EDWARD DE BONO'S MESSAGE
16th March 1997

Competence a commodity! What then?

In the business world competence is fast becoming a commodity. Everyone can downsize and streamline and cut costs and pursue quality. What then? If your only hope of survival is that your competitors continue to be more incompetent than yourselves, that is a weak hope.

Information is becoming a commodity. Technology is becoming a commodity because it can be bought off the shelf and incremental changes do not make a fundamental difference. The only thing that is not a commodity - and cannot become one - is creativity. If all the cooks have the same ingredients and the same cooking skill, then only creativity will put the ingredients together in a new way.

On a personal level, if your job does not require creativity then you are replaceable by a computer. Neural networks, expert systems and other integrative devices can fill any gap between input sensing and output decisions.

What do most corporations do about creativity? Very little.

They have their advertising people promote them as the 'creative organisation' - because that is easier to do.

Most corporations treat creativity as something peripheral to the maintenance mode.

Creativity is far too often regarded as a matter of employing creative people and letting them work in a favourable environment.

There is a lot of rubbish written about creativity. Most of it is of the inspirational variety filled with descriptive anecdotes which tell how someone had some idea. This has very little practical value.

Then there is the old fashioned notion of brainstorming which is very weak. Being liberated and suspending judgement is not enough. The brain is designed to be non-creative and to form routine patterns out of integrated experience.

Once we start to understand the brain as a self-organising information system then we can devise the formal deliberate tools of lateral thinking. These can be learned and used. Just as anyone can learn mathematics so anyone can learn creativity.

Corporations like Du Pont, Prudential, Mars, Texas Instruments, Siemens, Federal Express are starting to take steps in this direction.

The power of the processes is shown by an example from Carole Ferguson in South Africa who set up 130 workshops for Iscor and generated 21,000 ideas in two hours. A recent exercise in Melbourne for the de Bono Institute produced 2,800 ideas and comments in a three hour session on city rejuvenation.

This week I want to acknowledge a remarkable husband and wife team: Linda and Peter Low in Singapore. Over the last few years they have trained about 15,000 people and earned revenues of several million dollars as accredited APTT instructors.

Linda was a school teacher who went on to training and became a leading trainer in a major insurance company.

Peter is a very talented composer. Twenty-six years ago he set up the Singapore youth choir. He has taken this choir all over the world from Bethlehem to Tokyo. He worked for the education department.

Both Linda and Peter gave up their daily job to set up an organisation dedicated to teaching creative thinkers. Their clients have ranged from banks to department stores, from high tech companies to the military.

They are an usual team of excellent trainers and good administrators. They are now building up training teams in other countries such as Thailand, Indonesia, Philippines, Hong Kong etc.

Linda and Peter are the leading trainers of my work anywhere in the world.

In addition to corporate and government training, Peter and Linda run a Saturday morning school for teaching thinking. They have about 350 youngsters every Saturday morning. The youngsters become so enthusiastic that at the end of the courses they do not want to leave. One youngster persuaded his parents not to go on holiday, "because he would miss his thinking lessons".

It is true that Singapore is unique in being a country that puts a strong emphasis on thinking. It is a very successful economy with no natural resources. The only resource is thinking and organisation.

The GDP per head in Singapore is now greater than that in Australia or the UK.

Congratulations to Linda and Peter who have shown that creative thinking can be taught. One company got seven patentable ideas out of a training session with Linda and Peter.

The exercise was to suggest ways of dealing with casual crime (burglaries, muggings, car jacking etc.). This is particularly a problem in South Africa - but the exercise was not confined to that country.

It was interesting to see that many of the contributors did seek to use 'provocations' instead of just putting out the usual stuff. Many of these provocations were good provocations but insufficiently worked through. There was a need for more 'movement'. The result was often the beginning of an idea.

As indicated I would offer a personal prize of $5,000 to be given to an outstanding idea or shared amongst worthy ideas. This prize was only open to members of the Creative Team. Non-members with good ideas would be offered free membership of the team.

On a much lighter note the current exercise is the creation on "bonto's". The 'rules' for a 'bonto' are:

1. Each poem is to be called a "Bonto".

2. There are four lines in each poem.

3. Rhyming is aa bb.

4. Syllables: as yet undecided (5, 6 or 7)

5. Content:

• First line: sets out some extraordinary behaviour. The more bizarre the better.
• Second line: gives the explanation for the bizarre behaviour.
• Third line: gives the result or outcome of the behaviour.
• Fourth line: provides some "philosophical" reflection on life in general but arising from the situation.

Below are some crude examples. These could be made much better.

You are invited:

1. To improve and polish up the bontos given here (see Creative Team).

2. To write your own bontos which should be submitted by 8th April for publication on this site ( your name attached)

Edward de Bono
15th March 1997
Australia