Edward de Bono

I read a talk today on design thinking in which the writer - summarizing "the basic steps" that designer's take - mentions lateral thinking. Seeing that term reminded me that Edward de Bono deserves much more credit than he's been getting for this whole phenomenon. Back in the 1960s and '70s, de Bono wrote prolifically about breaking through to new ideas. He even developed a self-taught course on how to think outside the box. I have most of his books. They're really useful - more so, I would say, than the current ones I've read on design thinking. What de Bono particularly understood was how organizations with a thoughtless group process murdered new ideas in their cradle. One observation he made to which I often return is that the bridge to a new idea is frequently a half-baked one. Rather than rejecting it out of hand, de Bono encouraged people to say "Po" - as opposed to "No!" His "Po" meant "I don't see it yet, but let's keep going and see where it gets us." It's an encouragement to explore - an open-ended positive, not a turn-off.