Boxed or boxing?

Boxed or boxing?

Top companies experience double the market capitalization and net income than other companies. The difference? Thinking-intensive workers. These are men and women who find a way to expand their knowledge bandwidth and think differently about their work, as a career to build, instead of job to have.

A thinking-intensive individual is constantly scanning the environment to see where things are headed. People who don’t think become robotic in their execution. People who do think ask “why are we doing this and is there a better way?” People who don’t think are waiting to be told what to do. People who do think just make it happen.

Businesses don’t have ideas, thinking people do. If organizations are to continue to thrive, there has to be an internal group of men and women who are given the autonomy to create the future.

Thinking differently is the new killer app. People who implement their own routine of mental gymnastics are constantly looking at business and life through unique lenses and saying enough is enough. Something has to change.

Here are five tips to think about:

1. Take yourself out of meetings that seem to drag on and accomplish nothing. Get up and walk out.
2. Ask yourself when you are working on any task or assignment, “is this the best use of my time?” If not, drop what you are doing.
3. The person that “knows how” will have a job and the person that “knows why” will be the boss. If you intend to think differently, then you need to know how and why.
4. Develop thyself. Set aside time every week to learn, polish, discover or reaffirm what you already know.
5. Be intentional in developing your network beyond what it is. Your contacts and tentacles need to reach beyond your current place of business. Cross-pollinate with other businesses, it may just surprise you.

Don’t think outside the box – create a new box!