As business people, we need to understand our customers wants and needs.  Wants and needs are driven by the “value box” we live in which ultimately drives the way we think.  We’ve always been told that the prerequisite to being effective is being able to ‘think outside the box’.  This may make us effective thinkers. 

To be truly effective, we need to be effective doers and that means we need to understand what the other person wants.  This means learning to think as they do or learning to think inside their box. 

So…Thinking outside the box is not enough.  Remember, if you think the way you’ve always thought, you’ll get what you’ve always got.