Thinking Inside the Box

No business advice has been more frequently, or freely, dispensed over the last dozen or so years than that of “thinking outside the box” as the key to success in a rapidly changing, increasingly high-tech environment. The result, for many businesses, and for the economy in general, has been disastrous. Before “thinking outside the box” comes Thinking Inside the Box.

Author Kirk Cheyfitz, veteran journalist and publications entrepreneur, outlines a set of twelve basic, timeless principles—what he calls “The Box”—that form the basis of all business success. These rules, the “planks” that make up the box, are timeless because the nature of commerce, in spite of advances in technology, does not change. This fact has become painfully obvious in the wake of the dot-com collapses, the telecom disasters, and the Enron debacle of the 1990s and early 2000s. The corollary of this premise is that managing a business does not require genius nor constant invention, but does require paying attention to history and to present reality while applying hard work and prudence.