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Harnessing Your Creativity 169

CREATIVE THINKING

Edward De Bono has revolutionized the way we think creatively. It
is 40 years since he invented the idea of lateral thinking, but many
of his ideas still seem as fresh as ever. De Bono’s approach is typi-
fied by his famous remark, “You cannot dig a hole in a different
place by digging the same hole deeper.” In other words, to think
creatively you need to make new associations and find new ways of
looking at things. You need to put down your spade, find a pick ax,
and walk to another spot where perhaps you will have to remove
the concrete first.
Here are seven practical ideas for thinking creatively, the first
two taken from De Bono.

Capturing the interest

When you are looking closely at a problem, there is a great ten-
dency to view it in black-and-white terms and so to reduce it to
opposites. This tends to lead to closed thinking. By using the head-
ings “Plus,” “Minus,” and “Interesting,” it is possible to categorize
ideas so as to keep things more open.
Take any idea or proposition—for example, that we should
abolish all schools—and apply these words to it. It might look
something like this:

+ – Interesting

It would cost less in taxes. Many teachers would lose You could use the buildings
their jobs. for other things.
You could learn what you Children from poor families Parents might get more
like. might suffer. involved.
Etc.

As you can already see, the ideas in the third column are shaping
up well.

Choose one of your own business issues and subject it to this way of thinking.