Glocal Leaders Network

undefinedName of the book: Think ! Before It’s Too Late Author: Edward De Bono Publisher: Vermillion, London Year of Publishing: 2009 Reviewed by: J.N. Manokaran Edward De Bono is a brilliant author who has written several books. This book is fabulous that challenges the readers to think. In this book he brings out creative thinking as an alternative to critical thinking. He promotes design thinking which is future oriented. The author clearly states that the purpose of thinking is to enable us to deliver and enjoy our values. Thinking without values is pointless-for thinking then has no purpose. This thinking is concerned with perception and not logic. For logic do not have capacity to change emotions and behavior of a person. The world has been influence by Greek Gang of Three. First, Socrates was interested in asking questions (usually leading questions). He was also most interested in dialectic or argument. Second, Plato was interested in the ultimate ‘truth’ (he also considered democracy to be a silly system). Third, Aristotle created ‘box logic’. Something was in this box or not and could never be half in and half out. Although he was married twice, he never asked either of his wives to open their mouths so he might count their teeth. He knew that men had more teeth in their mouths than women because with horses this was so. Creatures in the category of males (like horses) have more teeth than those in the category female – this was Aristotle – type logic. The author blames the Church, for promoting the pattern of thinking of the Greek as the Church needed only argument, truth and logic with which to prove heretics wrong. Then the philosophers, who describe the world in concepts, perceptions and values and then put these pieces together again. He blames also psychologists for Psychology arose from folk tales, myths, magic, and astrology as a way of understanding people and predicting behavior. But psychology understood that in order to become a real science there was a need for measurement. Measurement was the opposite of myth. So, psychology became obsessed with measurement. Today, psychology is much concerned with putting people into boxes on the basis of some measurement. But, the human brain is not designed to be creative. It is designed to set up routine patterns and to sue and follow these patterns. That is why life is practical and possible. Creativity is a skill. Idea creativity is a skill everyone can learn, practice and apply. There is a need for specific mental tools, operations and habits which lead to creative new ideas. These tools and techniques can be learned, practiced and used in a deliberate manner. Design is putting together what we have in order to deliver the values we want. Judgment seeks the truth and makes decisions based on the past. Design seeks value and designs for the future. Judgment is concerned with ‘what is’. Design is concerned with ‘what could be’. The author asserts that the schools are involved with literacy and numeracy. They should also be involved with ‘operacy’, which is the skill of operating, or getting things done. With the introduction of computers, children develop the habit of searching for the answer they need. They no longer have to think – they just search for the answer. While the ability to search on a computer is excellent, the ability to think is also important. A lot of brilliant people came out of the Harvard Business School. It is like a lot of brilliant people make their way towards an archway, then a lot of brilliant people will emerge from that archway. The archway has contributed very little. To get into Harvard you have to be brilliant, so when you come out you are still brilliant. Arguments are most of the times destructive, negative and concerned with attack. Being obsessed with winning or losing, they never attempt to design a way forward. A weak idea that cannot be attacked will prevail against a stronger but more vulnerable idea. There is a huge temptation to show off your superiority by proving the other party wrong – even on trivial points. Articulate performers win and good performers lose. The author introduced the six thinking hats that is used for corporate thinking and decision making. 1. Blue Hat: Organizing and control hat 2. White Hat: Concerned with information. 3. Red Hat: Feelings, Emotions, Intuition 4. Black Hat: Judge robes – critical thinking 5. Yellow Hat: Focus on the positive and Green Hat: Concerned with Creativity. One of the attractions of argument is that you can show your superiority by proving someone else wrong. You cannot do that with the Six Hats. If you want to show off, you can only do it by performing better under each hat. ‘Lateral thinking’ also implies that you cannot dig a hole in a different place just by digging the same hole deeper. It may be necessary to change the perceptions, concepts and approach rather than work harder with the existing perceptions, concepts and approach. While language is immensely valuable for thinking, there is also a downside. Language freezes perceptions into concepts and words. Democracy was designed to prevent tyranny, not to facilitate progress. The emphasis is on attack, criticism and argument rather the generation of new possibilities. This has to change. Most people in democratic politics also tend to be lawyers, journalists, and teachers. This is because architects, engineers, business executives, entrepreneurs and scientists cannot risk entering politics. If they are elected, they have to give up their current job. Six important values are portrayed as Value medals: Gold Medal: Human values; Silver Medal: Organizational values; Steel Medal: These are the quality values; Glass Medal: innovation and creativity; Wood Medal: Ecology values; and Brass Medal: Brass looks like gold but is not. This metal is concerned with perceptual values. In Cambridge University medical finals examination the author found: “Only about 5 per cent showed some spark of originality or even thinking. Student and academicians think they got almost the required knowledge from books. So maybe the role of the university was just to recommend the right books. Since the author writes his own ideas, he does not add references to his books. One academician suggested that he should ‘fake’ a reference list, whether or not the author had read the works, because this was what was expected – this is termed ‘the academic game. People need information skills, thinking skills, people skills and professional skills and Operational Thinking Skills: Perceptual thinking, Exploratory thinking, Value thinking, Action thinking, Creative thinking. But schools in the European Union spend 25 per cent of their teaching time on mathematics. But most people only use about 3 per cent of mathematics they learn at school. There is a real need for much more positive stuff in the world. The fundamental problem is that it is very much more difficult to write a positive piece than a negative piece. “In Australia they have what is called ‘tall poppy effect’. If you are walking through a field and there is a tall poppy that stands out above the rest, the temptation is to take your stick and lop the head off that poppy. The attitude is, of course, inherited from England and the days when society was rigidly structured into classes. Anyone who was seen to be getting above himself or trying to rise out of his or her class bracket had to be cut down to size. This silly attitude never developed in the USA, where success of any sort (even criminal) is respected. (p.135) If newspapers are to have any function in society, they need to develop positive products that television cannot easily offer because of the nature of the medium. Perception is a key part of thinking. Professor David Perkins of Harvard University has shown in his research that 90 per cent of the errors in thinking are errors of perception. In Australia, a five-year-old boy called Johnny was offered a choice by his friends between a one-dollar coin and a two-dollar coin. The one-dollar coin was much larger than the two-dollar coin. Johnny took the bigger coin. His friends laughed and giggled at Johnny’s stupidity. Whenever they wanted to make a fool of Johnny, they would offer him the same choice. He never learned. He always chose the larger coin. One day an adult saw this and felt sorry for Johnny. He called Johnny over and told him that the smaller coin, even though smaller, was actually worth twice as much as bigger coin. Johnny smiled and thanked him politely and then said: ‘I know that. But how many more times would they have offered me coins if I had chosen the two dollars the first time.’ It was a matter of perception. If you saw it as a single occasion, you would take the two dollars. If you knew your friends, a Johnny did, you would know that they would keep on offering the coins and you would get many dollar pieces. Perception is the key. Logic will never change emotions, but changing perception will always change emotions. Logic from a wrong perception can give the appearance of truth with a resulting action that can be dangerous. Our minds naturally want to jump as quickly as possible to the conclusion of ‘truth’ and ‘certainty’, because that will determine our action. As a result, our perceptions are very often mistaken and our actions will also be mistaken. Three important aspects in perception: Attitude; Perceptual tools and Perceptual maps. Putting aside the ‘problem – solving’ attitude and adopting creative thinking attitude; instead of having judgmental attitude use ‘movement’ attitude - where can I move ahead or forward from this position? Another attitude is the willingness to look for alternatives. This means making an effort to go beyond the obvious alternative to seek further ones. There are several Basic Tools: PMI: Plus, Minus and Interesting. CAF: Considering All Factors. C & S: Consequences and Sequels. AGO: Aims, Goals and Objectives. FIP: First Important Priorities. APC: Alternatives, Possibilities and Choices. OPV: Other People’s Views. Having critical thinking alone means to have a motor car with brakes and without engine which is creative thinking. So critical thinking may be enough if we are in the state of decline – but not if we want to make progress. While acknowledging the great importance of criticism and complaint, we need to make it very clear that this thinking is inferior to design thinking, creative thinking and discovery thinking. We need to be able to produce new ideas. Just waiting for chance to produce new ideas is much too slow. One of the major uses of creativity is simplicity. Over time procedures and operations get over more complex. While there is a natural tendency to ever more complexity, there is no natural tendency towards simplicity. Simplicity saves time, money, hassle and stress. The habit of looking only at problems means that we stagnate. Confliction refers to the factors involved in the gradual build-up of a conflict before it becomes apparent as such. De-confliction is the removal of these factors. There are two main types of conflict. These are ‘bullying’ and ‘sillying’. Bullying is when one party is oppressing another party for some gain to which it is not entitled. Sillying is when a conflict arises for no real reason. It may be a matter of national pride or something equally trivial. Corporations take finance very seriously. They take legal matters very seriously. They take research very seriously. They do not take creativity seriously at all. Motivation and skill go together and they build on each other. Success in creativity increases the motivation, which increases the skill. It is a fascinating book that could helps each person to change the style of thinking, learn mental tools for effective thinking and be future oriented in thinking. I recommend that all Christian leaders should read this book.