Edward de Bono

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Edward de Bono (born May 19, 1933, in Malta) is a British physician, author, inventor, and consultant. He writes prolifically about lateral thinking - a concept he pioneered, and he has also designed a strategy boardgame. Dr. De Bono extensive portfolio includes work with Coca-Cola, Ericsson, IBM, NTT, Du Pont, Ford, Siemens, and Shell.

Biography

Born in Malta, Edward de Bono studied at St Edward's College and subsequently gained a medical degree from the Royal University of Malta. As a Rhodes Scholar at the University of Oxford, de Bono took a degree in psychology and physiology and a D.Phil in medicine. He also took a PhD at the University of Cambridge. He was formerly married, has two sons and resides on the Channel Islands.

In 1969 de Bono founded the Cognitive Research Trust (CoRT) which continues to produce and promote material based on his ideas. In 1979 he co-founded the School of Thinking with Michael Hewitt-Gleeson.

He has written "75 books with translations into 37 languages". He has spent the last 30 years teaching thinking, including working with governments, corporations, organisations and individuals, speaking publicly or privately on many matters. He has started to set up the World Center for New Thinking, based in Malta, which he describes as a "kind of intellectual Red Cross".

In 1995, he created the futuristic documentary film, 2040: Possibilities by Edward de Bono, a lecture designed to prepare an audience of viewers released from a cryogenic freeze for contemporary (2040) society.

In 2000 he advised a U.K Foreign Office committee that the Arab-Israeli conflict might be due, in part, to low levels of zinc found in people who eat unleavened bread, a known side-effect of which is aggression. He suggested shipping out jars of Marmite to compensate.

De Bono has detailed a range of 'deliberate thinking methods' - applications emphasizing thinking as a deliberate act rather than a reactive one. His writing style is simple and clear, though often criticised for being dry and repetitive. Avoiding academic terminology, he has advanced applied psychology by making theories about creativity and perception into usable tools.

De Bono's work has become particularly popular in the sphere of business - perhaps because of the perceived need to restructure corporations, to allow more flexible working practices and to innovate in products and services. The methods have migrated into corporate training courses designed to help employees and executives think outside the box.

The popularity of his work extends, too, into the sphere of worldwide popular culture; in the popular Japanese anime series Azumanga Daioh, the character Osaka is known for her skill at solving lateral thinking puzzles such as those pioneered by de Bono.

Games

De Bono invented the L Game, a simple board game that requires strategy to win.

He has also suggested an alternative to the penalty shootout when a soccer match ends in a draw. If the number of times each goalkeeper touches the ball is recorded throughout the game the results can be compared in the event of a draw. The team whose goalkeeper has touched the ball more often is the loser. The winner will then be the team that has had more attempts at scoring goals and is more aggressive (and therefore exciting) in their style of play. This mechanism would avoid the tension of the penalty shoot out. However, critics argue that this method of deciding a drawn match completely ignores the goalkeeper's skill which can win a game for a team. If the game goes to a penalty shootout, even though one team may have completely dominated the other, the goalkeeper has kept the scores level. Furthermore the goalkeeper can make highly skilled saves in a penalty shootout and defeat the better team.

Published works

Books by de Bono include:

The Use of Lateral Thinking (1967) ISBN 0-14-013788-2, introduced the term "lateral thinking"
New Think (1967, 1968) ISBN 0-380-01426-2
The Five-Day Course in Thinking (1968), introduced the L game
The Mechanism of the Mind (1969), Intl Center for Creative Thinking 1992 reprint: ISBN 0-14-013787-4, suggests that the mind is a pattern matching machine
Lateral Thinking: Creativity Step by Step, (1970), Harper & Row 1973 paperback: ISBN 0-06-090325-2
The Dog-Exercising Machine (1970)
Technology Today (1971)
Practical Thinking (1971)
Lateral Thinking for Management (1971)
Po: A Device for Successful Thinking (1972), ISBN 0-671-21338-5, introduced the term Po
Children Solve Problems (1972) ISBN 13-978-0060110246, ISBN 10-0060110244
Po: Beyond Yes and No (1973), ISBN 0-14-021715-0
Eureka!: An Illustrated History of Inventions from the Wheel to the Computer (1974)
Teaching Thinking (1976)
The Greatest Thinkers: The Thirty Minds That Shaped Our Civilization (1976), ISBN 0-399-11762-8
Wordpower (1977)
The Happiness Purpose (1977)
Opportunities : A handbook for business opportunity search (1978)
Future Positive (1979)
Atlas of Management Thinking (1981)
De Bono's Course in Thinking (1982)
Learn-To-Think: Coursebook and Instructors Manual (1982), ISBN 0-88496-199-0 co-authored with Michael Hewitt-Gleeson and co-founder of the School of Thinking
Tactics: The Art and Science of Success (1985)
Conflicts (1985)
Masterthinker's Handbook (1985)
Six Thinking Hats (1985) ISBN 0-316-17831-4
I Am Right, You Are Wrong: From This to the New Renaissance: From Rock Logic to Water Logic (1990) ISBN 0-14-012678-3
Six Action Shoes (1991)
Handbook for the Positive Revolution (1991) ISBN 0-14-012679-1
Serious Creativity: Using the Power of Lateral Thinking to Create New Ideas (1992) ISBN 0-00-255143-8 – a summation of many of De Bono's ideas on creativity
Sur/Petition (1992) ISBN 0-88730-543-1 - creating value monopolies when everyone else is merely competing.
Teach Yourself How to Think (1995)
How to Be More Interesting (1998)
Simplicity (1999)
Thinking in the New Millennium (1999)
Why I Want To Be King of Australia (1999)
How to Have A Beautiful Mind (2004)
Six Value Medals (2005)
H+ (Plus): A New Religion (2006)
How to Have Creative Ideas (2007)
Free or Unfree? : Are Americans Really Free? (2007) ISBN 1597775444

De Bono has also written numerous articles published in refereed and other journals, including The Lancet and Clinical Science.

References

External links

de Bono web portal