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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
