EDWARD DE BONO'S MESSAGE
8th June 1997

The acid test - 'Is this programme used in the business world?'

I recently attended the 7th International Thinking Conference held in Singapore. This was a big affair with about 2200 delegates, 350 presenters and an opening address by the Prime Minisiter of Singapore.

The first conference was started by Bill Maxwell who was an American teacher in Fiji using my CoRT programme to teach thinking. The conference has grown because the need is there.

While the organisation of the conference was magnificent the content was rather disappointing. There was a lot of very old fashioned stuff.

The was the usual obsession with 'what is' rather than 'what can be'.

Educators never seem to realise that the purpose of education is to prepare youngsters for the real world. They feel that education is an end unto itself. They feel that the purpose of educators is to help youngsters pass the exams set by education. There is no concept of 'operacy' or the skill of doing. There is the notion that knowing is enough.

Knowing may be enough in a stable world where knowing the usual routines allows someone to apply those routines. But it is not enough in a changing world.

When educators get hold of 'thinking' they immediately focus on thinking about given information: analysis, judgement, comparison, clarification. This is only a small part of the thinking required in the real world where you have to find the information, you have to design values, you have to plan and carry out initiatives, you have to consider the views of others etc. So attempts by educators to produce programmes on thinking end up with very elaborate descriptions of the thinking process. Each description step is then to be taught. This approach is complex and useless.

We need to design thinking tools which are 'operational' not just parts of a description. This is the whole purpose behind the CoRT programme and the Six Hats approach.

One key test of any thinking programme is to ask the simple question:

"Is this programme used in the business world?"

That is the key test of practical reality.

The Six Hats programme is very widely used in business from the most senior level to the shop floor. The CoRT programme is also widely used both directly and as DATT (Direct Attention Thinking Tools). Motorola reports from Penang that 18 months after a CoRT programme there were differences significant at the .02 probability level. Susan Mackie reports from South Africa on using CoRT tools one kilometre down at the bottom of a platinum mine with miners who spoke six different languages.

Why is 'business use' a good test? Because a programme has to be simple, practical and effective - otherwise it is dropped.

Sadly the education system in Singapore seems to be turning away from the practical programmes to academic programmes which have little practical utility. This is sad because at Prime Minister level there is a strong motivation to teach thinking that is both creative and usable in real life. Somehow this motivation gets lost within the ministry and the result is totally different.

Edward de Bono
6th June 1997