Executive Career Track

How to think outside the box when there is no box

We’ve all heard the expression “think outside the box.” But what do you do when there’s no box, no frame of reference, or no paradigm to shift? It’s not easy, but
you must rely on your training and trust your gut. Why trust your gut you ask? It’s because your heart and your head will lie to you.

If you and your gut have no formal crisis response training to rely on, you might learn from tried and true planning strategies formed in the crucible of military leadership. You may have heard the term “the fog of war,” which is often used to describe the uncertainty of the battlefield and rapid changes that are not always
easy to anticipate or communicate even in today’s high-tech environment.

For this reason, most modern militaries train their professional officer corps in both conventional long-term strategy and how to plan and react in real time
environments. These two planning disciplines used by the military branches may be described in different terms but can essentially be distilled into deliberate and rapid categories.

Download our latest paper for a look at how to implement deliberate and rapid planning strategies in your organization in times of crisis.