????5. 從收發室借一個大紙板箱

????如果你想鼓勵人們“跳出固有模式”進行思考，找一個大紙板箱讓他們坐在外面，確實會有幫助。

????這是新加坡管理大學（Singapore Management University）安吉拉?梁和同事們在幾年前的研究結果。他們給參與者安排各種需要創造性思維的挑戰，要求他們表演出各種比喻。有的人坐在五立方英尺的紙板箱里面或外面。有的人拿到兩個一半的杯墊，并被要求“根據事實做出推理”。

????結論：那些表演出比喻的參與者，在開發創造性解決方案的時候表現得更加出色。

????沒錯，聽起來像是電視劇《辦公室》（The Office）里面的一個場景。

????凡是能讓人們跳出常規套路和環境的事情，都能打破他們的慣性思維。只要你允許每個人與眾不同，他們就會有不同的思維模式。

????如果坐在盒子外面這樣的做法不太可行，梁發現，讓人們走出“呆伯特的小隔間”，也能起到類似的效果。（財富中文網）

????譯者：劉進龍/汪皓

????5. Borrow a big cardboard box from the mail room

????If you want to encourage people to think “outside the box,” it can actually help to get a big cardboard box and then make them sit outside of it.

????That’s what Angela Leung of Singapore Management University and fellow researchers found a few years ago . While giving participants various challenges that required creative thinking, they made them act out various metaphors. Some sat inside or outside a five square-foot cardboard box. Some were given two halves of a coaster and asked to “put two and two together.” And so on.

????Bottom line: Those acting out a metaphor tended to do better at developing creative solutions.

????Yes, it sounds like an episode from “The Office.”

????But anything that gets people out of their usual routine and environment is likely to break up conventional thinking. If you give people license to be different, they are more likely to think differently.

????If sitting outside a box seems a step too far, Leung notes that just getting people out of their “Dilbert cubicles” is a step in the right direction.