EDWARD DE BONO'S MESSAGES - 5th June 2000

Thinking is the most fundamental and most important human skill!

The other morning I had a conversation with a very bright young man who was uncertain about which career path to follow. He had done psychology, then philosophy, then higher maths. He was interested in dispute resolution and 'thinking'. He had found the above University courses very unsatisfactory.

I tried to explain to him the difference between 'analysis and the search for truth' and 'design and the delivery of value'.

The simple 'random word' technique one afternoon produced 21, 000 new ideas for a steel company (from 130 groups in a workshop). It took nine months to sort through those ideas. Now the analysis of creativity would not itself produce a single new idea.

Understanding the system basis of the neural networks in the brain allowed the design of the random word technique as a deliberate creative process. But the tool had to be designed.

In their concern for analysis and the search for the truth, universities everywhere have been remarkably feeble in terms of 'design'. In the end it is design that delivers value. Analysing the causes of a conflict does not produce peace if the causes cannot be removed (historic etc). There is a need to design a way forward.

How extremely backward and primitive is out intellectual culture.

The young man seemed to understand.

Edward de Bono nmt
4th June 2000
Madrid