Expertise is the enemy of innovation right? Yes, but even experts can think differently. And, there’s much to learn from them on how they are able to overcome their ‘know-it-all’ tendencies.

Indeed, research into expertise and expert performance explains how great strategists use mental frames to break cognitive barriers that prevent others from seeing new options. It is not just that experts know more about the problem—in fact they often know less—but they think differently. They restructure, reorganize, and refine their representation of knowledge so as to more efficiently apply knowledge to solve problems.

Thinking differently is just a matter of shifting your frame. Of seeing things from a different point of view. But what inhibits us from being able to think differently?

More specifically, what happens inside our minds that limit our capacity to think differently?…