In Recession
October 8, 2009 by admin
Edward de Bono’s Message
In an economic downturn everything tends to shut down including our thinking. Any new idea suggests some risk and that is not acceptable. We believe that if we sit tight and batten down the hatches the storm will pass.
Yet new ideas are badly needed to simplify things, cut costs, do things in a different way, create new values etc. It is also true that the new conditions can open up new opportunities if we can see how to use them. For example new ideas for very cheap holidays should do very well.
Thinking is not just for surviving and problem solving. Any area of thinking can benefit from creativity. There may be a focus on smaller ideas rather than grand ideas, but the ideas still need to be generated.
Can you really afford to sit still and say: “There is a recession and I do not need to do anything?”
If you are not saying that – then what are you doing?
The problem with ideas is that on the whole they are not valuable. They are neither rare nor difficult to obtain if you know how to get them. The truth is that the world needs to get away from ‘inventive’ thinking, real innovation is about making small, progressive steps from where we are now. Great innovations are actually only small steps for the people who made them. If Crick and Watson, having researched the subject for years, did not find the double helix structure of DNA, then who on earth would?
In a recession, these small steps should be about cutting costs and increasing efficiency based on existing knowledge. Asking people to give you ideas, particularly in a stressful economic or personal climate, can be completely counter-productive if you do not first stress that you are not looking for invention.