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Studies have shown that 90% of error in thinking is due to error in perception. If you can change your perception, you can change your emotion and this can lead to new ideas.

Edward de Bono

Creative thinking is not a talent, it is a skill that can be learned. It empowers people by adding strength to their natural abilities which improves teamwork, productivity and, where appropriate, profits.
EDWARD DE BONO

Creative Empowerment Learning People Production Profit Skills Thinking
Sometimes the situation is only a problem because it is looked at in a certain way. Looked at in another way, the right course of action may be so obvious that the problem no longer exists.
EDWARD DE BONO

Action Problem Situation Time Way
In the future, instead of striving to be right at a high cost, it will be more appropriate to be flexible and plural at a lower cost. If you cannot accurately predict the future then you must flexibly be prepared to deal with various possible futures.
EDWARD DE BONO

Future Possible Preparation Strive
Some people drift along like a cork on a river, feeling that they cannot do anything except drift, moment to moment. This is an attitude of mind. Everyone can be constructive even in tiny ways.
EDWARD DE BONO

Attitude Construction Exception Moments People
Traditional thinking is all about “what is” Future thinking will also need to be about what can be.
EDWARD DE BONO

Future Thinking Traditional Willing
I’m a very loyal and unreliable friend.
EDWARD DE BONO

Friendship Loyalty Myself
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
It has always surprised me how little attention philosophers have paid to humor, since it is a more significant process of mind than reason. Reason can only sort out perceptions, but the humor process is involved in changing them.
EDWARD DE BONO

Attention Change Humor Mindset Paid Philosophy Reason Surprise
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
The analysis of data will not by itself produce new ideas.
EDWARD DE BONO

Analysis Data Ideas Production
Studies have shown that 90% of error in thinking is due to error in perception. If you can change your perception, you can change your emotion and this can lead to new ideas.
EDWARD DE BONO

Change Error Ideas Leadership Mistake Perception Study
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
Language is the biggest barrier to human progress because language is an encyclopedia of ignorance. Old perceptions are frozen into language and force us to look at the world in an old fashioned way.
EDWARD DE BONO

Fashion Human Language Progress Way
The concept of logical thinking is selection and this is brought about by the processes of acceptance and rejection. Rejection is the basis of logical thinking.
EDWARD DE BONO

Acceptance Concept Logic Rejection Selection Thinking
Opportunity ideas do not lie around waiting to be discovered. Such ideas need to be produced.
EDWARD DE BONO

Discover Ideas Lying Need Opportunity Production
There is no doubt that creativity is the most important human resource of all.
EDWARD DE BONO

Creativity Doubt Human Resource
A question is a polite way of demanding something.
EDWARD DE BONO

Demand Polite Question
Complexity creates confusion, simplicity focus.
EDWARD DE BONO

Complex Creation Creativity Focus Simplicity
It is well known that “problem avoidance” is an important part of problem solving. Instead of solving the problem you go upstream and alter the system so that the problem does not occur in the first place.
EDWARD DE BONO

Avoidance Important Place Problem System
Every valuable creative idea must always be logical in hindsight. If it were not, we would never be able to see its value.
EDWARD DE BONO

Creativity Idea Value
In a sense, words are encyclopedias of ignorance because they freeze perceptions at one moment in history and then insist we continue to use these frozen perceptions when we should be doing better.
EDWARD DE BONO

Better Ignorance Moments Oneself Word
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
Only the human brain can deliberately change perceptions, change patterns, invent concepts and tolerate ambiguity.
EDWARD DE BONO

Brain Change Concept Human Pattern Perception Tolerate
The vertical thinker says: ‘I know what I am looking for.’ The lateral thinker says: ‘I am looking but I won’t know what I am looking for until I have found it.’
EDWARD DE BONO

Finding Philosophy Thinking
It is better to have enough ideas for some of them to be wrong, than to be always right by having no ideas at all.
EDWARD DE BONO

Better Enough Ideas Right Wrong
We need both information and thinking. Information is no substitute for thinking and thinking is no substitute for information.
EDWARD DE BONO

Information Need Substitute Thinking
You cannot dig a hole in a different place by digging the same hole deeper.
EDWARD DE BONO

Different Hole Place Yourself

Studies have shown that 90% of error in thinking is due to error in perception. If you can change your perception, you can change your emotion and this can lead to new ideas.

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Popular Authors

Studies have shown that 90% of error in thinking is due to error in perception. If you can change your perception, you can change your emotion and this can lead to new ideas.

Related Topics

Popular Authors

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