Because we often consider ‘thinking’ to be problem solving we do not think much about matters which are not problems. If there is a wide open road ahead of us we do not stop to consider the side roads. This is what I call ‘blocked by openness’. Many things continue because they are reasonably satisfactory so we never think any more about them. A classic example is democracy which is full of faults and limitations but can never be challenged. I can think of at least four ways in which democracy could be greatly improved.
Whose business is it to think about things which are not problems? EDWARD DE BONO - September 2008.
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I have recently had serious meetings both in London and Johannesburg with people concerned with youth crime. There are two things which everyone needs. They are ’significance’ and ‘achievement’.
In today’s world the only way a youngster can get these is through crime. There is the significance of belonging to a gang or showing off to your peers. There is the immediate achievement of crime: stolen goods, a graffiti, a broken window. There is very little opportunity for positive achievement. Schoolwork is not enough. Sport is not enough. Learning to play tennis in the hope that one day you might win at Wimbledon is too remote. There is a need for achievement as immediate as that of crime.
If you spend a lot of time thinking about things in a creative way then the time is not wasted even if specific ideas are not used. You build up in your mind a reservoir of concepts and possibilities that can then be applied to different situations. It is therefore important to verbalize concepts as they come about. This makes the concept more tangible and hence more accessible in the future.
The two points of difference between people who seem to be creative and those who do not are: a willingness to seek to be creative and a reservoir of varied concepts that can be tried out. Set yourself a creative task. Then note the concepts that are generated even if you do not succeed with a great idea. Try: “traffic regulation without traffic lights.”Edward de Bono
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Many corporations believe that it is enough to collect all data on their computers and then to analyse this data. This sets strategies and makes decisions. The process can be very competent and relieves executives of these complex tasks. But there is serious danger. The danger is that you remain stuck in the old concepts and stagnate.
Creativity is needed to look at the data in different possible ways. Once again this is the huge importance of perception. As I have suggested before, poor perception and excellent logic may be worse than excellent perception and poor logic.
Information is not enough. Information may indeed give us an answer. But is this the only answer or even the best answer? While we put more and more technical effort into the excellence of our computers we make almost no effort to improve our handling of information.
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