Think! (16 page)

As I get older, my energy and resources become more limited. I do not mind carrying on a one-man crusade to improve the thinking of the world – but more will get done if more people want to get involved. I am most grateful to my trainers and others around the world who are teaching my thinking both in the business world and in schools. But what can you do as a reader of this book?

You can let your friends know about this book. You can tell them about it. You can lend them your copy. You can buy a copy for them.

I am setting up a
Society of Thinkers for those who wish to help in developing our thinking skills. Details can be found on the website: www.debonosociety.com.

As an individual you can write to politicians and ask
them what they are doing about the teaching of thinking in schools.

Some of my projects, like the Palace of Thinking, might need considerable resources, so those who are in a position to sponsor such projects may want to help. You may also want to let your own country know about the project to see if they would like to host the Palace.

You may want to make sure that your child is taught thinking at school. There are many children who are not good at the usual academic work at school but who are brilliant thinkers. If they get a chance to show this to themselves and to others, then their self-esteem rises and their overall performance improves.

Research has shown that teaching my thinking as a separate subject improves performance in every other subject by between 30 and 100 per cent. Should your child not have that advantage?

You should insist that your local school teaches thinking. You should write to the Minister of Education and ask what is being done about teaching thinking – and do not accept a vague general answer.

If all else fails, you can start to teach this thinking at home to your own children and even their friends. If the demand is sufficient I shall prepare a Home Thinking Kit.

Teachers, school principals and others who want to learn more about the teaching of thinking in education should contact people like Denise Inwood of the Atkey organisation, who has built up great experience in this area. There is also the de Bono Institute in Melbourne and the Edward de Bono Foundation in Ireland (and in the UK and Malta).

There is a formal programme with certified instructors for teaching my thinking in business. Organisations that have used this programme include IBM, Siemens, Shell, Prudential and Citicorp, among others.

There are 1,300 certified instructors worldwide. You could make use of these instructors or arrange for in-house instructors to be trained within your own organisation.

It is also possible to become trained as an instructor yourself.

The instruction programme is headed by Kathy Myers at de Bono Thinking Systems in the USA. See page 251 for information.

There are the following formal programmes:

Education programmes

CoRT programme:
This is a 60-lesson programme for schools. There are six parts and it is possible to use as many or as few of them as you like. The programme sets frameworks for perceptual thinking (PMI, OPV, C&S, and so on). CoRT 4 also includes lateral thinking tools.

Six Hats for Schools:
This is the Six Hats exploratory framework as an alternative to argument.

Business programmes

These are not confined to business but can be used anywhere there is thinking to be done, such as in public service or community discussions.

Lateral Thinking:
The specific lateral thinking tools for deliberate creativity.

Six Hats:
A formal programme for teaching the use of the method for business meetings.

DATT:
Direct Attention Thinking Tools. This provides tools for perceptual thinking and is equivalent to the CoRT programme in schools.

Simplicity:
Methods and frameworks for simplifying existing operations. This is of particular importance for public service administration and similar organisations.

Six Value Medals:
This programme deals with different types of value: Gold Medal for human values; Silver Medal for organisational values; Steel Medal for quality values; Glass Medal for innovation values; Wood Medal for ecology values; Brass Medal for perceptual values. There are also methods for carrying out value scans.

The most important and fundamental point is to distinguish between 'idea creativity' and 'artistic creativity'. Unless that distinction is clearly made, there is no hope at all for progress. Governments and educational institutes will claim that they are already doing a great deal for 'creativity'. This is often true in the case of 'artistic creativity', but totally false in the case of idea creativity.

Doing a lot for artistic creativity does not mean doing anything at all for idea creativity. That is the situation at the moment.

We can look at four aspects of society to see how idea creativity could contribute in each area:

• Education
  
• Government
  
• Business
  
• Home
  

Here we encounter the very real problem caused by the failure of language to distinguish between idea creativity and artistic creativity. Schools claim that they are indeed doing a lot about creativity but this consists of some music, dancing, singing, painting and theatrical performances. They are doing nothing at all about idea creativity.

What can be done?

Pre-school

In the pre-school years and into primary school the ideal medium for creativity is drawing. A youngster can express in a drawing concepts he or she could never have described in words. I have had very young children draw complex negative feedback systems.

In a drawing you can see what is happening and you can ask questions: 'How does this happen?' You point to part of the drawing.

As mentioned earlier, through an education magazine I once set a series of design tasks for youngsters aged five years and upwards. The results are in two books:
The Dog Exercising Machine
and
Children Solve Problems.
The first book is full of designs for a machine to exercise dogs. The second book has a variety of design tasks, such as building a house more quickly, etc.

The designs of the youngsters are full of concepts. Sometimes the concepts are carried out in simple and crude ways.

Drawing is a very powerful way of getting young children to be creative, constructive and design-orientated. Note that these drawings are not the usual 'artistic' drawings of cottages with hollyhocks or flowers, etc. They are functional drawings showing some process or action.

Youngsters can also be encouraged to use the Six Hats framework, which they can handle from about the age of four onwards.

Primary school

Teaching my thinking as a separate subject has very powerful effects. The Atkey organisation showed improvement in every subject area of between 30 and 100 per cent. It is very important that the 'thinking' be taught as a separate subject labelled 'thinking'. This is because youngsters who are not good at the academic subjects often find they are very good at thinking. This increases their self-confidence tremendously. It also surprises the teachers.

The thinking taught is mainly the CoRT (Cognitive Research Trust) lessons. These are to do mainly with perceptual thinking and changes in perception. They also include some creativity. Perception, which is such a key element in thinking, is otherwise neglected in the curriculum.

As mentioned earlier, in Venezuela teaching this thinking is mandatory in all schools. There is widespread use in Australia, Canada, Singapore and Malaysia. There
is growing use in India and China. In the United States and United Kingdom the use is patchy and depends on the energies of a school principal. Good research work has been done in the University of Verona in Italy by Michele de Bene, who showed powerful effects of teaching thinking directly.

Projects in primary school can also involve constructive, creative and design thinking. It is possible to set up a whole number of projects using newspaper, scissors and some glue. I once set youngsters the project of constructing a tower as high as possible from a single sheet of newspaper. The tower had to be stable and stand on its own. Several design concepts were used.

Secondary school

The general idiom of education is knowledge and analysis – the 'road map approach'.

This aspect of education is essential and very useful. But so is the creative, constructive and design aspect, which is totally neglected. It should be easy to cut down on some of the knowledge subjects (such as history) to devote time to thinking skills.

The drawing projects mentioned for primary school can also be used in secondary schools.

The CoRT thinking lessons are also used extensively in secondary schools. They provide tools and frameworks for improving perception. Logic without perception is more than useless – it is dangerous.

Hobbies are useful, but only some of them encourage creative and design thinking.

Achievement is very important to youngsters. Many of them drift into crime because this is the only place you can get a sense of short-term achievement. There is real need to develop other areas of constructive achievement for youngsters.

University

Two years ago I was giving a lecture at the World University Presidents' Summit in Bangkok. There were about 2,000 university presidents at the meeting.

I pointed out that universities were out of date. The origin of universities was to bring the wisdom and knowledge of the past and make it available to the students of today. In a digital age, it is possible to get all the knowledge you need without a university.

So universities should be teaching skills:

• Information skills and how to obtain and assess information.
  
• Thinking skills including creative, design, constructive and perceptual thinking (not just analysis and logic).
  
• People skills. How to deal with and manage people.
  
• Operational skills. Designing and carrying out projects.
  

There are other skills that could be added to this list.

Universities could also be more involved with society, for example, by organising forums to discuss specific issues. They could also organise creative approaches to different social issues.

It is no longer enough for universities to be 'little closed houses of knowledge'.

As mentioned earlier, democracy is considered the best system of government, but that does not mean that it is good. The adversarial system of parliament does not encourage creative thinking and new ideas. So half the elected talent is lost.

I had a discussion with the Prime Minister of Mauritius, who is a reader of my books. I suggested that every Monday parliament should use the Six Hats method. The speaker would announce 'Yellow Hat Time' and members would only speak if they had something to say. I suspect that party discipline would mean that no one would offer any positive
views on an idea proposed by the other party.

There could be a special committee formed by members from both parties. This committee could only be positive and offer new ideas. It would never be the role of this committee to attack. This National Council for New Ideas would be a formal challenge for
potential new ideas.

Governments should have a Minister for New Ideas who would look after new ideas in every field. A Minister for Innovation is a step in the right direction, but somewhat weaker. It is the difference between waiting for new ideas and making them happen.

Information and ideas

There is the persisting belief that information is enough. Governments have think tanks that collect and analyse information. It is assumed that this will produce new ideas. But the analysis of information is not enough, because the information can be perceived through the old concepts. There is a real need for a formal and deliberate effort to create new ideas. New ideas do not just evolve over time. They need to be created.

Creativity and the UN

Many years ago I tried to set up a Creative Thinking Group within the UN. There were various meetings and Kofi Annan, before he became Secretary General, was at one of them.

There was an appreciation of the real need for new ideas in conflict situations and elsewhere. At the same time there was the underlying feeling that representatives of different countries were there to represent the thinking of those countries and not to create new ideas. A new idea might be contrary to the policy of a particular country. A representative might even generate
a new idea that was contrary to the position of his or her country.

In short, the UN did not exist to do its own thinking, but to represent the thinking of the member nations.

Where from?

New ideas are a mathematical necessity. Information is not enough.

Applying judgement to conflict situations is not enough. There is a real need to 'design a way forwards'.

Problems such as poverty, food prices and AIDS may need some additional thinking. This is not to imply that existing thinking is inadequate, but that new ideas can open up new possibilities that may need to be considered. But where are these ideas to come from?

The UN is not designed to put forward such new ideas. If an individual country puts forward a new idea, it will be seen as an extension of the policy of that particular country. Even if the idea is indeed excellent, it will be regarded with suspicion and resentment. The US can produce many good ideas but they are too easily regarded as an exercise in US imperialism.

There is a need for a neutral, independent body that can generate, collect and publicise new ideas and new possibilities. Once these become public, they can be considered. They might be ignored or they might be used. They might influence current thinking. In all cases, it is better to have some new ideas rather than none at all.

What can be done to increase creativity in a business organisation?

Take it seriously

The most important thing about creativity is to take it seriously.

Why do we not take creativity seriously when we know that much of progress depends on creativity?

The first reason is that we do not understand creativity. This has always been a mystery. We can see the results but do not know how it happened. By the time you have read this book you will know how idea creativity works.

The second reason is that we do not know what to do about it. We assume that ideas just happen from time to time and there is nothing you can do about it. You can also borrow, copy or steal ideas from others. Most people do not realise that you can use creativity formally and creatively. You can sit down and generate new ideas.

Corporations take finance very seriously. They take legal matters very seriously. They take research very seriously. They do not take creativity seriously at all.

As discussed below, in every organisation there is a need for a CCO or Chief Creativity Officer. That is a formal position. The person occupying that position should be senior but not so senior that he or she does not have time for it.

The CCO does not need to be personally creative but must appreciate creativity. If the CCO is personally creative, there is the danger of belittling the ideas of others. The CCO must be a good 'people person', a good communicator and full of energy. Other activities of the CCO, such as setting up a Centre for Creativity, will be described below.

It is not just a matter of finding and collecting creative people, however. Creativity is a skill that everyone can learn. There is a need for formal training since education has not provided this. Generating over 20,000 ideas in an afternoon is the result of the skilled use of a lateral thinking technique – not of talent.

Creativity greatly enhances the existing assets and
potential of any organisation, not just businesses. It is not enough just to wait for it to happen. You need to take creativity seriously and to take action.

All governments should have a Minister for New Ideas or, at least, a Minister for Innovation. The word 'innovation' means putting into action an idea that is new for that organisation. Creativity means the generation of an original idea. Innovation has its value but is weaker than creativity.

Exhortation

This is much used but is not very effective. Urging people to be creative is part of the general 'lip service' that is paid to creativity because people do not know what else to do.

Expectation

This is essential and is much more powerful. The chief executive, and others, need to make very clear that people are expected to put forward new ideas. Executives and others are very good at sensing the game they are supposed to be playing. The usual game is 'continuity and problem solving'. This means to continue to do what you are supposed to do and to solve problems that arise. New ideas are not seen as part of the game and may even be seen as hassle and bother to everyone around. So it needs to be made clear, in a concrete way, that new ideas are part of the job specification.

Time and meetings

This means specific meetings with creativity as the direct focus. The subject of the meeting is announced in advance. During the meetings the lateral thinking tools are used. Such meetings should be frequent but not too frequent. They should not last too long. If meetings are perceived as lasting too long, people will find excuses not to attend. Ninety minutes is ample. Time can also be set aside for individual creative thinking. There is a bank where senior executives set aside between 9am and 9.30am for individual creative thinking. No meetings are called during this time. Secretaries do not put through calls. Most thinking during the day is about urgent matters that need to be attended to. Important matters that could benefit from new thinking do not get this
thinking. So setting aside time specifically for this purpose is well worthwhile. It is important to be consistent and rigid about such procedures or they fall apart.

Chief Creativity Officer (CCO)

We cannot use the term Chief Ideas Officer because CIO is already taken by Chief Information Officer. Creativity needs to be treated as seriously as information, legal matters, finance, etc. The CCO should be senior enough to have access to the highest levels in the organisation but not so senior that he or she does not have time for the job. The CCO needs to be a people person who is good at communicating, organising and encouraging people. He or she does not have to be especially creative. In fact, it may be better if the person is not too creative, because the ideas of others can then be treated more neutrally. The CCO organises training, sets up the Creative Hit List (described in Chapter 2) and may set up a Creativity Centre.