NEW THINKING

Edward De Bono

Edward Do Bono argues that while traditional logi-

cal thinking of the sort developed by the ‘Gang of
Three’ – Socrates, Plato and Aristotle – is immensely
valuable, it is, by itself, inadequate. In this article,
De Bono explains why he believes other, more crea-

Think spring 2002 • 39

tive forms of thinking need to be developed as new
‘software for the brain’.

I once set up on a computer a simple model of the brain

which only had five neurons. This model was capable of fifty
billion thoughts. Any mathematician would tell you that is
impossible. That is because a mathematician would not
understand neurons. Any electronics engineer would tell you
that is impossible. That is because electronic engineers
would not understand biological systems. There is a very,
very simple biological principle which makes this possible.
It is a principle that no engineer could ever think of, because
it is totally contrary to engineering principles. It is this prin-
ciple which is responsible for the marvelous working of the
human brain.
We have done very well in science and technology and
very poorly in human affairs. We have the same conflicts,
fights, disagreements and wars as we had two thousand
years ago. We handle them no better. This is due mainly to
our appalling thinking system. I believe that civilization would
be at least four hundred years further advanced, if we had a
better thinking system.
What is the purpose of the brain? The purpose is to make
stable patterns for dealing with a stable universe. One day a
fellow got up in the morning and set himself the task of
figuring out in how many ways he could get dressed if there
were eleven items of clothing involved. He set up his per-
sonal computer which worked for forty hours non-stop (prob-
ably working at 200 megahertz in those days). This is not
 surprising as there are 39,916,800 ways of getting dressed
with eleven items (factorial 11). If we tried one way every
minute this would take up almost all our lives. Of course,
the brain does not do this. The brain has established a pat-
tern (one state follows another with a probability greater than
chance) and we simply use that pattern. In my book The
Mechanism of Mind (1969) I described how the neural net-
works in the brain do this: how they allow incoming informa-
De Bono New thinking • 40

tion to organise itself into sequences or patterns. This book

was read by the leading physicist in the world (Professor
Murray Gell Mann) who said: ‘You stumbled on these things
ten years before mathematicians looked at chaos and com-
plexity’. He should know because he set up the Santa Fe
Institute which is the world’s leading body concerned with
‘complexity’. There is no mystery as to how the brain forms
and uses such patterns.
There are thousands and thousands of people writing soft-
ware for computers. What about software for the human brain?
What efforts have we made in this direction? The answer is
virtually none because we have been unreasonably compla-
cent with the software we already have. Where did this soft-
ware come from?

‘What is’
After the Dark Ages came the Renaissance. Hellenic cul-
ture had gone to Alexandria then across North Africa and
back into Europe through the Arab philosophers in Spain.
This wonderful new thinking was eagerly embraced because
it was such a change from the dogma and doctrine of exist-
ing thinking. Humankind was now allowed to use logic and
reason. Humankind had a more central position in the uni-
verse. Not surpisingly, this new thinking was eagerly taken
up by the Humanists who wanted non-church thinking. Rather
more surprisingly the thinking was also taken up by the
Christian Church under people like Thomas Aquinas of Na-
ples.
 So this thinking became – and has remained – the domi-
nant software of Western (and largely human) thinking ever
since. It has remained so because it is indeed excellent
just like the front left wheel of a motorcar is excellent (but
inadequate by itself).
This thinking was essentially the thinking of ‘The Gang of
Three’. The first of the Gang was Socrates who was trained
as a Sophist. In eighty per cent of the dialogues in which he

Think spring 2002 • 41

as involved there is no positive outcome. When his irritated
listeners wanted to know what was ‘right’ he replied that his
business was to point out what was ‘wrong’. Socrates has a
reputation for asking questions. In fact he mostly used ‘lead-
ing questions’, often in a most dishonest way (unintention-
ally) to lead his listeners to accept a point of view.
Then there was Plato who was influenced by the math-
ematician Pythagoras. Plato believed that just as there were
ultimate truths in mathematics there should be ultimate ‘in-
ner’ truths elsewhere as well. Plato did not believe in de-
mocracy and his design for a modern state (The Republic)
became the official doctrine of the Nazi party in Germany.
Finally, there was Aristotle with his ‘inclusion/exclusion’
logic. From past experience you set up boxes, categories,
definitions, principles etc. and then you judge whether some-
thing fits in the box or does not. So very dominant is this
idiom that when Lotfi Zaider in the USA developed fuzzy
logic in the 1970s all learned journals refused to publish
anything on fuzzy logic – because it contradicted Aristotle!
From the Gang of Three came a thinking that was con-
cerned with ‘what is’.
At its best we can imagine a doctor in his or her surgery
who is faced with a child with a rash. The doctor seeks to
find out ‘what this is’, seeks to make a diagnosis. There are
possibilities: could be allergy, could be sunburn, could be
measles, etc. From the signs, symptoms and history the
doctor makes a judgement. The doctor identifies a ‘stand-
ard situation’ – say measles. The doctor now knows (from
collective past experience), the nature of the illness, the
 probably course of the illness, the possible complications
and the standard treatment. All this is immensely useful.
Of course we may have to analyse complex situations in
order to identify standard elements. We are good at analy-
sis.

‘What can be’

While the ‘what is’ aspect of thinking is excellent, there is
De Bono New thinking • 42

also another aspect of thinking concerned with ‘what can

be’. It is no longer a matter of identifying standard situations
but creating new situations. This ‘what can be’ type of think-
ing includes: design thinking, creative thinking and construc-
tive thinking.
It is truly ironic that the thinking of the Gang of Three has
been most useful in science and technology which Socra-
tes regarded as a waste of time. It has been least useful in
human affairs where the ‘judgement’ mode is insufficient to
design a way forward. Proving who is wrong or who is at
fault does not design a way forward. This is because there
are interactive loops in human affairs whereas in science
and technology, principles and characteristics are perma-
nent.
Although individuals have indeed used creativity and de-
sign to great effect, this type of thinking has never become
part of our cultural software of thinking. This is because we
never understood creativity which has always been treated
as a mystical process.

Approaches to thinking
Traditional approaches to thinking in philosophy and psy-
chology have been based on descriptions of events, descrip-
tions of behaviour, descriptions of words and descriptions of
description. There is a spiral of increasing complexity which
has very little practical value.
At the time of the Renaissance and in the Middle Ages,
thinking, education and universities were largely in the hands
of the Church. Such thinkers had no motivation whatsoever
towards creative thinking or design thinking. It was a matter
of defending the status quo and attacking heretics who
sought to de-stabilise it. There was a great deal of ‘word
play’ in the process – and this became the tradition of phi-
losophy.
So what is the alternative to descriptions of descriptions
and ‘word play’?
The alternative is to look at the way the neural networks of

Think spring 2002 • 43

the brain operate and to work forwards from this understanding
to design new software for human thinking.

Reinforcing
The excellence of the Gang of Three thinking was pre-
cisely that it reinforced the way the brain works. The brain
works in terms of established patterns as suggested earlier.
We identify the standard patterns and then know the stand-
ard answer. This is an excellent and immensely useful as-
pect of thinking – just as the front left wheel of a motorcar is
excellent and immensely useful.
Because the brain is powerful and effective in one direc-
tion may mean that it is weak and ineffective in another
direction. This other direction is ‘creativity’. The brain is de-
signed to be ‘non-creative’. This is because it is designed to
set up and use standard patterns. If the brain had to dither
and consider all possibilities at every point, life would be
totally impossible. The definition of a pattern is that at every
point the next point has a probability greater than chance.
So our existing software of thinking reinforces the way the
brain works naturally.
But we may also need software that forces, and helps,
the brain to do those things which it is not naturally de-
signed to do – like creativity.

Information systems
There are at least two types of information system.
For the first type, imagine a towel spread on a surface.
There is a bowl of ink alongside. You take a spoonful of ink
 and pour it onto the towel. There is a record left of your
action. You repeat the action in a different place. In the end
the towel has a record of the incoming ‘information’. To make
sense of this you need an external ‘organiser’ that makes
sense of the inputs. Almost all our information systems (and
thinking about information) is of this type: passive systems
with an external organiser.
In the second system the receiving surface is a shallow
De Bono New thinking • 44

dish of gelatin. This time the bowl of ink is heated on a fire.

When the hot ink is spooned on to the surface the hot ink
melts the gelatin. The cooled ink and melted gelatin is now
poured away to leave a depression in the surface. You now
repeat the same sequence and placements as in the towel
model. This time a channel forms. If the second spoonful
spreads and reaches the first depression then the hot ink
flows into that. In other words the surface is changed by the
first input. Sequences form. If you enter the sequence at
any point you are carried along that sequence. This is a
simple example of a self-organising system as in the hu-
man brain. There is no need for an ‘external’ organiser.
What happens if there is a side track in a patterning sys-
tem? Do we have to stop and dither and decide which track
to follow? Because of the way the nerves are linked up the
stronger track dominates and the other track is suppressed.
So we proceed with full confidence along the main track.
But the side track still exists. If ‘somehow’ we manage to
get across to the side track then in ‘hindsight’ the route
back to the starting point is obvious.
This is the underlying mechanism for both humour and
creativity. Humour is by far the most significant behaviour of
the human brain because it indicates a self-organising sys-
tem that makes asymmetric patterns. Reason tells us very
little because any sorting system run backwards is a rea-
soning system. In an asymmetric system the route from A
to B may be roundabout and difficult – but the route from B
to A is direct and obvious.
 Our sequence of experience sets up the main tracks and
creativity involves moving ‘laterally’ to the side track. Once
there, the connection back to the starting point is obvious.
This is the same as the humour ‘snap’ effect.
Now comes the problem. Any valued creative idea must
always be logical in hindsight. If it were not logical we should
be unable to see value in it: it would be a crazy idea. So
what we have said for two thousand four hundred years is

Think spring 2002 • 45

that if the idea is logical in hindsight then it must be logical
in foresight – and there is no need for creativity. Unfortu-
nately this is totally incorrect in a self-organising patterning
system where something may be obvious in hindsight and
invisible in foresight. We have never considered such sys-
tems so we have been unable to understand creativity.
What are the chances of an ant on the trunk of a tree
reaching a specified leaf? At every branch point the chances
diminish by the reciprocal of the number of branches at that
point. In the average tree the chance of reaching a specified
leaf might be only one in eight thousand. What are the
chances of an ant on a specified leaf reaching the trunk of
the tree. There are no forward branches in that direction so
the chances are certainty. This is but another example of an
asymmetric system. When we do have a creative idea in
hindsight it may seem obvious and logical – but not in fore-
sight.
Unfortunately this point is extremely difficult to demon-
strate to anyone who does not see the difference between
passive systems and active (self-organising) information
systems. Word play will not explain the phenomenon.

Thinking tools in action

From an understanding of the way the brain operates as a
self-organising information system, we can design new soft-
ware for thinking.
Traditional argument is a very crude and primitive way of
exploring a subject. In a court of law, if the prosecution thinks
of a point which would help the defence case, the prosecu-
 tor would never mention the point. If the defence lawyer
thought of a point which would help the prosecution, that
lawyer would be certain to keep that point concealed. The
lawyers are ‘making cases’ (as required) and not exploring
the subject.
In 1985 I designed a method of ‘parallel thinking’ so that at
any moment all parties were looking and thinking in the same
direction. These directions were indicated by imaginary hats
De Bono New thinking • 46

of six different colours: white for information; red for feelings;

black for critical; yellow for value; green for possibilities and
blue for the organisation of thinking (meta-cognition).
What now happens is that, at any moment, every party is
using its full intelligence, knowledge and experience in the
same direction. This approach is now being widely used by
major corporations (such as IBM, Prudential and NTT) and
also by four year olds in school (especially in Australia).
ABB in Finland used to spend thirty days on their multi-
national project discussions. Using parallel thinking they
now use just two days. IBM at a top laboratory have re-
duced meeting times to one quarter of what they used to
be. JP Morgan, in Europe, have reduced meeting times to
one fifth. MDS in Canada reckoned that the first year they
used parallel thinking saved the company $20 million. In
Bangkok one single meeting using parallel thinking saved a
construction company twenty million baht.
The thinking is not only much faster but also much more
powerful. Statoil in Norway had a problem with an oilrig that
was costing them $100,000 a day. They had been thinking
about it for some time. The introduction of parallel thinking
solved the problem in twelve minutes with a saving of $10
million.
In the USA judges are starting to have their juries trained
in parallel thinking because it removes the ego from discus-
sions and is much more powerful. These are practical re-
sults not philosophical speculations. One of the reasons
that the method works so well is that the brain chemicals
are different when you are being cautious from when you are
being positive, etc. If you try to do everything at once you
will be sub-optimal in all modes.

Lateral thinking tools

Creativity is not just a matter of inspiration or messing
around in brainstorming (which is very weak). There are spe-
cific processes which can be used formally and deliberately.

Think spring 2002 • 47

Some of these processes are quite contrary to normal
thinking habits. For example, in any self-organising infor-
mation system there is a need for ‘provocation’ if we are not
to be stuck in local equilibria. A provocation is totally differ-
ent from normal thinking. In normal thinking the reason for
saying something comes before the statement. With provo-
cation it comes after the statement. There may not be a
reason for saying something until after it has been said. ‘Po
cars should have square wheels’ is contrary to any engi-
neering logic, but leads to important ideas on ‘anticipatory
suspension’. ‘Po’ is a word I invented to cover this very im-
portant function of provocation which is not otherwise per-
mitted in language. ‘Po’ means that what follows is to be
used for its ‘movement’ value not its judgement value. ‘Move-
ment’ is a special type of mental operation in which we seek
to go forward from a statement instead of comparing it to
past experience as in judgement.
The ‘random entry’ tools of lateral thinking also seem to-
tally illogical. How can any random stimulus (such as a
random word) help in any situation? Yet in the universe of a
patterning system, starting at the periphery allows the use
of tracks that could never have been used if the start had
been at the centre. One afternoon the use of just this tech-
nique generated 21,000 ideas for a steel company in South
Africa.
There are other formal tools of lateral thinking. I have men-
tioned the above because they are so different from normal
thinking.
 Perception
According to research done by David Perkins at Harvard
ninety per cent of errors of thinking are errors of perception.
Errors of logic are rare. So the schools programme (CoRT)
provides ‘attention directing tools’. With these, attention can
be formally directed instead of just following interest. This
sort of thinking taught to unemployed youngsters on the
government New Deal programme for just six hours increased
De Bono New thinking • 48

the employment rate five hundred per cent.

Summary
Thinking is a skill about which we have done very, very
little. We have been satisfied with thinking concerned with
‘what is’ and have not developed thinking software for ‘what
can be’.

Edward de Bono is the author is The Mechanism of Mind

(Penguin), Six Thinking Hats (Penguin), Serious Creativity
(Harper) and Teach Your Child to Think (Penguin).
www.edwarddebono.com
www.edwdebono.com