Michael Costello Interview with Edward de Bono - Innovation: The thoughts that count
The biggest challenge facing the world is not climate change but poor thinking,’’ states management guru Edward de Bono. It’s a bold statement, but one he passionately believes in.
De Bono, regarded by many to be the leading global authority in the field of creative thinking and the teaching of thinking as a skill, explains: “When I speak to audiences, 90 per cent of them believe climate change is the biggest problem the world faces; less than 2 per cent say poor thinking.”
He quickly illustrates why this is an upside down way of viewing challenges and why it is creative thinking that will present us with a solution. “Take the discussion around California’s greater tax on ‘gas guzzlers’,” he says. “Why not put the money raised from the tax towards subsidising the cost of eco-friendly cars? It would be a significant disincentive for 4×4 drivers if they knew where the tax was going.”
De Bono, the originator of “lateral thinking”, believes that creativity can be produced on demand, not left to mere luck or chance. His 62 books – including The Use of Lateral Thinking (in which he coined the term), Six Thinking Hats, The Mechanism of the Mind and Serious Creativity – have been translated into 37 languages.
His work suggests that for 2,400 years we have done nothing about our thinking and communication – and that our educational systems are still entirely based on the thinking of the church. So he is keen to continue to provide new ideas to the world and promote the power of creative thinking.
“I would like to see more of my work in schools and it being used universally,” he says, adding: “The Chinese government plans to pilot my work in the country’s provinces – and, if they like it, they may apply it to 680,000 schools.”
De Bono’s work has already had a significant impact in the workplace. His teaching introduces a “random factor” to provide a shift in thinking to new directions. Although he has worked for many blue chip organisations, including IBM, Microsoft, BA and Siemens, he seems most proud of his work with Nokia.
“When I first worked with Nokia, it was making toilet paper rather than electronics. The company invited me to Helsinki to work with its staff of 70 people. For days we focused on creativity, with a fantastic array of ideas being generated. I had the privilege of being present at the start of what is now the biggest mobile supplier in the world, which previously had no great tradition in electronics.”
So what creativity concepts has he applied in organisations? “Well, creativity isn’t just about sitting on a river bank listening to Bach to help generate ideas. I look at the way people think, the processes behind the thinking and thinking techniques.”
“We do not all need to be ‘off-track’ thinkers [those who think innovatively]. Individuals who learn patterns about an organisation and its values, and stay true to them, become very effective. I do not like the term ‘out-of-the-box thinking’. Why? Because the opposite is ‘in-the-box thinking’, which is unfair and implies that people ‘in the box’ do not get anywhere.”
So how can HR make the best use of off-track thinkers? De Bono suggests centres for creativity where anyone with an idea can put it forward and get support to develop it further. “Otherwise – you would require individuals to have both the ideas and the political skills – which they may not. Treating ideas as carefully as legal or financial matters is so important.”
What about poor ideas? De Bono stresses that the management of all ideas is important. For example, US chemical company DuPont produced “a newsletter in which all ideas were visible, whether they were acted on or not. That way the individual still had a positive experience.”
De Bono also raises some interesting points regarding the lack of creativity in our everyday working lives. “I think we are going to need to change our work structure – how people work and their nine-to-five routine. Having variety in your routine is important. I have to have variety in my life. I think about all sorts of things – from the shape of a wine glass to how to solve the current financial crisis!”
Indeed, de Bono has developed many techniques that may seem unusual, but which are credited with bringing about substantial improvements in organisations and systems.
His “six thinking hats” technique is a tool for meetings and project launches to encourage more effective individual and group thinking (see panel, opposite). It helps individuals and organisations to make decisions from a number of different perspectives, thereby pushing them to move outside habitual ways of thinking so new opportunities are not missed.
De Bono explains how the technique came about. “A great deal of people development activity does not have an operational or pragmatic focus. It occurred to me that if all people could do in meetings was criticise then certain organisations weren’t going to get very far. So the idea was that you must allow time for different types of thinking.” He maintains that the brain’s physiology results in chemicals being released that do not allow us to conduct different types of thinking all at once during meetings.
The six thinking hats technique has been applied in the US for the training of juries, to help them reach unanimous decisions very quickly. The judges were so impressed that in three states they now ask that their juries be trained in the six hats process.
De Bono cites another example: “Ericsson had been working for some time on a £40 million project – discussing it for weeks and not getting anywhere. In one afternoon they made a decision by using the six hats technique.”
Other techniques are believed to have had similar success. For example, De Bono uses the “random word technique” (in which a randomly picked word is used to generate new associations) to solve problems. Use of this method, he says, produced thousands of ideas for a South African mining company, resulting in a 200 per cent increase in its profitability.
Another aspect of the workplace that de Bono thinks needs to evolve is communication. “I am sure we will start to use codes in communication – language is just not sufficient. Codes can be used to describe complex situations.” De Bono’s work outlines the difficulty of having to judge facial expressions or guess the potential for a conflicting situation. Although somewhat unorthodox, he believes codes can help people instantly understand each other. “A status code put on an individual’s desk could outline that an individual is very busy, happy to discuss activity further, or simply not available.”
But is this practical? Surely how people feel and how busy they are changes rapidly – how would this work? “Change your code!” says de Bono.
For an individual who is so synonymous with thinking, it is perhaps surprising few people have ever asked why the area is so important to him.
“My background and passion lie in medicine and psychology. I was involved in relating thinking to how the brain works for the first time in history. Importantly, this entailed realising what the brain is good at. It is excellent at recognition and making patterns and judgments, but not very good at creativity,” he says.
So will his legacy and learnings stand the test of time? “I believe so,” he says. “The bigger danger is that people will take the fundamentals, distort them and change them so that the results are not what I designed. If that does not happen then new approaches to thinking will get bigger and bigger. I would even like to see the day when Parliament uses the six thinking hats technique.”
The ‘six thinking hats’ technique
Edward de Bono’s “six thinking hats” technique is a tool for group discussion and individual thinking. It provides a way of thinking more effectively and is designed to help individuals adopt a variety of perspectives, as well as understand the full complexity of a decision and so spot new issues and opportunities.
Six distinct states are identified and assigned a colour: coloured hats are used as metaphors for each state. Switching to a state is symbolised by the act of putting on a coloured hat, either literally or metaphorically. All of these thinking hats help facilitate deeper thinking. The different perspectives of each thinking hat help identify problems and solutions about an idea or a product.
The perspectives they represent are:
- White hat: Wearer considers only the facts and information available.
- Red hat: Looks at the decision using instinctive gut reaction or statements of emotional feeling.
- Black hat: Looks at the issues cautiously and pessimistically. Applies logic to identifying flaws, barriers and weak points in a plan.
- Yellow hat: Takes an optimistic viewpoint, applying logic to identify benefits and opportunities.
- Green hat: Stands for creativity and developing solutions to problems.
- Blue hat: Stands for process control. Often the hat worn by people chairing meetings.
The biggest challenge facing the world is not climate change but poor thinking,’’ states management guru Edward de Bono. It’s a bold statement, but one he passionately believes in.
De Bono, regarded by many to be the leading global authority in the field of creative thinking and the teaching of thinking as a skill, explains: “When I speak to audiences, 90 per cent of them believe climate change is the biggest problem the world faces; less than 2 per cent say poor thinking.”
He quickly illustrates why this is an upside down way of viewing challenges and why it is creative thinking that will present us with a solution. “Take the discussion around California’s greater tax on ‘gas guzzlers’,” he says. “Why not put the money raised from the tax towards subsidising the cost of eco-friendly cars? It would be a significant disincentive for 4×4 drivers if they knew where the tax was going.”
De Bono, the originator of “lateral thinking”, believes that creativity can be produced on demand, not left to mere luck or chance. His 62 books – including The Use of Lateral Thinking (in which he coined the term), Six Thinking Hats, The Mechanism of the Mind and Serious Creativity – have been translated into 37 languages.
His work suggests that for 2,400 years we have done nothing about our thinking and communication – and that our educational systems are still entirely based on the thinking of the church. So he is keen to continue to provide new ideas to the world and promote the power of creative thinking.
“I would like to see more of my work in schools and it being used universally,” he says, adding: “The Chinese government plans to pilot my work in the country’s provinces – and, if they like it, they may apply it to 680,000 schools.”
De Bono’s work has already had a significant impact in the workplace. His teaching introduces a “random factor” to provide a shift in thinking to new directions. Although he has worked for many blue chip organisations, including IBM, Microsoft, BA and Siemens, he seems most proud of his work with Nokia.
“When I first worked with Nokia, it was making toilet paper rather than electronics. The company invited me to Helsinki to work with its staff of 70 people. For days we focused on creativity, with a fantastic array of ideas being generated. I had the privilege of being present at the start of what is now the biggest mobile supplier in the world, which previously had no great tradition in electronics.”
So what creativity concepts has he applied in organisations? “Well, creativity isn’t just about sitting on a river bank listening to Bach to help generate ideas. I look at the way people think, the processes behind the thinking and thinking techniques.”
“We do not all need to be ‘off-track’ thinkers [those who think innovatively]. Individuals who learn patterns about an organisation and its values, and stay true to them, become very effective. I do not like the term ‘out-of-the-box thinking’. Why? Because the opposite is ‘in-the-box thinking’, which is unfair and implies that people ‘in the box’ do not get anywhere.”
So how can HR make the best use of off-track thinkers? De Bono suggests centres for creativity where anyone with an idea can put it forward and get support to develop it further. “Otherwise – you would require individuals to have both the ideas and the political skills – which they may not. Treating ideas as carefully as legal or financial matters is so important.”
What about poor ideas? De Bono stresses that the management of all ideas is important. For example, US chemical company DuPont produced “a newsletter in which all ideas were visible, whether they were acted on or not. That way the individual still had a positive experience.”
De Bono also raises some interesting points regarding the lack of creativity in our everyday working lives. “I think we are going to need to change our work structure – how people work and their nine-to-five routine. Having variety in your routine is important. I have to have variety in my life. I think about all sorts of things – from the shape of a wine glass to how to solve the current financial crisis!”
Indeed, de Bono has developed many techniques that may seem unusual, but which are credited with bringing about substantial improvements in organisations and systems.
His “six thinking hats” technique is a tool for meetings and project launches to encourage more effective individual and group thinking (see panel, opposite). It helps individuals and organisations to make decisions from a number of different perspectives, thereby pushing them to move outside habitual ways of thinking so new opportunities are not missed.
De Bono explains how the technique came about. “A great deal of people development activity does not have an operational or pragmatic focus. It occurred to me that if all people could do in meetings was criticise then certain organisations weren’t going to get very far. So the idea was that you must allow time for different types of thinking.” He maintains that the brain’s physiology results in chemicals being released that do not allow us to conduct different types of thinking all at once during meetings.
The six thinking hats technique has been applied in the US for the training of juries, to help them reach unanimous decisions very quickly. The judges were so impressed that in three states they now ask that their juries be trained in the six hats process.
De Bono cites another example: “Ericsson had been working for some time on a £40 million project – discussing it for weeks and not getting anywhere. In one afternoon they made a decision by using the six hats technique.”
Other techniques are believed to have had similar success. For example, De Bono uses the “random word technique” (in which a randomly picked word is used to generate new associations) to solve problems. Use of this method, he says, produced thousands of ideas for a South African mining company, resulting in a 200 per cent increase in its profitability.
Another aspect of the workplace that de Bono thinks needs to evolve is communication. “I am sure we will start to use codes in communication – language is just not sufficient. Codes can be used to describe complex situations.” De Bono’s work outlines the difficulty of having to judge facial expressions or guess the potential for a conflicting situation. Although somewhat unorthodox, he believes codes can help people instantly understand each other. “A status code put on an individual’s desk could outline that an individual is very busy, happy to discuss activity further, or simply not available.”
But is this practical? Surely how people feel and how busy they are changes rapidly – how would this work? “Change your code!” says de Bono.
For an individual who is so synonymous with thinking, it is perhaps surprising few people have ever asked why the area is so important to him.
“My background and passion lie in medicine and psychology. I was involved in relating thinking to how the brain works for the first time in history. Importantly, this entailed realising what the brain is good at. It is excellent at recognition and making patterns and judgments, but not very good at creativity,” he says.
So will his legacy and learnings stand the test of time? “I believe so,” he says. “The bigger danger is that people will take the fundamentals, distort them and change them so that the results are not what I designed. If that does not happen then new approaches to thinking will get bigger and bigger. I would even like to see the day when Parliament uses the six thinking hats technique.”
The ‘six thinking hats’ technique
Edward de Bono’s “six thinking hats” technique is a tool for group discussion and individual thinking. It provides a way of thinking more effectively and is designed to help individuals adopt a variety of perspectives, as well as understand the full complexity of a decision and so spot new issues and opportunities.
Six distinct states are identified and assigned a colour: coloured hats are used as metaphors for each state. Switching to a state is symbolised by the act of putting on a coloured hat, either literally or metaphorically. All of these thinking hats help facilitate deeper thinking. The different perspectives of each thinking hat help identify problems and solutions about an idea or a product.
The perspectives they represent are:
- White hat: Wearer considers only the facts and information available.
- Red hat: Looks at the decision using instinctive gut reaction or statements of emotional feeling.
- Black hat: Looks at the issues cautiously and pessimistically. Applies logic to identifying flaws, barriers and weak points in a plan.
- Yellow hat: Takes an optimistic viewpoint, applying logic to identify benefits and opportunities.
- Green hat: Stands for creativity and developing solutions to problems.
- Blue hat: Stands for process control. Often the hat worn by people chairing meetings.
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