Fresh Thinking

Edward de Bono recently made an appearance on ABC down under, sharing some typically flamboyant thinking, mostly around the subject of thinking itself. I’ve been a de Bono fan for years and this was fresh as ever. Among his key insights were:

1. For too long the world has majored purely in thinking for the purposes of analysis, forming judgments and finding the truth, rather than thinking for creating value. Some inventors and entrepreneurs have broken the mold, but culturally we haven’t developed this type of thinking. This is a problem bigger than climate change.
2. At an everyday level, thinking can help to unravel the problems that make us miserable – become better thinkers and we’ll be happier people.
3. Teaching creative thinking puts wayward young people on the right track (de Bono cites the outcomes 20 years after a UK school started teaching his approach to thinking) and reduces recidivism rates when taught in prisons. Happy thinkers are less likely to turn to crime.

Like or lump the train of thought, there’s no denying we need out of the box ideas to solve problems where the usual approaches have failed. For the unfiltered version check out the full interview here (fast forward the first 20 minutes to get straight to de Bono).

Image credit: Benedict Campbell

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Kevin Roberts is the CEO worldwide of The Lovemarks Company, Saatchi & Saatchi. For more information on Kevin, please go to www.saatchikevin.com. To see this blog at its original source, please go to www.krconnect.blogspot.com.