to make this happen?

And suddenly saying this has happened, how did we get there allows us to let go of all of the mental blocks that are stopping us today. It allows us to break these constraints and to think inductively about it. And it doesn't mean that you will immediately come up with the answer in 30 seconds. It's not quite so easy. The idea is, can you imagine this has happened?

How did we get there is already a good start. What if you take five minutes with a blank sheet of paper and start listing some of your own assumptions, some of your own mental models relevant to the challenge at hand? Relative to this career question, I assume that my 20 years experience is not relevant. What if it is?

I assume that BCG isn't interested in this kind of thing. What if they were? Where would they be? Yeah, they're interested in this because tech and digital are becoming more important. And they have a new business unit called Digital Ventures and blah blah, whatever else, the more we can actually take an inventory of some of our existing assumptions and then think, how might they change what might be some simple but fundamental shifts in assumptions?

That's a great place to start. In other words, listing our existing boxes, our existing assumptions, relevance to this problem, and then deliberately challenging some of them.

Anita Brick: I like that, I think that's good. Along with that, there is an executive MBA student and she said, one of your provocative questions is how do we redefine ourselves as a company from your perspective? How can I apply the same thinking for myself as an individual who wants to reinvent herself as I start? How do I ask the right questions?

Alan Heaney: When this MBA student says, how do I ask the right questions and keeps it plural? I think that's already a beautiful start, because I think the idea of redefining ourselves and reinventing ourselves, you know, we have to really try framing that question in a lot of ways. There's this classic example of the landlord who was getting a lot of complaints about how long it's taking the elevators to show up and looks at all these really expensive solutions, like getting new elevators or changing the algorithm or something else.

And then this landlord realizes that by putting up a $300 mirror, she solves the problem because suddenly people are no longer complaining about how long the elevator comes, because they're looking at themselves and straightening their hair and fixing their makeup and whatever else in the mirror. And this is why you sometimes see newspapers or Purell things or whatever at elevator banks.

The point is, reframing the question can be a beautiful way to get started can be a beautiful way to doubt, instead of how can I minimize the number of minutes till the elevator arrives? It became, how can I make people less bored? And suddenly you've got another bunch of solutions. One way of reframing this question, as this MBA student said, was try just doing it without using any of the key words from Starbucks.

For example, if I ask anybody what is Starbucks? They'll say it's a coffee shop chain of coffee shops. But then if you have to describe Starbucks without using the word coffee, suddenly you'll say, oh, it's a place to hang out. It's a place for free Wi-Fi. It's a place to do my work, whatever you want. Suddenly, you know, if in the first case you are coming up with ideas like new flavors of coffee and sizes of cup, now you can actually think about, well, if it's your office, maybe you should sell printing for a dollar a page or have conference rooms for rent.

If it's a place to hang out, you should have comfy sofas and sell music, which is what they did. So in this case, for somebody wanting to reinvent herself, if your career has been focused on 20 years in tech like the last person, all right, try describing yourself without using any of the obvious tech or digital words. If in this case, you're somebody who's been focused on marketing, try describing yourself in different ways and come up with a lot of different potential questions how you might frame things, what are you really trying to achieve anyway? Maybe those are some useful thought exercises for this person.

Anita Brick: I love the fact that you can't use the words that are really tied to whatever you've done, and maybe even in this case, the word reinvent should be out the window as well. That can strike fear in people's hearts because they have to change and they don't know how precisely.

Alan Heaney: You know, we all get stuck in our little bubbles. If somebody has been at company X for ten years or somebody has been in tech for 20 years, you know, it can be really hard to step back from that bubble. And frankly, the best advice is to take a few months to actually sit back and think about what your ideal job is and how that fits in with your ideal life and your family situation and everything else.

And really think about what your commute is like and what your coworkers are like. Things like that, to me at least, are much more important even than the industry or the job title. That's my personal view. To take the time to actually think about that is a fantastic luxury, which I recognize that most people don't always have between roles in between positions.

But sometimes those who are in school do have a little bit more of an opportunity to actually step back and think about some of those things. Taking the time to stop and think is, as I say, a beautiful luxury when one can manage it, and if not, even carving out little bits of time on an ongoing basis can help.

Anita Brick: Okay, good. So let's switch gears a little bit and an Alum said, My interpretation as innovation is that it's not just an idea, but also identifying the right group and attaining critical components for its execution. What would be some behaviors or practices that create greater opportunities of being innovative or driving innovation as leaders?

Alan Heaney: One place to begin with this is just maybe let me offer my definition of creativity versus innovation, because that's something I get asked from time to time. It's an important thing because these words are sometimes used interchangeably and there's a lot of reasonable definitions, but I'm going to offer mine in case it helps here. The way I would define creativity is changing a box, changing a mental model, changing perception, looking at things differently.

So if you suddenly change your you know, this is how I've always thought about my business. Now I think about it this way. This is how I thought about my career. Maybe I think about it this way. That's creativity. It's changing a mental model. Innovation is changing something in practice, changing something in reality, operationalizing it, really making things happen.

By that logic, first of all, your alumni I think are right when they say that innovation is not just to have the idea, but really make it happen. Attain the critical components for execution, I think was the way it was set, and find the right people to make it happen. But what that also means is that you can easily have creativity without innovation in the form of a good idea that goes nowhere.

We've all seen that happen, and you can also have innovation without creativity, which is where you just make things happen in your organization. But it wasn't because of the original spark of an idea. You can copy something else, but it doesn't mean it has to be a brand new invention. Even Apple, for example, you know, they didn't invent the mobile phone, they didn't invent the MP3 player, they didn't invent the mouse or any of these things, but they sort of revolutionized all of these things.

And so to me, that's innovation more than anything else. So the point is, for this alumni, I'm asking, you know, what are some behaviors that can create greater opportunities of being innovative? Keeping that definition in mind? Look, if you really want to make change happen, both are important. You need some sort of creativity, at least in terms of opening the door.

Can your possibilities change the way you look at things? And then you really need the innovation side of making things happen. And for that, yes, you need the right people. You need the right culture. You need the right incentives. You need the right metrics. You need all of this stuff. And there's a whole sort of ecosystem of things that can be very different.

By the way, Apple versus three M versus Ford. You know, they will all be innovative in very different ways. There's a lot of correct answers. But to understand what the right ecosystem for innovation is within your company and to really set things up accordingly is the best advice I have there.

Anita Brick: Okay, good. So along with that, this is an executive MBA student. And he said many people in my organization make low risk initiatives a priority. Yet we all know that this isn't enough to remain competitive. How can I help create breakthrough ideas without freaking out senior leadership? So what are some things you can do without turning everything upside down?

Alan Heaney: Is it appropriate for me to give the usual consultant answer and say it depends, because I think that, of course. Let me try and elaborate here, because I think that would be great. There are times when, frankly, low risk initiatives are fine, right? I mean, we don't always have to go for the blue sky out there. Wild, disruptive, transformational idea.

Sometimes that's necessary, but not everybody needs to go and reinvent and come up with the next iPhone. There are times when it's a perfectly reasonable strategy to be a fast follower. There are times when it's a perfectly reasonable strategy to slowly move into new areas like Amazon has been doing. There are times when it's perfectly appropriate to try and defend your competitive advantage in milk the cash cow for as long as you can.

And so, first of all, to be thoughtful about all of that makes sense. However, when you think it is time to try and create breakthrough ideas, how can you avoid freaking out senior leadership? As this person said, that's still a fair question. When the time is right. And I think the answer is it depends again, on what bringing different people on board can be a very different proposition depending who they are, and depending what arguments will resonate with them.

At what time, in what way? WinBig for example, WinBigchanged from being a pen company to being a plastic object company. You know when that happened in the 70s, ideas like making these cheap plastic disposable razors, which before were ridiculous ideas. If you're a pen company. But our totally obvious ideas if you were a plastic object company, right.

And so again, the same idea goes from being ridiculous to obvious, purely based on a change in mental model of how you think about yourself. It's an amazing thing. But the point is, if you're trying to convince the whole executive committee to go along with this, the head of manufacturing, maybe they say, okay, well, I know where to source the plastic from for these razors, and I guess I just need to retool the machine a little bit.

And the head of distribution and sales says, well, I guess I can sell plastic lighters in the same place. They sell the pens, but the razors would be a different distribution channel. And, and the CFO, you have to convince with the numbers. And the CEO has a very emotional connection to pens because he founded the company 30 years earlier.

You know, whatever the case may be, actually, that's a bit made up because in this case, it was the CEO who had the idea of moving into razors. But you get the idea. It's not just saying senior leadership is freaking out, but why are they freaking out? Are they freaking out because you're telling them the night before the board meeting, are they freaking out because they don't like you?

This is unlikely. I'm sure the more we can understand what their boxes are, what their mental models are, and why they are reacting this way and then on an individual basis, bringing them on board. That's the best suggestion I have.

Anita Brick: It really is an iterative process. People don't get freaked out by tiny things. They get freaked out either by the implication of tiny things, or when someone says, okay, we're going to change everything, even if they want to change. People are like, no, you're not. That's where all the relationship building and the socialization of ideas comes into play.

Because if you don't have those internal advocates, it's going to be hard to get people to change because it's a little scary.

Alan Heaney: Quite right. It's a bit unfortunate, like if you have developed a reputation for being the person that comes up with wild ideas that freak people out, then that won't be the bias that people look at you is when you start walking towards them. That can change over time, but the more that you are attuned to that and the more that you are, you know, there might be times when it's better to have somebody else bring the idea to them.

There might be times when it's better to work through other channels and think about it, but the more one is attuned to things like that and understands the organizational dynamics, the reality on the ground, the better.

Anita Brick: The idea of perceptions is a really important one. An evening student said, Ellen, you asked the readers to question our perceptions. How can I do that without having my biases lead me to a less than optimal or even a risky decision?

Alan Heaney: Oh boy. Look, it's not only about questioning our perceptions. We have to start by being aware of them. So if step one is to be aware of some of our perceptions, let's try and become more aware of our biases, more aware of our existing boxes and our existing assumptions. That's already a fine start. Now, if we go beyond that, then this worry of having our biases lead us to a less than optimal or even risky decision, that's what it is to make decisions, right?

If there's ever a situation where we have perfect information, and it's perfectly clear that we have to move in this direction and so on, then that's fine. But it's not going to be particularly creative or innovative because other people will already be doing that. If there's a lion running down the street and everybody's running the other way, it's probably a good idea to run the other way.

And that's a good decision based on your biases that lions are dangerous and all the rest of it. I'm being a bit simplistic and exaggerating here, but then if there is a moment when we have imperfect information, this is when we have to actually act and be a manager and make decisions. Management is making this kind of decision.

In fact, it was Michael Porter, one of the gurus of strategy, who said strategy is deciding what not to do and making these choices about what to do and what not to do in the face of imperfect information mean that there will be uncertainty. There will be often no single correct answer, and in fact, multiple correct answers could make a lot of sense.

And maybe that's encouraging. Maybe that helps. It's not simply a question of, you know, either I run towards the lion or run away from the lion. More typically in business, it's sort of, should I start this new product or that new product? Should I move in this direction or that direction? Should I try and be the trusted premium player or the lowest cost player?

You know, I mean, there's some deliberate choices to make and we can align ourselves against that accordingly. The more we are aware of our biases, the more we are aware of our boxes. That helps, definitely, but we will definitely not have perfect information. There's no such thing really, as this kind of perfect decision and perfect information, I'm sorry to say.

Anita Brick: I mean, we know there's things that change moment to moment. There's always new information or a loss of information. And so being able to make those decisions and act like you said, it's what makes someone a manager and dare I say, even a leader. In the book you talk about doubting everything and you talk about convergence, where you think of new boxes and new ideas and new things, and at some point there is convergence.

What are the things you're going to proceed on in both of those stages? And this is the weekend student. How do you know if your questions are how do you formulate questions to help you with the ultimate outcome versus to harm you? Again, this is an ambiguous thing. Are there ways to formulate questions that you think are better than others, both to expand possibilities initially and then to prioritize them later on?

Alan Heaney: Yeah, look, for starters, actually taking the time to think about the questions is already more than most people do. Again, if you remember the classic situation where people just jump into a brainstorm and say, all right, thanks for coming, guys. Here we go. Think outside the box, come up with some new ideas. If you actually start by challenging the question and listing a lot of potential questions, you already have gotten off to a great start.

You've potentially moved from, you know, how can we minimize the number of minutes till the elevator arrives to how can we make people less bored and come up with great solutions? Another suggestion is to try and make the question more evocative, more visual. So, for example, that of saying, how can we, how can we increase loyalty at our hotel?

I don't know, how can we get people to come back to our hotel more often? Then we can start asking questions like, imagine that a consultant who travels all week is excited to come to your hotel on the weekend. How did this happen? Imagine that somebody who is checking out of your hotel is really keen to book their next day before they even leave.

How did this happen? Imagine that people wake up feeling at home. How did this happen? Things like this. To really put yourself in the shoes of the customer or some other stakeholder, make it visual and evocative. You know, this is so much more powerful. Like if you know that some of the key trends relative to your business are the rise of India and the aging population and urbanization, sustainability, and then what have you can ask, okay, how could these 4 or 5 megatrends impact our business?

Let's be creative. Or you could say, what might a family picnic in Bangalore look like in five years? And suddenly by asking that and coming up with a lot of answers to that, you are taking into account all these trends about the family dynamic and urbanization and sustainability and the rise of India. But at the same time, you're suddenly putting yourself in it a little bit.

You're being more evocative. I guess my suggestions for the question are reformulated and put a lot of versions of the question on the table. Try and be visual and evocative about it. Yeah, taking the time to do that and taking the time to actually list some of your assumptions and questions before you even start is already a step ahead of most brainstorms.

Anita Brick: Great. Do you have time for a couple more questions?

Alan Heaney: Absolutely.

Anita Brick: Okay. Weekend students, she said, really like the book and specifically the chapter on Riva. While you wait relentlessly, how will I know it's time for a new box?

Alan Heaney: Oh boy. This weekend student. You can award her the diploma already because that's exactly the point. How will I know it's time for a new box? How will I know it's time to read? The idea is to always be willing to reevaluate, to always be willing to go back to the beginning. Because in some sense, that means, again, being willing to doubt, being willing to challenge things because no good idea will last forever.

Henry Ford was amazingly successful, reinventing the automobile as the first urban replacement for the horse and carriage for the masses. He went from model A to model T. I mean, there's no doubt this guy was innovative. Assembly line, stronger undercarriage. Amazing. Amazing American business leader. Then what happened? The world kept changing and General Motors started creating higher end cars and lower end cars and different colored cars.

And Henry Ford famously said, my customers can have any color car they want as long as it's black. He refused to adapt. He went into denial, you know, he refused to reevaluate, basically. And the point I'm making is simply that if the world is constantly changing, we can all agree on that. This has always been true, but now it's changing more quickly than ever.

That means that, first of all, the lifespan of a good idea is shorter than ever, which means that creativity and innovation are both more important than ever. But even more than that, if you think about our boxes, our mental models, you know our mental models are fixed, at least temporarily. Like if we say the model T is the future of the automotive industry, or my company is about selling X or whatever mental model you might happen to hold, some of these will at some point become out of date, because the world is always changing in our boxes are fixed, and so by definition every box at some point will become out of date.

But how will I know it's time for a new box? The question from this weekend student is you won't. And that's why it's so important to always reevaluate. That's exactly the point. We have to be willing to reevaluate our boxes and be willing to go back to doubt and go back to the beginning, simply because we will never know for sure that it's time for a new box until it's too late.

And so we constantly have the choice of whether we are going to be the one who create this new thing, who have this eureka moment, this big spark of a new idea, or whether we are going to be the ones having an oh no moment, a moment where somebody else has come up with the next big thing and we have to follow or we have to react to this, and sometimes that's fine too.

Either way is fine, but it should be a deliberate choice rather than just waiting for the world to happen to you. The best suggestion I have is to reevaluate relentlessly in order to always be ready for the fact that the world is changing. Maybe that helps.

Anita Brick: I think it helps. I think it is a little bit scary. A lot of organizations, they have retreats, they can be really fun. But when we are doing this relentless reevaluation, I don't think it can be once a year. Not to be presumptuous. I think it would be easier to shift if it's not this annual moment where we have to come up with some big eureka moment. If it's done on a more regular basis, do you find that to be true, or am I just being a baby?

Alan Heaney: No, no, I think you're quite right, Anita. And I think some of it will depend on the industry. I mean, if it's all fine and good for me to say the world is constantly changing. But the fact is, you're in a tech company versus if you're Airbus or Boeing, okay, it's changing at different speeds. We can accept that.

You know, sometimes when I'm working with a company to think creatively about the future, we're talking about 2050 because 2025 is already locked in, like again, for Airbus and Boeing. And sometimes we're thinking about 2020 and 2025. So all of that to say, I don't think there's one answer about whether it's quarterly or annual or whatever else, but I certainly think that we can't be blindsided by this sort of thing when it happens.

Instilling this culture where people feel empowered to challenge the status quo, where people feel empowered to challenge existing boxes and existing assumptions. And this is the way we do things, and this is the way everybody does it in our industry. This is how it's always been done. If people feel empowered across the organization to actually challenge some of those assumptions, then that's great.

In that case, if it's working really well, you might never need a retreat per se at all, just in case. Yes, having them on a regular basis to actually push people to step back and think about which of our assumptions might be ready for change, which of these constraints might be ready to be broken? Absolutely. I'm with you.

Anita Brick: Okay, good. I really, really enjoyed the book. You know, thinking in new boxes. It made my brain think about things in new ways, which I guess is the whole point. Thank you again for writing. It's really a fun read when we think about it. What are three things that you would advise someone to do, or how to implement creativity? To actually create a professional, sustainable, viable career?

Alan Heaney: Well, first of all, thank you for the kind words. I'm so glad that the book resonated, and so glad that you invited me to join the podcast, and I hope that it's interesting to a broad variety of students and alums. There are three things then that I would encourage people to do. Number one, take five ten minutes with a blank sheet of paper on a regular basis and just begin to take an inventory of some of your existing assumptions.

What are some of my mental models relative to whatever problem it is I'm trying to face? This is the way we've always done it. This is how we think about our customers. Whatever you want, any of these things and then think which of them might be ready for a change. That sort of thought exercise that I described at the beginning is a beautiful way to get started on this path.

Number two, do your best to be aware of some of your biases and some of the ways that you're getting stuck. And I know this is easier said than done, and there's plenty of books written in detail about the biases themselves. The idea of increasing your awareness of them, of realizing, hey, maybe I'm moving in this direction just because I always do.

Maybe I have a habit of moving in this direction and being willing to challenge some of that and noticing it in your own behavior is the second thing I'd suggest. And then the third thing, frankly, is to always experiment, always be willing to, I don't know, go watch a Ted talk on some topic that you're not traditionally interested in.

I read a book in a genre that you don't usually read, or even, frankly, if you happen to be very conservative, you know, read the New York Times for ten minutes, or if you're very liberal, watch Fox News for ten minutes. You know, this will not necessarily be pleasant as an experience, but it will broaden your horizons, and it will push you to realize that there are multiple different ways of looking at things.

That's one of the most important things to be willing to challenge your assumptions, to be willing to look at things in fresh ways.

Anita Brick: Wonderful. Thank you. This was a very insightful and fun conversation. And again, thanks for doing this and I look forward to chatting with you again sometime.

Alan Heaney: My pleasure Anita I look forward to it too. And any listeners are welcome to track me down. You know, whether LinkedIn, Twitter or email or whatever else. And I hope that the book is interesting to many people.

Anita Brick: It's very generous of you, and thank you. And thank you all for listening. This is Anita Brick with CareerCast at Chicago Booth. Keep advancing.