Thinking outside of a box, military version.

The time was World War II, when British Royal Airforce was sending squadrons of bombers to Europe mainland. The losses were very heavy, about 50% of Lancaster bombers were lost to enemy fires.

The top generals were frustrated, they couldn't figure out where to place more armours on their bombers. Initially, they put extra armours around cockpits, but there were still heavy casualties.

So they hired the smartest person they could think of, a cambridge professor, and asked him to figure out the best place to put more armour plates on the plane.

The professor talked to repair crews, and checked the returning bombers, to see where damages were.

One week later, the professor walked into the meeting room, full of eagerly waiting generals. He took out a model of the Lancaster Bomber. There were black spots all over the model plane. The professor explained, the black spots indicate the damages on the bombers which just returned from their missions.

All the generals could see that there are a few places with high concentrations of of black spots. They said, "Great! We should put armour plates on these places!"

The professor interrupted by saying, "No, no, I recommend we put plates on these places", pointing to the spots that have very little or no black spots.

He explained, "because all the bombers with these areas being damaged have either crashed somewhere in the mainland or in the bottom of Atlantic ocean, they never returned from their missions!"

British Royal Airforce implemented the professor's suggestion and the casualty was down by 37%!