Redefining the question, or the problem statement, is certainly one approach to outside-boxing. It is a sad fact that neither managers nor anyone else always come up with the best statement of the problem, and the more ability-challenged they are, the more likely they are to pose the wrong problem, identify the wrong target or source of a condition, or put their attention on irrelevancies or "automatic" thinking so they can avoid the effort of plain looking.
In the above example, the literal question given does not reflect the actual problem, and seeing through the linguistic red-herring is a sign of someone with a strong mind. Whether you want such a person working for you depends on how strong you are, yourself, I suppose.