5 ms·

Edward de Bono Obituary

84 points by edward 5y ago

avthar 5y ago
I read a bunch of books by Mr De Bono as a teenager, including "Six Thinking Hats" and "Lateral Thinking". As math and science nerd interested in creativity, it really gave me a different way to think.
neilv 5y ago
I almost cited him the other day on HN (the Thinking Hats, as a tool for creative brainstorming sessions).
ggm 5y ago
An ego the size of the planet. Brilliant communications about frankly not very much. Had some lunatic ideas (read Wikipedia for his zinc/peace story) and shopped a metaphor to death. He was oversold in the 70s. You couldn't move for stories about him. Professional "geniuses" need the quotes. Pinker, Kurzweil.. all of them are much-in-little. (He was, unquestionably, bloody smart. Far smarter than the average Joe, far far smarter than me. He wasted his talents. Consider Robert McNamara. Don't agree with a lot he did, (Vietnam!) but I suspect he was a similar calibre to De Bono)
- 2sk21 5y ago
  Perhaps but I did find Six Thinking hats useful when I was working. The main advantage was to nip prospective "devils advocates" too early in the process.
  - ggm 5y ago
    Maybe there's an echo of it in agile "personas" analysis of user needs. (Something I am equally sceptical about btw: not the analysis, the value of personification)
  - nyokodo 5y ago
    > I did find Six Thinking hats useful The biggest impact life lesson I had from that book was to be upfront with my feelings (red hat.) Unacknowledged emotions sit in the background and strongly influence thinking while often being quite dumb. Emotions brought out in the open tend to shrink to their proper significance and can be quite informative.
- sokoloff 5y ago
  The marmite/zinc story was in the linked article as well.
  - blue1 5y ago
    I actually think it's quite cool as an example of lateral thinking, which is exploratory in nature. It was not a proposed "solution".
    - ggm 5y ago
      It's probably true that better nutrition reduces conflict but it would be a stretch to say that lies at the root of the Arab - Israeli conflict.
      - TremendousJudge 5y ago
        > but it would be a stretch I'd say it's condescending -- and even insulting -- to everyone involved. Ideas shouldn't be censored during a brainstorming session but this is something else
  - ggm 5y ago
    Having read it a month ago when the obit first came out I didn't reread this time. I thought it got a mention. The comment-is-free on the obit has a fair mix of pro and the more oppositional views like mine.
- nabla9 5y ago
  You should consider his thoughts in the time he wrote them. His broad point of view is mainstream today. His specific methods are not. In the early 70s his way of thinking was new. Consider Sigmund Freud and his wild theories. Almost everything he did is now considered wrong today. His only lasting impact is popularizing the idea of unconsciousness. The idea of unconsciousness desires, needs, and thoughts affecting our life so mainstream today it's hard to comprehend that it was not in the conceptual toolbox in the west before him. (Friedrich Schelling predated Freud but his works were largely ignored during his time)
NiceWayToDoIT 5y ago
I liked "Lateral Thinking"; it kind of opened a new space in my mind. Especially a lesson that solution always exists and that there are no bad ideas. As even the worst ideas can budge people to solve real problems, they could not see otherwise. Which subsequently taught me not to judge people when they say something that looks very dumb. I still remember his example of Boeing engineers asked, "what if airplanes had square wheels?"
bookofjoe 5y ago
I stumbled on "The Five Day Course in Thinking" (https://www.amazon.com/5-Day-Course-Thinking-Edward-Bono/dp/0140137890 https://www.amazon.com/5-Day-Course-Thinking-Edward-Bono/dp/...) when I was a UCLA undergrad in the late 1960s. The subsequent days were among the most exciting of my life up to then, as I pushed myself as hard as I've ever done to solve each day's problem. Amazon review: "This book actually contains three 5-day courses, each dealing with a different style of thinking. The focus of the book is directed less towards the solving of the problems, than at helping you understand your approach, and through this awareness, improve your thinking abilities. "Each course sets a practical hands-on problem that requires no specialist knowledge or maths. Throughout the five days it builds what begins as a tricky challenge into one more difficult than you would have imagined being able to solve. En route, De Bono offers insights into the problem solving process and pointers to areas you might explore to illuminate your own thought processes. "The three courses look at insight, sequential, and strategic thinking. De Bono succeeds in creating an entertaining learning environment. Readers will enjoy the challenges set and will gain valuable insights from their thinking about their thinking. "Sample Problem As a taster, this is the first puzzle of the book. "Place three bottles upright on the floor to form a triangle where the distance between the bases of the bottles is slightly larger than the length of a knife. Use three identical knives to form a platform on top of the bottles to support a full glass of water. No part of any knife may touch the floor." Great stuff. R.I.P.
- boldslogan 5y ago
  I'm going crazy, I think I misunderstood the problem...and I want to say it is impossible. But can you share the explanation?
  - bookofjoe 5y ago
    Don't hate me for this — but you did not misunderstand the problem, and it is not impossible. I did solve it back in the 1960s. Besides which, if I give you the answer, I will ruin it for others who would rather try to solve it.
    - 5y ago
jFriedensreich 5y ago
i have read the pebble example 5 times now and i just don’t get it. if she drops it they see it fall and either see the color of the pebble and act according to what color she picked or repeat the process with fresh pebbles. never in that situation would someone just give her the other pebble and act as if she picket that one first. can someone explain this?
- fargus_dorsalby 5y ago
  The “remaining pebble” refers to the one in the bag that she didn’t choose. The path is covered in pebbles of both colours so by dropping the chosen pebble, it means they can’t identify it. So they must look inside the not-chosen (remaining) bag, which will contain a black pebble. Therefore, as the merchant cannot expose his dishonesty, he must concede that the chosen one was white.
  - jFriedensreich 5y ago
    not getting this persistently is really frightening. maybe a short term effect of a corona shot 2 days ago. i had difficulty finding some words yesterday which fortunately is much better allready.i will definitely not work on critical software for the next 2 days...
samizdis 5y ago
I found his book Water Logic intriguing. It encouraged setting out problems as a series of nodes, or factors in the problem, which you'd then connect with one-way arrows. So, this affects that, and that affects the other. The idea was that you'd end up with a sort of flow chart where some nodes/factors had multiple arrows pointing at them - and these were blocking points. A surprisingly useful tool on some occasions; certainly helped discussions about dependencies etc. But it must have been a minor work because I can't find anything worthwhile online atm about it. For me, though, de Bono's best contribution to my life was the L game. I still play it. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/L_game https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/L_game
beckman466 5y ago
> During a 1999 lecture to Foreign Office officials, the originator of the term lateral thinking argued that the yeast extract, though proverbially socially divisive, could do what politicians and diplomats had failed for years to achieve. The problem, as he saw it, was that people in the Middle East eat unleavened bread and so lack zinc, which makes them irritable and belligerent. Feeding them Marmite, therefore, would help create peace. Is this meant to be funny? I don't get it.
mbfg 5y ago
I went thru a course on lateral thinking (and other things) at my work, years ago based on the books by de Bono. My natural mindset apriori is this kind of stuff is bunk, but i must say, i found the process to be pretty useful. The main premise is that to find breakthrough aha ideas, you associate two things that are not at all related to one another, and see what the natural questions and consequences of such a pairing produces. You get all kinds of wild ideas, most are just silly, but occasionally you get really good ideas that perhaps you would never have thought of. An example might be, if you want to improve cars, work through what it would mean if dogs were the primary drivers of cars. What would you change about cars to make this easier? Then once found, are there any of these that would make sense for human drivers?
gambler 5y ago
A few years ago I tried to formalize my thoughts on why some people/teams create good software while others don't. I narrowed the problem down to couple of things. The biggest one was people not considering alternative solutions and getting mentally anchored to the very first idea they have. The second one was lack of meta-awareness (e.g. redefining hard problems to be easier or designing your own tools when existing tools don't fit the job). Couple month ago I bought Lateral Thinking and was somewhat surprised and somewhat encouraged to see that de Bono's observations overlapped my own. Except his book was written in 1970 and didn't deal with IT. Moreover, his analysis was comprehensive and systematic. I wish I learned about his work earlier.
Rd6n6 5y ago
Po: people should use the word po https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Po_(lateral_thinking) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Po_(lateral_thinking)

84 points by edward 5y ago

I read a bunch of books by Mr De Bono as a teenager, including "Six Thinking Hats" and "Lateral Thinking". As math and science nerd interested in creativity, it really gave me a different way to think.

neilv 5y ago

I almost cited him the other day on HN (the Thinking Hats, as a tool for creative brainstorming sessions).

ggm 5y ago

An ego the size of the planet. Brilliant communications about frankly not very much. Had some lunatic ideas (read Wikipedia for his zinc/peace story) and shopped a metaphor to death. He was oversold in the 70s. You couldn't move for stories about him. Professional "geniuses" need the quotes. Pinker, Kurzweil.. all of them are much-in-little. (He was, unquestionably, bloody smart. Far smarter than the average Joe, far far smarter than me. He wasted his talents. Consider Robert McNamara. Don't agree with a lot he did, (Vietnam!) but I suspect he was a similar calibre to De Bono)

2sk21 5y ago
Perhaps but I did find Six Thinking hats useful when I was working. The main advantage was to nip prospective "devils advocates" too early in the process.
- ggm 5y ago
  Maybe there's an echo of it in agile "personas" analysis of user needs. (Something I am equally sceptical about btw: not the analysis, the value of personification)
- nyokodo 5y ago
  > I did find Six Thinking hats useful The biggest impact life lesson I had from that book was to be upfront with my feelings (red hat.) Unacknowledged emotions sit in the background and strongly influence thinking while often being quite dumb. Emotions brought out in the open tend to shrink to their proper significance and can be quite informative.
sokoloff 5y ago
The marmite/zinc story was in the linked article as well.
- blue1 5y ago
  I actually think it's quite cool as an example of lateral thinking, which is exploratory in nature. It was not a proposed "solution".
  - ggm 5y ago
    It's probably true that better nutrition reduces conflict but it would be a stretch to say that lies at the root of the Arab - Israeli conflict.
    - TremendousJudge 5y ago
      > but it would be a stretch I'd say it's condescending -- and even insulting -- to everyone involved. Ideas shouldn't be censored during a brainstorming session but this is something else
- ggm 5y ago
  Having read it a month ago when the obit first came out I didn't reread this time. I thought it got a mention. The comment-is-free on the obit has a fair mix of pro and the more oppositional views like mine.
nabla9 5y ago
You should consider his thoughts in the time he wrote them. His broad point of view is mainstream today. His specific methods are not. In the early 70s his way of thinking was new. Consider Sigmund Freud and his wild theories. Almost everything he did is now considered wrong today. His only lasting impact is popularizing the idea of unconsciousness. The idea of unconsciousness desires, needs, and thoughts affecting our life so mainstream today it's hard to comprehend that it was not in the conceptual toolbox in the west before him. (Friedrich Schelling predated Freud but his works were largely ignored during his time)

NiceWayToDoIT 5y ago

I liked "Lateral Thinking"; it kind of opened a new space in my mind. Especially a lesson that solution always exists and that there are no bad ideas. As even the worst ideas can budge people to solve real problems, they could not see otherwise. Which subsequently taught me not to judge people when they say something that looks very dumb. I still remember his example of Boeing engineers asked, "what if airplanes had square wheels?"

bookofjoe 5y ago

I stumbled on "The Five Day Course in Thinking" (https://www.amazon.com/5-Day-Course-Thinking-Edward-Bono/dp/0140137890 https://www.amazon.com/5-Day-Course-Thinking-Edward-Bono/dp/...) when I was a UCLA undergrad in the late 1960s. The subsequent days were among the most exciting of my life up to then, as I pushed myself as hard as I've ever done to solve each day's problem. Amazon review: "This book actually contains three 5-day courses, each dealing with a different style of thinking. The focus of the book is directed less towards the solving of the problems, than at helping you understand your approach, and through this awareness, improve your thinking abilities. "Each course sets a practical hands-on problem that requires no specialist knowledge or maths. Throughout the five days it builds what begins as a tricky challenge into one more difficult than you would have imagined being able to solve. En route, De Bono offers insights into the problem solving process and pointers to areas you might explore to illuminate your own thought processes. "The three courses look at insight, sequential, and strategic thinking. De Bono succeeds in creating an entertaining learning environment. Readers will enjoy the challenges set and will gain valuable insights from their thinking about their thinking. "Sample Problem As a taster, this is the first puzzle of the book. "Place three bottles upright on the floor to form a triangle where the distance between the bases of the bottles is slightly larger than the length of a knife. Use three identical knives to form a platform on top of the bottles to support a full glass of water. No part of any knife may touch the floor." Great stuff. R.I.P.

boldslogan 5y ago
I'm going crazy, I think I misunderstood the problem...and I want to say it is impossible. But can you share the explanation?
- bookofjoe 5y ago
  Don't hate me for this — but you did not misunderstand the problem, and it is not impossible. I did solve it back in the 1960s. Besides which, if I give you the answer, I will ruin it for others who would rather try to solve it.
  - 5y ago

jFriedensreich 5y ago

i have read the pebble example 5 times now and i just don’t get it. if she drops it they see it fall and either see the color of the pebble and act according to what color she picked or repeat the process with fresh pebbles. never in that situation would someone just give her the other pebble and act as if she picket that one first. can someone explain this?

fargus_dorsalby 5y ago
The “remaining pebble” refers to the one in the bag that she didn’t choose. The path is covered in pebbles of both colours so by dropping the chosen pebble, it means they can’t identify it. So they must look inside the not-chosen (remaining) bag, which will contain a black pebble. Therefore, as the merchant cannot expose his dishonesty, he must concede that the chosen one was white.
- jFriedensreich 5y ago
  not getting this persistently is really frightening. maybe a short term effect of a corona shot 2 days ago. i had difficulty finding some words yesterday which fortunately is much better allready.i will definitely not work on critical software for the next 2 days...

samizdis 5y ago

I found his book Water Logic intriguing. It encouraged setting out problems as a series of nodes, or factors in the problem, which you'd then connect with one-way arrows. So, this affects that, and that affects the other. The idea was that you'd end up with a sort of flow chart where some nodes/factors had multiple arrows pointing at them - and these were blocking points. A surprisingly useful tool on some occasions; certainly helped discussions about dependencies etc. But it must have been a minor work because I can't find anything worthwhile online atm about it. For me, though, de Bono's best contribution to my life was the L game. I still play it. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/L_game https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/L_game

beckman466 5y ago

> During a 1999 lecture to Foreign Office officials, the originator of the term lateral thinking argued that the yeast extract, though proverbially socially divisive, could do what politicians and diplomats had failed for years to achieve. The problem, as he saw it, was that people in the Middle East eat unleavened bread and so lack zinc, which makes them irritable and belligerent. Feeding them Marmite, therefore, would help create peace. Is this meant to be funny? I don't get it.

mbfg 5y ago

I went thru a course on lateral thinking (and other things) at my work, years ago based on the books by de Bono. My natural mindset apriori is this kind of stuff is bunk, but i must say, i found the process to be pretty useful. The main premise is that to find breakthrough aha ideas, you associate two things that are not at all related to one another, and see what the natural questions and consequences of such a pairing produces. You get all kinds of wild ideas, most are just silly, but occasionally you get really good ideas that perhaps you would never have thought of. An example might be, if you want to improve cars, work through what it would mean if dogs were the primary drivers of cars. What would you change about cars to make this easier? Then once found, are there any of these that would make sense for human drivers?

gambler 5y ago

A few years ago I tried to formalize my thoughts on why some people/teams create good software while others don't. I narrowed the problem down to couple of things. The biggest one was people not considering alternative solutions and getting mentally anchored to the very first idea they have. The second one was lack of meta-awareness (e.g. redefining hard problems to be easier or designing your own tools when existing tools don't fit the job). Couple month ago I bought Lateral Thinking and was somewhat surprised and somewhat encouraged to see that de Bono's observations overlapped my own. Except his book was written in 1970 and didn't deal with IT. Moreover, his analysis was comprehensive and systematic. I wish I learned about his work earlier.

Rd6n6 5y ago

Po: people should use the word po https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Po_(lateral_thinking) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Po_(lateral_thinking)