Feature
Issue No. 13 - October/November 2003
The Hat Man Cometh
Game, set and match to de Bono
The father of creative and lateral thinking, Edward de Bono, has a knack for finding simple solutions to apparently complex scenarios.
He used a sporting theme to demonstrate his approach during a seminar in Adelaide in August.
“At a major tennis tournament, there are 131 players in the men’s competition," he said. “So, how many matches were required to decide the winner?"
People taking part in his morning seminar put on their thinking caps – some even took out a pen and paper in order to do the sums.
But nobody in the audience volunteered an answer – mainly because they were looking at the problem from the wrong direction.
“There was only one winner, so there must have been 130 losers," Dr de Bono said. “There’s a loser in every game, so therefore there must have been 130 games.”
Dr de Bono’s unconventional approach to the puzzle is an example of the style of thinking he has developed and made famous around the world.
Renowned for the Lateral Thinking and Six Thinking Hats tools and operations, Dr de Bono challenged, educated and entertained 300 people at a seminar and luncheon in Adelaide in August.
His visit was part of rethink – a partnership between the de Bono Institute and the Department for Business, Manufacturing and Trade, designed to bring thinking skills to small and medium business across the State.
Dr de Bono’s instruction in creative thinking is used by some of the biggest global companies – including IBM, Nokia and Bosch – and is taught in schools worldwide.
The Rhodes scholar and author of 65 books told his Adelaide audience that, although society had developed many excellent thinking tools for argument and analysis, it had developed few for ordinary thinking – the sort done in conversations and meetings daily.
Traditional thinking methods had not changed for centuries, and they were no longer adequate to cope wit...
