The Powerful Effects of Teaching Thinking Explicitly as a Skill

Thirty years experience with the direct teaching of thinking as a skill all around the world. Teaching thinking as a subject increases the performance in every other subject between 30 and 100%. Teaching thinking increases five fold the employment rate of unemployed youngsters. Teaching Thinking reduces criminality among violent youngsters by 90%. Teaching Thinking cuts corporate costs by millions of pounds. An understanding of the human brain as a self organising information systems leads to design of specific thinking tools; for perception, for creative thinking (lateral thinking) and for exploiting a subject. Traditional thinking is based on analysis and judgement. This is excellent but not enough. For the first time in history we can use creativity deliberately.

Dr. Edward de Bono

Dr. Edward de Bono is widely regarded as the world’s leading authority in the field of creative and conceptual thinking, and the direct teaching of thinking as a skill.  He has authored over 60 books translated into 35 languages on the topic of thinking. His sessions, invariably sellouts, are sought after by business, government and education globally.

Edward de Bono was born in Malta and graduated from the University of Malta.  He proceeded as a Rhodes Scholar to Oxford, where he earned his MD, and two PHD’s.  He has held faculty appointments at the universities of Oxford, Cambridge, London and Harvard. 

Lateral thinking 

He is the originator of the term “Lateral Thinking” which has an official entry in the Oxford English Dictionary, and the extremely popular “Six Thinking Hats” concept. Dr. de Bono has made two TV series: “de Bono’s Thinking Course” for the BBC, and “The Greatest Thinkers” for WDR, Germany.

Peter Ueberroth, who organized the Olympic Games in Los Angeles, and for the first time ever turned a profit, attributed his success to the use of de Bono’s Lateral Thinking tools.  So did John Bertrand, skipper of the successful challenge for the America’s Cup. 

Ron Barbaro, past president of Prudential Insurance (USA) also attributed his invention of “living needs benefits” package, which revolutionized the insurance industry, to the power of the de Bono tools. His corporate clients include: IBM, DuPont, Prudential, Siemens, Electrolux, Shell, Exxon, NTT, Motorola, Nokia, Ericsson, Ford, Microsoft, AT & T, Saatchi and Saatchi, and many more.

Recent highlights include …The International Astronomical Union named a planet after Dr. de Bono in recognition of his contribution to humanity; a group of South African University professors compiled a list including Dr. de Bono as one of the 250 most influential people in the history of humanity; an International Thinking Conference at MIT awarded Dr. de Bono as a pioneer in the field of “teaching thinking”. There are more than 4 million references to his work on the internet.