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Complexity creates confusion, simplicity focus.

Edward de Bono

As competition intensifies, the need for creative thinking increases. It is no longer enough to do the same thing better . . . no longer enough to be efficient and solve problems.
EDWARD DE BONO

Better Competition Creativity Intense Need Problem Solve
The analysis of data will not by itself produce new ideas.
EDWARD DE BONO

Analysis Data Ideas Production
What the joke displays is a switch in perception. This is important in changing the way we think.
EDWARD DE BONO

Change Display Important Joke Perception Thinking
You cannot look in a new direction by looking harder in the same direction.
EDWARD DE BONO

Direction Hard Yourself
Creativity gives hope that there can be a worthwhile idea.
EDWARD DE BONO

Creativity Hope Idea Worth
My thinking was taught to tribes in South Africa like the Zulus and Xhosas. At the time there were about 210 fights breaking out among them every month, but after they listened to my lessons, this fell to just four.
EDWARD DE BONO

Fight Lesson Listening Teaching Thinking Time
I do a great deal of work with young children, and if you give a child a problem, he may come up with a highly original solution, because he doesn’t have the established route to it.
EDWARD DE BONO

Children Deal Establishment Greatness Route Work Young
Argument is meant to reveal the truth, not to create it.
EDWARD DE BONO

Argument Creation Reveal Truth Yourself
If you do not design the future, someone or something else will design it for you.
EDWARD DE BONO

Design Future Yourself
The system will always be defended by those countless people who have enough intellect to defend but not quite enough to innovate.
EDWARD DE BONO

Count Defend Enough Innovation People System
We may need to solve problems not by removing the cause but by designing the way forward even if the cause remains in place.
EDWARD DE BONO

Place Problem Remove Solve
Many highly intelligent people are poor thinkers. Many people of average intelligence are skilled thinkers. The power of a car is separate from the way the car is driven.
EDWARD DE BONO

Drive Intelligence People Poor Thinking
To be successful you have to be lucky, or a little mad, or very talented, or find yourself in a rapid growth field.
EDWARD DE BONO

Feild Growth Mad Success Talent
We still seek to solve conflicts with ‘judgement’ instead of designing the way forwards.
EDWARD DE BONO

Design Judgement Seek
One very important aspect of motivation is the willingness to stop and to look at things that no one else has bothered to look at. This simple process of focusing on things that are normally taken for granted is a powerful source of creativity.
EDWARD DE BONO

Aspect Creativity Important Motivational Powerful Source Willing
There is no doubt that creativity is the most important human resource of all. Without creativity, there would be no progress, and we would be forever repeating the same patterns.
EDWARD DE BONO

Creativity Doubt Forever Human Important Progress Repeat Resource
Simplicity before understanding is simplistic; simplicity after understanding is simple.
EDWARD DE BONO

Simplicity Understand
To me, a faith in Jesus Christ that is not aligned with the poor it’s nothing.
EDWARD DE BONO

Faith God Poor
You cannot dig a hole in a different place by digging the same hole deeper.
EDWARD DE BONO

Different Hole Place Yourself
It’s not enough to rage against the lie.. you’ve got to replace it with the truth.
EDWARD DE BONO

Enough Lying Replacement Truth
Lateral thinking is the process of using information to bring about creativity and insight restructuring. Lateral thinking can be learned, practised and used. It is possible to acquire skill in it just as it is possible to acquire skill in mathematics.
EDWARD DE BONO

Creativity Information Mathematics Process Thinking
When the story of these times gets written, we want it to say that we did all we could, and it was more than anyone could have imagined.
EDWARD DE BONO

Imagination Story Time Writing
Don’t criticise a hypothesis, come up with a better one.
EDWARD DE BONO

Better Criticism Oneself
The solid wealth of insurance companies and the success of those who organsie gambling are some indication of the profits to be derived from the efficient use of chance.
EDWARD DE BONO

Chance Company Insurance Solid Wealth
We do not make very full value of the opportunities provided by technology because we prefer critical to constructive thinking, argument to design.
EDWARD DE BONO

Argument Criticism Design Opportunity Technology Value
Complexity creates confusion, simplicity focus.
EDWARD DE BONO

Complex Creation Creativity Focus Simplicity
We need creativity in order to break free from the temporary structures that have been set up by a particular sequence of experience.
EDWARD DE BONO

Break Creativity Experience Freedom Need Order Temporary

Complexity creates confusion, simplicity focus.

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Complexity creates confusion, simplicity focus.

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