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Trapped in Nested Boxes?

  • Writer: Deborah (Ellen) Wildish
    Deborah (Ellen) Wildish
  • Apr 5, 2022
  • 3 min read

Updated: Apr 6


Trapped in Nested Boxes

Are you, or is your team, or Corporation trapped in nested boxes? The world places limits on what’s considered acceptable, appropriate or standard practice. Similar to the photo, these boxes are presented as being deceptively pretty on the outside, encouraging us to stay in the box and succumb to the norm. However, once you awake to find yourself deep inside a box, it’s not so pretty on the inside. And stifling.


Candace Parker (two-time Olympic gold medallist) said: “Never shrink yourself to fit into this world.” She talks about the world as having a way of putting differences in a box and emphasizes the need to embrace your full potential, view obstacles as opportunities and to compete.


I have five nested boxes. On International Women’s Day, I was presented with a shrink-wrapped box (double challenge), as a female entrepreneur. During my networking, a senior leader provided greatly appreciated and candid feedback, unveiling another box. This was a reality check that offered a view of how the world may attempt to confine my success. Awareness enables me to strategize how to break out of this box.


Corporations tend to sign contracts with large, established consulting firms. Cinder to Flame is a small consulting business and a newcomer (February 1st, 2022) with these comparative benefits: agility to be more innovative and responsive to external influences, commitment to thought leadership and flexibility to accommodate specific client needs and customize the design and delivery of services.


Cinder to Flame has a competitive advantage over large consulting firms who focus on corporate culture and innovation. A Canadian CEO survey ranks employee health and well-being among top priorities and this human need has been addressed, among the multiple facets of building a healthy corporate culture for major innovation.


Inclusion of health and well-being offers these strengths:

  • supports restoration, rejuvenation and revitalization

  • promotes a positive mindset, resilience and sustained high energy (requirements for major innovation)

  • maximizes employee engagement (studies link engagement to capacity for major innovation)

  • builds inventive thinking and performance skills, and shapes attitudes and behaviors (specific prerequisites for major innovation) through novel service strategies.

Candace Parker encourages us to exercise the courage of champions and to refuse being put in a box. She shares this inspiration:


“Barrier breaking is about not staying in your lane and not being something that the world expects you to be. It’s about not accepting limitations.”

Let’s apply nested boxes to generation of ideas at any corporate level. Does your corporate culture place limits on creative ideation? Are safe ideas that are associated with minimal change encouraged? If yes, this is “in-the-box” thinking.


Cinder to Flame helps Corporations solve complex challenges with strategic services that energize people, fuel a healthy corporate culture and ignite major innovation.


Align people in your corporate culture, explore new possibilities, break barriers and swim-outside-your-lane!


Be inspired by Candice Parker’s Ted Talk:


© Deborah (Ellen) Wildish, Cinder to Flame 2022-Present. All Rights Reserved.


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