EDWARD DE BONO'S MESSAGE
9th February 1998

"Thinking Clubs 4"

I continue with the fourth part of the exploration of thinking clubs.

Thinking Clubs (4)

"Everybody is always right - no one is ever right".

This could be the motto of the thinking clubs.

The suggestion is that everyone behaves logically, intelligently and benevolently within a particular "logic bubble".

This logic bubble is made up of:
perceptions of the moment
values
past experience
ego needs
prejudices

Within the bubble the person acts logically and intelligently.

Most of the mistakes of thinking are not mistakes of logic at all but mistakes of perception. So it is better to seek to understand perceptions and perhaps to broaden them rather than to impose your own logic.

Argument is concerned with "what is": what is the truth; what is right? The thinking clubs are more concerned with "what can be". This is the creative and constructive side of thinking.

In the thinking clubs proving someone wrong does have a value but a very low value. Finding merit in what someone is suggesting has a much higher value.

Where different points of view arise, the effort is to lay down both points of view in parallel and then to clarify the difference. In looking into the future there may well be different views on what might happen. Values might also have different priorities. Personal experience might be different. It is never a matter of one view triumphing over another.

The idiom is positive, constructive and creative. If you win an argument you gain nothing except ego satisfaction. If the the discussion is constructive then, at the end, both parties go away with more than they had before. The general mood is best summed up in the book "Handbook for the Positive Revolution" (Penguin Books).

Respect for others, for their point of view and for the value in what they are saying is a key part of the idiom.

Thinking is to be used consciously, formally and deliberately. There would be as much attention to the thinking process itself as to the subject matter. It is not a matter of self-regarded geniuses just "sounding off".

There are some who would prefer the hurly burly of to and fro argument and find it stimulating. Good luck to them - but that is not what the Edward de Bono Thinking Clubs are about. Argue any place else that you like.

In my next message I shall comment on the setting up of specific Thinking Clubs within which people can enjoy thinking as a hobby.

Edward de Bono
8th February 1998