When I was leaving my old job to start my new one, some of my coworkers were trying to convince me to stay. Besides being sad that I was leaving, they trusted my work, which is saying a lot in the IT world. As they were bemoaning the traits that I possess that they would miss most, they mentioned a curious fact that I really didn't know about myself. They said to me, "Randy, you think outside the box." I started processing these thoughts and realized they are right. Many times in meetings and in problem solving, I would say things like, "Let's look at this from a different angle." "You say the problem is this, but you really don't mean that. The real problem is that and this is just symptom of that." "Why do we do it this way?" "Why can't we change our rules to make it work this way?"
This is an important trait to have in life, especially when it comes to problem solving. The easy problems have already all been solved. One needs to be able to question their assumptions and bounce up against the rules to see if the constraints of a problem are really constraints, or if they are artificially placed there.
My three-year old has entered the "Why" phase. Except, she never asks "Why?" She always asks "Why not?" Maybe she will be a great problem solver, an "outside of the box" thinker, an engineer of imaginative solutions.
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