Edward de Bono's Blog (12)

A young man in Tunis is unable to find work ends up selling vegetables from a cart. The police confiscate his cart. In despair he burns himself to death. That incident lead to the fall of the government of Tunis and then the fall of the government of Egypt and probably also on Libya together with unrest in Bahrain, Yemen and Syria. All this is due to the power of the Internet and modern media. No other ordinary person in the whole world of history has had such an effect.



The… Continue

Some years ago at the UN in New York I tried to set up a group to generate additional ideas. There were several meetings and the Secretary General attended at least one of them. The project proved impossible because the representatives held that they were not there to think but to represent their countries. This is logical and understandable. If a representative came up with an idea that his or her country did not like then that person was not a true representative.



So there is no… Continue

Thinking is by far the most important human skill. Our survival, our success and our progress depend upon our thinking. Why then is ‘thinking’ almost totally neglected? The reason is that there is a huge complacency about our thinking.



We believe that analysis, logic and argument are enough. In fact they are only a very small part of thinking. Research by David Perkins at Harvard showed that ninety percent of the errors in thinking were errors of perception and only ten percent were… Continue

Does the present education system cater for the real needs of students in the 21st century?

Welcome to our 5th podcast with Sean Doran Head of the Network of School Planners Ireland and our esteemed Dr. Edward de Bono.



Today we will talk about our education system:



Does the present education system cater for the real needs of students in the 21st century?

What role can the CoRT program play in assisting the learning needs of students?

Has Edward… Continue

I once suggested a change to the rules of soccer. When there is a draw then extra time is played. If there is still a draw there there is a penalty shoot-out. This introduces an element of luck. In addition if one side has a player good at penalty shooting then that side would win.



My suggestion would reflect the whole game. Every time the goalkeeper touched the ball that side gets a minus point. This would encourage attacks on goal and discourage passing back to the goal-keeper.… Continue

Thinking tools/frameworks improve thinking skill much more than discussion does. One reason is that in discussion it's very difficult to pay attention to the thinking process rather than the content (because the content is interesting).

Understanding vs Use (of the thinking tools)

Understanding will never lead to use. Use can only come from habit and habit can only come from practice.

In the end thinking is the only means we have for delivering human values. Yet no bookshop has a section devoted to thinking. No university has a faculty of thinking. Only a few schools have a subject called 'thinking'. That is because we have been so satisfied with limited traditional thinking.

Recently, I invented a new word because there is a very real need for such a word. The word is 'ebne' which means 'Excellent But Not Enough'. If you want to change something you need to attack it. This is our usual dialectic thinking. We do not have an easy way of saying that something is excellent but not enough. The rear left wheel of a motor-car is excellent - but not enough for the functioning of a car. A chef who can cook the best omelette is excellent but not enough. Argument does have… Continue

The media, and especially the press, are usually full of negative news: murders, attacks, economic failures etc. It may be that experience has indeed shown that negative matters are of more interest to readers. Even if this is so, I believe that at least one page of positive news would be welcomed by readers. Readers would turn to this page - even if they found the negative stuff more interesting.



Editors might agree with me. Then they would ask where positive stuff is to come from.… Continue

MESSAGE FOR WEEK BEGINNING 30th March 2009



The current economic crises requires some new thinking. It will not get that. There will be a lot of analysis and references to the 1930 crisis.



The methods for influencing the local economy are very limited. There are interest rate changes and there are tax changes. If there is inflation you raise the interest rate. If you are in the eurozone you cannot do that because interest rates are set by the Central Bank in Europe and if… Continue

Suppose that the present economic crisis is 30% real, 50% media hyped panic and 20% game-playing. What is game playing? If a corporation has long wanted to get rid of some workers this is not easy to do in normal times because a big lay-off would lead to a slump in share price. With the excellent excuse of the credit crunch it now becomes possible to lay off thousands of workers.





Fear of losing a job leads people to curtail their spending, which in turn lead to more job losses… Continue

Our first podcast was recorded in the 3M offices in Dublin. I was joined by Rob Mol the General Manager of 3M and by Seán Kirwan Managing Director of Denobi.



In a very interesting discussion we covered:



• New Ideas in Difficult Times

• Why more information is not enough

• The importance of simplicity



Get involved and have your say:



Post your comments or questions here and we’ll respond were possible in the next podcast or online at the… Continue