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There is a fundamental flaw in Democracy which is that certain people such as architects, scientists, engineers etc do not want to enter politics because if they are not re-elected they cannot go back to where they where.

So the people who are in politics are teachers, journalists, lawyers and trade unionists. Such people have no life experience in design and constructive thinking. There is a greater emphasis on argument.

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Perhaps our real problem is not so much our deficient thinking as I indicated in the last message, but our complacency. We do believe that our thinking is wonderful. Our existing thinking has indeed been wonderful in science and technology – and getting to the moon and beyond.

Yet our poor thinking has been responsible for most of the human disasters such as wars conflicts, persecutions etc. The reason is obvious. We rush to use judgment rather than to design the way forward.

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?

My latest book ‘THINK before it’s too late’ was published at the beginning of July 2009. In this book I trace the history of Western Thinking.

First there were the GG3 (Greek Gang of Three).  When Greek thinking came to Europe at the time of the Renaissance schools, universities and thinking were in the hands of the Church.  

The Church needed logic, truth and argument to prove heretics wrong. So we developed an excellent thinking system for finding the Truth. This has been excellent in science.

We have never culturally developed the thinking for creating Value.  Inventors, innovators and entrepreneurs have personally shown this type of thinking but it has never been part of culture or education. For example education, at all levels, is about knowledge and analysis.

This is fine for recognising standard situations and applying standard responses. This is rather like a doctor in a clinic diagnosing an illness and prescribing the standard treatment.

In the book I list twenty three reasons why world thinking is so poor.

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:

Click here to listen

Edward de Bono’s message

My latest book (published July 2nd) is called ‘THINK: before it is too late’. In it I suggest that the biggest problem facing humanity is not climate change but inadequate thinking.

We are very complacent and even proud of our thinking. We can land men on the moon. We can tap atomic energy. We have the internet, We have supersonic flight etc. We have done very well in the area of science and technology because we have developed ‘thinking for finding the truth’.

I have suggested the new word ‘ebne‘ which means excellent but not enough. Our existing thinking is ebne but not enough. We have never developed ‘thinking for creating value’.

In conflicts we rush to judge who is wrong and seek to punish that party. We do not try to design a way forward.