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Traditional thinking is all about “what is” Future thinking will also need to be about what can be.

Edward de Bono

Most executives, many scientists, and almost all business school graduates believe that if you analyze data, this will give you new ideas. Unfortunately, this belief is totally wrong. The mind can only see what it is prepared to see.
EDWARD DE BONO

Analysis Believe Business Data Executive Ideas Mindset Perspective Science 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
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
Teaching thinking for just five hours to unemployed youngsters increased employment 500 percent.
EDWARD DE BONO

Employment Teaching Thinking
Logic will never change emotion or perception.
EDWARD DE BONO

Change Emotion Logic Perception
You hold onto religion, you know, rules, regulations, traditions. I think what God is interested in is people’s hearts, and that’s hard enough.
EDWARD DE BONO

Enough Hard Heart Hold People Religion Rule Tradition
A good listener is very nearly as attractive as a good talker. You cannot have a beautiful mind if you do not know how to listen.
EDWARD DE BONO

Attraction Beautiful Goodness Listening Love Yourself
A good design is not a democratic consensus.
EDWARD DE BONO

Democracy Goodness One Liner
You can analyse the past, but you have to design the future.
EDWARD DE BONO

Analysis Design Future Past Yourself
You cannot dig a hole in a different place by digging the same hole deeper.
EDWARD DE BONO

Different Hole Place Yourself
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
If you do not design the future, someone or something else will design it for you.
EDWARD DE BONO

Design Future Yourself
Don’t criticise a hypothesis, come up with a better one.
EDWARD DE BONO

Better Criticism Oneself
I think school is a place where thinking should be taught.
EDWARD DE BONO

Education School Teaching Thinking
There’s a danger in the internet and social media. The notion that information is enough, that more and more information is enough, that you don’t have to think, you just have to get more information – gets very dangerous.
EDWARD DE BONO

Dangerous Information Social Media Thinking Yourself
The purpose of science is not to analyze or describe but to make useful models of the world. A model is useful if it allows us to get use out of it.
EDWARD DE BONO

Allow Analysis Description Purpose Science
Possibilities play a much bigger role in thinking than most people believe. Without possibilities you cannot make progress.
EDWARD DE BONO

Play Possible Progress Thinking
You can analyse the past, but you need to design the future. That is the difference between suffering the future and enjoying it.
EDWARD DE BONO

Design Difference Enjoyment Future Need Past Suffering Yourself
Everyone has the right to doubt everything as often as he pleases and the duty to do it at least once. No way of looking at things is too sacred to be reconsidered. No way of doing things is beyond improvement.
EDWARD DE BONO

Beyond Doubt Improvement Right Sacred Way
I think there is a danger with young people of being dependent in the sense that they don’t acquire any identity or self-image of themselves as thinkers.
EDWARD DE BONO

Dangerous Identity Image People Thinking Young
Creativity involves breaking out of established patterns in order to look at things in a different way.
EDWARD DE BONO

Creativity Different Establishment Order Pattern Way
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
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
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
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
A memory is what is left when something happens and does not completely unhappen.
EDWARD DE BONO

Complete Memories
Dealing with complexity is an inefficient and unnecessary waste of time, attention and mental energy. There is never any justification for things being complex when they could be simple.
EDWARD DE BONO

Attention Deal Mental Energy Necessary Simplicity Time

Traditional thinking is all about “what is” Future thinking will also need to be about what can be.

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Traditional thinking is all about “what is” Future thinking will also need to be about what can be.

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