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Edward de Bono

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Edward de Bono

Edward de Bono (born May 19, 1933, in Malta) is a British physician, author, inventor, and consultant. He is best known as the originator of the term lateral thinking (structured creativity) and the leading proponent of the deliberate teaching of thinking in schools.

Biography

Edward de Bono studied at St Edward's College in Malta and subsequently gained a medical degree from the Royal University of Malta. He was a Rhodes Scholar at Oxford where he gained an M.A. in psychology and physiology. He also has a D. Phil in Medicine and a Ph.D. from Cambridge, a D. Des (Doctor of Design) from the Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology; an LL.D. from Dundee. He holds professorships at the Universities of Malta, Pretoria, Dublin City University, and the University of Central England. The New University of Advancing Technology in Phoenix AZ appointed Dr. de Bono Da Vinci Professor of Thinking in May 2005.

He was formerly married, has two sons and resides on the Channel Islands.

In 1969 de Bono founded the Cognitive Research Trust (CoRT) which continues to produce and promote material based on his ideas.

He has written "82 books with translations into 41 languages". He has spent the last 30 years teaching thinking, including working with governments, corporations, organisations and individuals, speaking publicly or privately on many matters. He has started to set up the World Center for New Thinking, based in Malta, which he describes as a "kind of intellectual Red Cross".

In 1995, he created the futuristic documentary film, 2040: Possibilities by Edward de Bono, a lecture designed to prepare an audience of viewers released from a cryogenic freeze for contemporary (2040) society.

De Bono has detailed a range of 'deliberate thinking methods' - applications emphasizing thinking as a deliberate act rather than a reactive one. His writing style has been lauded for being simple and practical. Avoiding academic terminology, he has advanced applied psychology by making theories about creativity and perception into usable tools.

De Bono's work has become particularly popular in the sphere of business - perhaps because of the perceived need to restructure corporations, to allow more flexible working practices and to innovate in products and services. The methods have migrated into corporate training courses designed to help employees and executives think outside the box.

The popularity of his work extends, too, into the sphere of worldwide popular culture; in the popular Japanese anime series Azumanga Daioh, the character Osaka is known for her skill at solving lateral thinking puzzles such as those pioneered by de Bono.

Achievements

Lateral Thinking

de Bono's contention is that everyone should strive to be more creative, but that unstructured creativity such as brainstorming is less effective than following the techniques that he prescribes.

The most comprehensive exposition of de Bono's techniques for generating creative ideas was published in his 1992 book, Serious Creativity.

Direct Teaching of Thinking

de Bono argues that most of the problems in thinking are at the perceptual level - that is, that many more mistakes are made by people jumping to the wrong conclusion than by behaving irrationally once all the relevant facts are known.

To address this problem, he created attention directing tools under the name of CoRT, later as DATT and also included as Code 2 in the de Bono Code.

As the name suggests, the tools operate by directing peoples' attention to different aspects of the situation for a couple of minutes. For example, an OPV (Other Peoples' View) prompts the thinker to list the people (or types of people) who would be affected by a proposed idea. The thinker is then required to imagine what effects that idea would have on each of these different people.

While this may sound like an exercise in altruism, it need not be. Say you've got a selfish desire (eg. you're a kid wanting ice cream), then doing an OPV will help you anticipate and plan for other peoples' responses (eg. "Mummy, me and Jimmy were thinking that cleaning our rooms to your complete satisfaction might earn us both an ice cream. But we would have to eat these ice-creams immediately to avoid spoiling our dinner.").

Schools from over twenty countries have included de Bono's thinking tools into their curriculum.

Language

de Bono has stated that he regards language as having been both the biggest help and the biggest barrier to human progess.

His contention is that just as language has allowed one generation to pass useful knowledge onto the next, it has also allowed dangerous myths and out-of-date ideas to become enshrined.

Convinced that a key way forward for humanity is better language, he published "The Edward de Bono Code Book" in 2000. In this book, he proposed a suite of new words based on numbers, where each number combination represents a useful idea or situation that currently does not have a single-word representation.

For example, de Bono code 6/2 means "Give me my point of view and I will give you your point of view." dBc 6/2 might be used in situations where one or both of two parties in a dispute are making insufficient effort to understand the other's perspective.

Ideas

Edward de Bono is a prolific originator of ideas, only a few of which are listed here.

  • In 2007 his Septoe idea was given life through a new website. Septoes allow people to distill their wisdom into phrases of exactly seven words.
  • He has also suggested an alternative to the penalty shootout when a soccer match ends in a draw. If the number of times each goalkeeper touches the ball is recorded throughout the game the results can be compared in the event of a draw. The team whose goalkeeper has touched the ball more often is the loser. The winner will then be the team that has had more attempts at scoring goals and is more aggressive (and therefore exciting) in their style of play. This mechanism would avoid the tension of the penalty shoot out. However, critics argue that this method of deciding a drawn match completely ignores the goalkeeper's skill which can win a game for a team. If the game goes to a penalty shootout, even though one team may have completely dominated the other, the goalkeeper has kept the scores level. Furthermore the goalkeeper can make highly skilled saves in a penalty shootout and defeat the better team.

Games

  • De Bono invented the L Game, a simple board game that requires strategy to win.
  • Another game called 'Concept Snap' requires participants to think of ways in which different objects can be used to perform similar functions.

Movements

At various junctures Edward de Bono has tried to create new movements in the hope that people pulling in the same direction at the same time will achieve more than people acting independently.

Some of these movements include:

  • Network. Introduced in the book, "The Happiness Purpose"
  • The Positive Revolution
  • YEAH Teams
  • H+

Despite these ideas being well thought out and valuable, they do not seem to have been taken up by more than the occasional de Bono devotee. There may be several reasons for this:

  • The ideas are owned by a single person, and others may not feel motivated to join when they cannot share ownership.
  • The movements were designed to counter society's deficiencies and so are of necessity, unfashionable.
  • Blanket, uniform media coverage has washed away minority cultures. If the practice of thousands of years of people singing folk songs together can be wiped out in a couple of decades, how difficult would it be to start such a movement from scratch?

Criticism

Edward de Bono has been the subject of much criticism, some of which he delights in and some of which he does not.

de Bono the Island

His books and lectures contain scant references to other peoples' work but copious references to his own. Mention of living persons is usually limited to those who have praised him or helped him. This does not seem to be done out of an aversion to other peoples' points of view, rather an unwillingness to mix his style with others'. He wants to design beautiful, simple, practical and efficient automobiles rather than sit on a committee designing camels.

On the other hand, the constant self-referencing engenders resentment. Quite apart from making people feel slighted by his apparent indifference to their work, people rail against the constant self-promotion.

For example, students using his new language are instructed to say "de Bono code" or "dBc" before pronouncing the code itself. While this is only suggested to remove ambiguity, it results in everyday communication between family members or workmates being peppered with references to Edward de Bono. This is unlikely to be broadly accepted irrespective of its merits.

Thinking tools that stifle individual thought

A common criticism of DATT, Six Hats, etc. is that by forcing people to think in one direction or another you are inhibiting their ability to form their own independent views.

This claim seems baseless. For example, while the Yellow Hat forces you to say nice things about an idea you might hate, there is nothing forcing you to remember what you said.

Repetition

Ronald Reagan, the hugely popular U.S. President, would often preface his stories with a disclaimer:

"They say that life begins at forty. Well, so does the tendency to tell the same story over and over."

It is not clear whether complaints about Edward de Bono's repetitiveness would be quelled by a similar disclaimer.

Controversy

Dispute over origin of the Six Thinking Hats

About two decades after the publication of Edward de Bono's book "Six Thinking Hats", a relatively unknown Australian by the name of Michael Hewitt-Gleeson claimed that he had helped originate the concept and that de Bono has unfairly claimed ownership of the work.

This claim has been strongly refuted by de Bono, who has levelled his own charge of plagiarism.

While this article must remain impartial, it is difficult to support either's claim against the other.

Why would someone in any way responsible for the original idea suggest, as Hewitt-Gleeson did in 2007, a seventh thinking hat based on "wisdom"? Wisdom does not seem to fit easily alongside the original hats - which are more like individual moods (positive, negative, emotional, detached etc.)

He also adds that children cannot be taught wisdom (though apparently they can be taught to recognise it). Adding a hat representing a skill which cannot be taught to children seems completely off beat - the Six Thinking Hats have been marketed to primary schools for years.

Dr de Bono's suggestion that Mr Hewitt-Gleeson has stolen his work and repackaged it as as his own does not seem to be supported by those who have seen both sets of coursework. It is likely that Hewitt-Gleeson has used his former connection with de Bono mostly as a marketing device. Forensic examination of the relevant material suggests that the thinking tools currently being sold by Mr Hewitt-Gleeson came out of the same creative mind that brought us "The Grey Thinking Hat of Wisdom".

More girlfriends than Clinton

Several independent sources back up de Bono's claim of his having had more girlfriends than former U.S. President Bill Clinton.

While this fact seems verifiable and uncontested, the reasons for such success remain unclear. Have women been attracted to his wealth and fame, or is it more that de Bono strives to be the very best at everything he does?

It is not known how President Clinton has responded to the news.

Published works

Books by de Bono include:

De Bono has also written numerous articles published in refereed and other journals, including The Lancet and Clinical Science.

See also

References

  1. "About Edward de Bono". Edward de Bono's Personal Web Site. 2008-05-05. Retrieved 2008-05-05.
  2. de Bono, Edward (1992). Serious Creativity. {{cite book}}: Cite has empty unknown parameter: |1= (help)
  3. "About Edward de Bono". Edward de Bono's Personal Web Site. 2008-05-05. Retrieved 2008-05-05.
  4. de Bono, Edward (2000). The de Bono Code Book. pp. p.52. {{cite book}}: |pages= has extra text (help); Cite has empty unknown parameter: |1= (help)
  5. Lloyd, J & Mitchinson, J: "The Book of General Ignorance". Faber & Faber, 2006.
  6. "Septoe Web Site". Innovation Delivery. 2008-05-05. Retrieved 2008-05-05.
  7. "Google Trends Edward de Bono vs Michael Hewitt Gleeson". Google. 2008-05-05. Retrieved 2008-04-25.
  8. "The Hats: The Origin of the 'Thinking Hats' Idea". School of Thinking. 2008-02-25. Retrieved 2008-04-25.
  9. "Time to tell the truth" (Press release). Edward de Bono. 2008-04-22. Retrieved 2008-04-25.
  10. Dudgeon, Piers (2001). Breaking out of the box. pp. p.181-182. {{cite book}}: |pages= has extra text (help)

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