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“Nothing is more damaging to the arrogance with which an idea is held than partial agreement.”

There is no natural limit to traffic – which is increasing everywhere. There is no natural limit to communication which is also increasing rapidly.

The excellence of the communications channels does not ensure that what goes through the channels is of high value. Perhaps we need some simple code for communication. This might distinguish five areas: reply; vital; important; useful; fun.

Our existing thinking is based largely on recognition and judgement. This leads to logic and the search for the truth. While education has promoted analysis, information, logic and argument we have never promoted the thinking concerned with creating value.

This is a huge defect which is only slowly being recognised. Design is as important as analysis. Design is not just making things look beautiful. Design is putting together what we have in order to deliver the values we want. Education is very old fashioned and much too influenced by medieval ecclesiastic thinking.

Many organisations have shown that using my CoRT Thinking Lessons as a separate subject in schools raises performance in every other subject by between 30 and 100 percent.

Rewards are a powerful way of producing change, though subject to certain limitations. We tend to think of rewards in terms of cash or presents; the model here is getting one’s way through bribery. Unfortunately, the more rewards are used, the weaker the effect.

To achieve the same result, the price has to be increased. Another problem is that the recipient can become satiated. Money can become as meaningless to the rich man as sweets can become nauseating to the child with a full stomach.

It has been shown that rewards can be effective, if given intermittently, so these problems can be partly overcome.

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?

Complacency is very difficult to budge. We are complacent about our education, government etc. etc. Both could be greatly improved.

Most businesses are also very complacent and believe that continuity and problem solving are enough. And yet in almost every case a new idea could make a huge difference. So where is the new idea to come from?

It is unlikely to come from the complacent thinking of those within the organisation. It may be borrowed or stolen from another enterprise. Or the idea may be generated deliberately by someone outside the idiom of that organisation.

I believe I could generate a useable new idea for almost any business. Try me and find out!

Watch part 2 of Dr Edward de Bono’s latest interview here:

Schools are all about knowledge and analysis. So are universities. Most human thinking is based on analysis which allows us to identify standard situations and then we can apply the standard behaviour or solution. This is like a doctor in a clinic diagnosing the disease and then prescribing the standard treatment.

Most human thinking is based on analysis which allows us to identify standard situations and then we can apply the standard behaviour or solution. This is like a doctor in a clinic diagnosing the disease and then prescribing the standard treatment.

I used to run a design competition in an education magazine. There was a very good response even from youngsters as young as four years old.

Watch Dr Edward de Bono’s latest interview:

Click here to listen

Two people looking out of different windows may sometimes see the same thing. Categories are not always distinct boxes separate from each other. In my book ‘Six Value Medals’ I lay out six types of value. These are distinct types.

Yet, in certain circumstances, something may be seen differently. This may mean that something falls into two value categories or that different people see it differently.

For practical purposes this does not matter since the purpose of the framework is to direct attention and make a full value scan possible. Once you have seen the values you choose to use them as you wish. The important point is getting to see the values in the first place. This is not easy if we regard values with the usual vagueness.

As I have mentioned before, ‘value sensitivity’ is a key part of creative thinking. Without it creativity is unlikely to prove useful. Being different for the sake of being different is not creativity but ‘crazytivity’.