Edward de Bono's outstanding original contribution

Abstract

Edward de Bono was often acknowledged as a creativity guru, an influential thinker. His reputation stems from his ability to publish numerous books, deliver countless workshops and establish a world wide network of business trainers. He was often referred to as 'the Lateral thinking guru', 'the inventor of Lateral Thinking' or 'the Six Hats person'. There is, however, a great deal more to de Bono than first meets the eye. His original contributions to education, management, training and to the world in general are remarkable and they deserve increased recognition. Edward de Bono was a remarkably inspirational individual. This chapter discusses some lesser known - but equally outstanding - contributions to the world of applied creativity and thinking. It includes a discussion of his concept of 'constructive thinking', a consideration of some of his less known 'thinking tools', and an appraisal of some of the valuable original ideas communicated in his books. The evolution of de Bono's thought, which started off with the publication of The Mechanism of Mind in 1969, to his present day work will be discussed, demonstrating the trajectory from issues related to medicine and psychology towards teaching children and learning from their ideas, to playful but erudite texts and on to his success as a world renowned thinker who came from one of the smallest island nation states in the world. Some of the programmes designed by de Bono are then discussed. Application of the de Bono methods allows for improved thinking, increased creativity, better idea generation and enhanced value creation.