How out-of-the-box thinking helps in our life

I have come across several instances that clearly prove that thinking differently helps our life to a great extent. That is the reason experts advise that all of us should look at things with a new perspective and try to do them differently. I wish to give a few instances in which my out-of-the-box thinking helped me in my life.

I was working for a company that used to buy iron ore and export the ore to various countries. Mine owners were sending ore from their mines to our stock-yard by lorries. We had a weigh-bridge in which the gross weight of the lorries would be weighed first. Then, the lorries would dump the ore at the yard and come back to the weighbridge where the empty lorries would be weighed. The difference between the two weights would give the weights of the ore dumped in the yard. 

For making payments to the suppliers, the company opened Letters of Credits in the bank. Suppliers would come to us and take what are called Weight Certificates. We used to write the weight certificates by hand and they would contain the dates of supply, the lorry numbers and the net weights of ore brought by each lorry.

This practice had been going on for many years. Preparation of the weight certificates used to be a laborious task that took a lot of time. This prompted me to give a serious thought because I wanted to simplify the task. After considerable thought, I concluded that truck numbers were not at all necessary for the banks to make payments to the suppliers. It was enough if they had the net weights of the ore supplied. I suggested this to the top management and they agreed to this proposal after consultations with the banks. This reduced the workload and we could prepare the Weight Certificates within minutes.

The next instance involved a major policy decision. Our company entered into a contract with Kudhremukh Iron Ore Company for exporting their iron ore pellets. This contract did not involve actual purchase of the pellets. We earned only the export commission. But the top brass of our company included the exported pellets to our turnover. This was perhaps done to boost our sales figures. When I pointed this out to our top management, they did not agree to modify their stand. But I am still of the opinion that what we earned was only the commissions on exports and should have been shown as such. We should not have added the exported quantity to our sales figures. 

In the next instance, I was arranging photos in my house and when I placed them horizontally, they occupied a lot of space. Suddenly, a thought struck me. If I arranged them vertically as books were stacked in a library, they would occupy less space. I tried it and this helped me save a lot of space.

I had a wooden box and we used to keep money in it. One day, the nail that held one of the keels went missing. I tried in shops but I could not obtain the nail of the right size. So, I thought I could use a pin instead of a nail for rectifying the keel. I tried inserting a pin and it easily went in. Then, I bent ithe pin using the small tools I had at my home. The keel has started working smoothly and we are now able to use the box.

The point that is stressed here is that if we try to think differently, we can find solutions for many of the issues we face in our life.