Department
If creativity is so important, it might seem logical to have a special department of creatively motivated people who would do all the creative thinking needed. This would be equivalent to the normal research department. The real danger here, as with networks, is that other people feel excluded and feel that creativity is only for that department. Since ideas are needed everywhere and from everyone, this is a real danger. It is probably better, in business organisations, not to have such a specific department, but to have a strong Creativity Centre that can fulfil the organising functions of a department but is open-ended and not restricted to a small group of people.
Celebration
New ideas should be celebrated. This involves the publication mentioned earlier but can also mean special gestures of appreciation, such as a Creativity Medal or other award for new ideas. Such celebrations not only motivate the people who have had the ideas but indicate that new ideas are expected and appreciated. This is very different from having to persuade someone to listen to a new idea, which is usually the case.
Training
Many businesses have had their people formally trained in lateral thinking (DuPont, IBM, Prudential, Siemens, etc.) Many now have internal trainers who can carry on the training internally.
Motivation
In my experience, the interest in creativity has usually been driven by the CEO, who knows that creativity is needed. This sets the mood and motivation for the organisation. Expectation is very important. If people know that they are expected to have ideas, they will have ideas. If they believe that their job is 'continuity and problem solving', they will find new ideas too much bother.
One bank told me they used to have a few suggestions every month from their staff. After training in lateral thinking they now have over 600 a month.
Motivation and skill go together and they build on each other. Success in creativity increases the motivation, which increases the skill.
CREATIVITY AND THE HOME
Youngsters often take home from school the thinking lessons they have learned. These may be the Six Hats method, or the CoRT perceptual tools. They introduce these tools to their parents – who then use them.
The ideas that I have mentioned for the pre-school age all work well at home. These include setting drawing tasks and then discussing together the output.
Parents can set thinking games for children and play these games with the children. For example, a parent might say 'Suppose all cars had to be painted yellow. Do a PMI on that.' The PMI is a CoRT tool and stands for Plus, Minus and Interesting.
Parents can set aside one evening a week as a 'thinking evening'. Friends' and neighbours' children can be invited to take part. Youngsters really enjoy thinking, as an idea is an achievement.
In discussions, and even in quarrels, the Six Hats framework can be used to explore the situation fully.
With older children, specific creative tasks can be set and then the lateral thinking tools can be used to generate new ideas.
In the future I shall be writing more fully about 'Family Thinking Sessions'. If the school is not going to teach thinking, then you can do it at home. If the school is teaching thinking, you can still teach it at home too. Thinking is a life skill.
19 Values
The purpose of thinking is to allow us to enjoy and to deliver our values.
Thinking without values is meaningless and achieves nothing.
Values without thinking have been responsible for persecutions and all manner of nastiness. If someone has different values, then that person must be wrong.
Although values are so central to thinking, we have paid very little direct attention to values. We have assumed that everyone will recognise the values that matter to them.
TRUTH
We have always considered truth to be more important than value in thinking. Once again there was the influence of the Church in the Middle Ages. Truth was everything. And if you followed the 'true way', then values could come about of their own accord.
Just as discovery is to truth so design is to value. The purpose of design is to deliver the values we want.
Truth is very important – but so are values. Truth by itself is not enough.
Just as a scientific discovery has to be turned into a practical application (in medicine or the commercial world), so truth needs to be turned into value.
VAGUE
We have a very vague approach to values. We reckon that we know what we want or value and we know what we do not want.
A flock of birds is flying overhead. One person looks up and says: 'There are a lot of birds about today.'
Another person looks up and says: 'Do you see the goose over there? Then there is the kestrel. And that might be a magpie.'
The first person just sees birds and the second person has learned to recognise different birds. In the same way it is possible to learn to recognise different values in a very specific way.
Once we have learned to recognise values, we can also look for them specifically. We need a framework for distinguishing one value from another.
THE SIX VALUE MEDALS
In my book The Six Value Medals, I provide a framework for distinguishing one type of value from another. I have mentioned it earlier in this book but it is so important that it is worth repeating here.
In the book there are also methods of setting out a value scan. This is a visual display of values. Value scans from different people can then be compared. The points of difference are not obvious. They can be discussed. This is a much more precise process than arguing about values in a vague way.
Gold Medal: These are human values. They are values that apply specifically to human beings. There may be values like praise, achievement, pride and significance. There can also be negative values like humiliation and being ignored. The value medals include both positive and negative values.
Silver Medal: These are organisational values. For a business corporation it may be a matter of profits, market share or brand image. For a political organisation it may be public perception or votes. For the organisation of a family unit it may be cooperation, peace or honesty.
Steel Medal: These are quality values. Steel is supposed to have certain qualities, such as strength and durability. Quality values of any sort come under the Steel Medal. The intrinsic nature of an item or procedure determines its purpose. Quality determines how well it fulfils that purpose. Is it what it is supposed to be? Does it do what it is supposed to do?
Glass Medal: Glass is a simple but very versatile material. With creativity you can make all sorts of things from glass. So the Glass Medal is about innovation and creativity. This medal looks at new ideas and new suggestions. It may even be that an idea has no value at the moment other than its newness. The Glass Medal allows us to look at and appreciate creative effort.
Wood Medal: This medal is to do with ecology and the surroundings. This is not limited to nature. If a factory is the major employer in a small town, then policy changes might have a strong effect on that town. That is ecology.
Brass Medal: These are 'perceived values'. They are extremely important but usually neglected. How will this decision be perceived? You may do something that is worthwhile but is perceived very badly. You may do something that is not so good but produces a positive perception. Brass looks like gold but is not. In the same way, perceived values may not relate to real values. Perceived values need to be considered directly. It is not enough to suppose that if you do something worthwhile it will be perceived positively.
SEARCH, RECOGNITION AND ASSESSMENT
Once we have a way of distinguishing different types of value, we can search for each of the different values in a situation. Some change is proposed. What would the effects be under each of the value medals? We can look at the consequences of the change through the frame of each value medal. What might be the positive values? What might be the negative values?
In assessing any situation we can now pick out
and assess the different values (in the book, a method of giving a strength to values is provided). It is like the person who had learned to pick out the different birds in the flock flying overhead.
Once we can see a type of value clearly, we are able to assess its strength and importance. This is not possible if values are all mixed together and only seen in a vague sort of way as with the flock of birds.
WHY SIX?
Why six Value Medals and six Thinking Hats?
We know from psychology that the brain can perceive a maximum of seven things at any one time. If there are more than that, the brain starts to subdivide. So from the point of view of perception, seven would be the maximum useful number of categories.
I prefer to use six. That leaves one unused category should experience indicate that there is a real need for another category. It has not done this so far.
20 The Right to Think
As far as I know, and subject to correction, I believe that 'the right to think' is not spelled out in the UN Declaration of Human Rights.
There are several possible explanations for this. There is no specific right to walk, to talk, to eat or to breathe. So it is assumed that thinking is a natural function and there is no need to spell out any specific right to do so. This is a very bad mistake. At a primitive, animal level, there is some natural thinking, but that is very simple and crude. It consists mainly of recognising situations and applying the right routine.
Another possible explanation is that it is assumed that thinking comes naturally under the heading of 'education'. This is another bad mistake. The thinking taught in education, at best, is about judgement, analysis and debate. This is only a small part of thinking. To be sure, there are some schools and even countries where thinking is now taught explicitly, but they are few.
INSTRUCTION
You might have the right to play tennis or to play the piano, but unless someone teaches you how to do it, that right is meaningless. Everyone knows that children need to be taught how to read and write. It would never be enough to say, 'You have the right to read and write – now get on with it!'
Of course, it will be argued that if 'instruction in thinking' is mentioned, then totalitarian regimes will instruct youngsters how to think according to the rules of that regime. This is not to be encouraged. Yet we have to realise that all religions have done this since their inception.
It is no more difficult to teach thinking in a neutral manner than it is to teach mathematics. Around the world there are various regimes of different political natures that are happily teaching my thinking in their schools. This is the case in Christian countries, Islamic countries, Buddhist countries and in the old days of Communist countries. Thinking is a skill, like mathematics, and is not political.
PERMISSION TO THINK
In the Republic of Ireland, Jim O'Sullivan decided to teach my thinking to his employees at an electronics company. They saved so much money that he could afford to pay them more. At one point some people from the shop floor designed a new computer keyboard in which they subsequently invested $5 million – and it was a sales success.
I have told elsewhere the story of the Argentinian who ran a textile company. He gave his staff 'permission to think' and instruction on how to do it. At that time the company was half the size of its nearest competitor. Today, a few years later, the company is 10 times the size of that competitor.
There is a huge human resource potential in employees if they are given permission to think – and some simple instruction on how to do it.
ABSURD
It is an absurd and antique attitude to believe that thinking is natural and therefore needs no instruction.
It is an absurd and antique attitude to believe that normal education teaches sufficient thinking.
There is a real need to teach thinking deliberately and directly as a separate subject in education (both schools and universities). This means thinking in its fullest sense, not just logic and argument. Judgement is an essential part of thinking, just as the rear left wheel is an essential part of a motor car – but it is not sufficient: excellent, but not enough!
How is it that we have progressed so far without this realisation?
Epilogue
I want to repeat, yet again, that I have no quarrel with our existing thinking systems. They are excellent and do their work very well.
'Excellent but not enough' has been the theme of this book.
We need to supplement our existing thinking methods with some additional thinking software.
We need a method for formal creative thinking: that is the lateral thinking methods.
We need a method for exploring a subject when argument is inefficient and inappropriate: that is the Six Hats method.
We need to pay a great deal more attention to perceptual thinking: that is the CoRT programme and the DATT programme.
We need to look at values more directly: that is the Six Value Medals programme.
There is also a book of mine about the Six Action Shoes that seeks to clarify different types of action. I have not covered this method in this book.
There is also the new method of the Septine.
All these provide additional software for areas and uses that are not adequately covered by existing thinking software.
With computers, software is designed for a purpose – so is it with these additional methods.
No amount of logical searching for the truth will produce a new idea.
Our existing thinking is simply not good enough. While we are rightly concerned with the environment and with problem areas, we are far too complacent about our thinking – which is by far the most important of all areas.
De Bono Thinking Systems
There is a network of over 1,000 instructors and trainers worldwide who are accredited to the de Bono Thinking Systems. They have considerable experience in teaching my thinking to corporations. Thousands have been trained in this way around the world. Please contact www.debonothinkingsystems.com to be put in touch with the distributor in the country of your choice.
Should you wish to contact me directly regarding seminars and talks, the best way is through my assistant at:
[email protected] I am also setting up a club for individuals who are genuinely interested in the important matter of human thinking. This new club can be accessed through: www.debonosociety.com
The de Bono Thinking Systems network can provide training in: Lateral Thinking; Six Hats; Six Value Medals; Simplicity; Focus on Facilitation; and DATT (Direct Attention Thinking Tools).
For information on the Thinking Curriculum that is used in schools, contact me directly at:
[email protected] For information on the teaching of thinking as a subject in schools, please contact Denise Inwood through: www.blueskyskills.co.uk
The Edward de Bono
Foundation
The Edward de Bono Foundation is concerned with the teaching of constructive thinking in Education and Management. For further information contact:
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Index
ADR (Alternative Dispute Resolution)
AGO (aims, goals and objectives) tool
APC (alternatives, possibilities and choices) tool
area focus
argument
alternatives to
effects on conflict
faults of
purpose of
truth and logic
Aristotle
art
and attention
and creativity
and emotion
and thinking
being different
focus on negativity
asymm
etric patterning systems
attention
attitudes to improve perceptual thinking
brain
asymmetric patterning systems
patterning systems
self-organising system
see also mind
brainstorming for creativity
business
corporations
interest in lateral thinking
potential benefits of idea creativity
C&S (consequences and sequels) tool
CAF (considering all factors) tool
challenge
Chinese cultural progress
Church, historical influence on thinking
see also religion
Churchill, Winston
code system for complex situations
complacency
complaint and criticism
complex situations
code system for
inadequacy of language
computers
concept extraction
concept fan
concepts
conflicts and disagreements
corporations
CoRT (Cognitive Research Trust) programme
creative hit list
creative possibilities
creativity
and art
and humour
and intelligence
and lateral thinking
and logic
and possibilities
brainstorming
creative temperament
definition of idea creativity