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Edward de Bono is an inventor and problem solver who coined the term ‘lateral thinking’ and he was the first winner of the Capire prize in Madrid for a significant contribution to humankind through his groundbreaking ideas on the way we think.

Map Magazine attended his speech on February 01 at the London School of Economics and Political Science.

During question time, when we asked him “what’s the purpose of life?”, he responded with an aussie joke.  We’re not so sure what that meant, but one of his key points about creativity was humour.  We’ve outlined his main points below.

The greatest problem facing humanity is ‘poor thinking’ - Edward de Bono @ LSE

BACKGROUND:  THE BRAIN AND CREATIVITY

Creativity breaks normal thinking patterns in our brains

The brain’s function is to take incoming information and organise it into routine patterns and categories. When you learn how to do things - a pattern is created. As time passes, we associate incoming information with what is already in our brains.

The problem is when we are re-enforcing old patterns in new contexts. The old patterns may have been useful with the old information, but as new information or knowledge develops, we need to step back and create better patterns and thought processes. Creativity is about escaping from the sequence by which information came in.

Design is very important but very neglected

”Design elements are needed to break the feedback cycle in many areas”, said De Bono.

An example of a feedback cycle: property markets go down, therefore no one buys, therefore the market continues to go down. An example of designing a system to break the cycle would be: to sell houses at today’s price, but guarantee the buyer that if the value goes down by X% in say, a year’s time, the seller refunds the buyer that amount at the time; therefore there is no advantage in waiting. This is a way to break the vicious cycle.

Creativity can be exercised deliberately through various techniques

”There is a complacency around thinking,” he said. However, this can be addressed simply by intentionally setting aside time and using techniques (outlined below) for creative thought.

Evidence shows that when thinking is taught as a separate subject in schools, the overall achievement in all subjects improves significantly.

De Bono gave a workforce example of a bank which allocates time between 9am and 9:30am each week day specifically for thinking.

TECHNIQUES FOR CREATIVITY

1. Humour enables us to change our perceptions

Humour can be a useful tool in shifting perspectives as it breaks normal thought patterns.

De Bono’s joke example: an old man dies and walks into hell and sees another old man of around 89 years with an attractive young blonde sitting on his lap. He says to the man with the blonde, ‘looks like you’re having a great time - this isn’t hell is it’? The other man said, ‘yes it is; I’m her punishment’.

It is humorous because it breaks out of our natural thinking patterns, but then in hindsight is perfectly logical.

”We need ways of moving across patterns rather than along them,” he said.

2. Challenging the status quo forces us to consider other possibilities

“When things are satisfactory, we don’t challenge them,” said De Bono. He calls this being “blocked by opens” rather than being blocked by actual barriers. The big wide open path that everyone is travelling along actually blocks people from exploring the other possibilities, which may be better.

To use this technique: take a standard practice and pretend you cannot use it anymore. Then you are forced to consider other avenues for achieving the result you desire.

For example, De Bono used this technique when working with Shell Oil in 1970. At that time, oil was extracted by drilling holes vertically down into the ground. He asked ‘what if you don’t just drill down, but you drill across?’. It turned out this was much more effective and bountiful, and within eight years, it became the common practice for oil companies worldwide.

Simply challenging the status quo by trying other possibilities lead to a creative quantum leap in the industry.

3. Determining the underlying concept behind things means we can apply the same concept in new ways

In this technique, you break down the concept behind something, and then think of other ways to apply the fundamental concept.

De Bono gave the example of being consulted by the mayor of a small town in Australia. There was a problem with commuters driving in to the town and parking there all day while they were at work, leaving no spaces for others to park. Parking meters are costly to implement and maintain. De Bono asked him ‘what is the concept behind parking meters?’ The mayor said ‘it is for people to limit their own parking’. From there, De Bono generated another way to use this concept in practice: they can park wherever they like, for as long as they like, as long as they leave their headlights on. To avoid their car battery going flat - they get whatever they need to get done as quickly as possible and leave as fast as possible.

By breaking an already existing idea down to its underlying concept, and thinking of other ways to apply that concept, useful new ideas can be generated.

4. An apparently ridiculous ‘provocation’ gives a new starting point to move forward to a new solution

”Every self-organising system will reach a local equilibrium,” said De Bono. This technique involves ‘throwing a spanner in the works’ by saying something utterly impossible, and then moving forward from there, until you reach a workable new idea.

For example, when De Bono was working with engineers on a plane project to prevent crashes. His provocation (abbreviated to PO) was PO: ‘aeroplanes should land upside down’. When they thought about this further, they realised that if you land upside down, the wings give you a downward thrust. This then lead to the idea of two small upside down wings which gave the plane an ability to switch on ‘instant lift’, which addressed the cause of 70% of plane crashes.

A provocation forces you to reach a new equilibrium, thus generating new ideas by breaking normal thought patterns.

5. Random events stimulate new trains of thought

History is full of examples where random events have triggered important ideas. For example the apple falling on Newton’s head leading to an understanding of gravity.

In this technique you use a completely random factor to trigger ideas about a certain topic by finding ways of associating them. You cannot choose the random factor, because you will just continue along your normal thinking, as that is what you use to chose it in the first place.

De Bono used this as an exercise in his lecture. In dealing with the problem of ‘unemployment’, he picked out a random word out of 216. It was: chair. The audience had to use this random word to stimulate ideas about unemployment. (One could also use a dictionary to pick a word).

6. Argument is an inefficient way to generate constructive ideas; an alternative is what De Bono calls ‘parallel thinking’

”Argument involves: negativity, fixed ideas, no design and is all about ego (the pleasure in proving someone wrong),” explained De Bono.

To illustrate: imagine a building with four sides, and there is one person standing on each side looking at the building, and arguing that they see its most beautiful angle. Alternatively, parallel thinking means all four of those people move around together and see each angle together. Therefore, the thinking is in parallel, but the directions change - together.

”There is an absolute need to separate modes of thinking; don’t try to do everything at once,” he says. Edward de Bono’s famous technique for parallel thinking is called the ‘6 thinking hats’. Each hat indicates a direction of thinking.