Excellent but not enough

Edward de Bono has coined a new word, ebne, which stands for 'excellent but not enough'. This new word helps us to point out the need for improvements in systems which are otherwise considered highly successful.

Our education system is ebne.

Health science is ebne.

Your job is ebne.

Lateral Thinking

Floating black balls on water surface; a novel idea to stop sunlight reaching towards a huge open water reservoir. Amazing.

Doing what you love

I saw them on a London tube station. They were playing music, collecting tip and selling their CD. They were doing what they loved though their 'marketing strategy' could be better.

Sometimes it takes a lot of risk, courage, effort and lateral thinking to do what you love and still be a success.

Colors of Your Thinking

The one of the easiest ways to offend someone is saying something emotional and presenting it as "facts". de Bono's six thinking hats make it easy to show the color of your thinking or ask others to label their thoughts.

White hat is all about pure facts, figures and information.

Black hat finds faults and design errors pointing out why something will not work.

Red hat signifies the emotions, feelings, hunch and intuition.

Yellow hat thinking is about positive and constructive ideas.

Green hat is for new ideas and creativity.

Blue hat is for the control and direction of the thinking process.

For example my last comment on Dubai is a red hat thinking.

Plus, Minus and Interesting

PMI is one of the thinking tools invented by Dr. Edward de Bono (see my last post). Though it looks simple, it is very powerful. To use this tool, we first look towards the plus side of a thinking situation, than towards minus and lastly try to find the interesting points.

"I am going to buy this new fast dual core laptop with big screen. Should I? Let us do PMI. Time for this thinking is 2 minutes."

Plus:

• I shall be able to run my word processor faster.
• I shall be able to run multiple operating systems in virtual environment.
• I shall show off to friends
• I shall be able to run Microsoft VISTA

Minus:

• Too costly.
• An extra expense since don't really need.
• Somebody can snatch this new shiny laptop.
  
• Customer support of this brand is not good.
• Bulky

Interesting

• Will be interesting to see how my favorite games perform.
• Will be interesting to see how my friends respond to my new laptop.
• Will be interesting to see movies on bigger screen while on the go.

Every one might generate different points with his application of PMI on the same topic. PMI is a scan tool which means that once you have moved to Minus, you do not go back to Plus. Similarly when you have moved to Interesting, you do go back to Minus or Plus. When doing thinking without this tool, our emotions, biases and past experiences limit us. PMI forces us to do a full scan before making a decision. This tool is so simple that you can explain it to any one in few minutes and ask him to do a PMI on the current situation.

Minus is not something bad. It is just the other side. In fact during training sessions I conduct, some people list one point on the plus side while others list the same point on the Minus side. This is ok. The important thing is that scan should be broader. A good PMI result should be some equal number of Plus, Minus and Interesting points.

Thinking Tools

Edward de Bono invented thinking tools. A thinking tool is a three letter word carefully chosen to explore a particular aspect of a person's thinking. Thinking tools are a great way to explore a subject before allowing our judgment to take over.

Our usual process of thinking is Observation -- Judgment. With thinking tools, we change it to Observation -- Exploration -- Judgment.

Next time you need to do some thinking on a problem, trying to find alternatives or setting priorities, do not jump to the conclusion immediately. Spend few minutes to do PMI, APC or FIP (or any other thinking tool) and then move on. Thinking tools can be used by an individual or a group.

List of Thinking Tools

• AGO - Aims, Goals and Objectives
• CAF - Consider All Factors
• EBS - Examine Both Sides
• OPV - Other People's Views
• APC - Alternatives, Possibilities and Choices
• FIP - First Important Priorities
• C&S - Consequence and Sequel
• PMI - Plus, Minus and Interesting

Usage
It is advisable to practice thinking tools in formal sittings before applying these to your day to day life. Practicing thinking tools is simple. You select a topic and use one or more tools to explore the topic. Initially it is advisable to use a paper and pencil to write down your topic and the output of each tool usage. Practice can be done individually or in a group. Experience tells that practice in a group is more enjoyable and fun when all participants share the output of thinking tools. Group practice should not consist of more than 6 people. Each practice session should last for a minimum of 20 up to maximum 50 minutes.

Timing is an important aspect of using a thinking tool. You allow yourself 1-3 minutes of thinking time for each tool usage. You should also monitor your time with a watch. This strict time discipline is an important part of thinking tools practice.

Practice will develop confidence and make thinking an enjoyable process. You will be able to use tools in daily life without much effort.

Digging Deeper

Lahore's traffic police was replaced by an entirely new one last year. The newly replaced force also includes female staff. The new policemen/women are called traffic wardens. This was a pleasant change for us traveling on the roads of Lahore on daily basis.

The old police was corrupt and treated ordinary motorists like criminals. Motorists were often seen "bargaining" with them at the corners of the roads.

The new police is educated, polite, well fed and (so far) does not take bribe or pressure of any kind. The police tries to give a warning to the offender or just issues a ticket for the violation. No "bargaining".

The most interesting part of this change was how it was done. Instead of bringing change into the existing traffic police department, a new department was created and new hiring was done.

Sometimes it is better to replace complex and stagnant systems with new ones. Sometimes we need to dig a new hole at a different place to find some oil instead of digging the same hole deeper. This strategy, however, requires a lot of courage and willingness to take risks which might be there with the new system.

Edward de Bono

The New Model of Brain

Our brain works as a pattern-making and pattern-using system. First pattern is difficult to form. Once formed, this pattern is reinforced with further incoming patterns.

Over the passage of time there are a large number of well-established patterns and it becomes increasingly difficult to form new patterns.

Making new patterns is the key to creating new things. Lateral Thinking tools make creating new patterns a step by step process.

This is the model of brain that Edward de Bono gave us in his book 'Mechanism of Mind'. This model explains how our thinking habits, creativity, learning abilities, decision making skills are all triggered.

Enhancing our Thinking Skills

When we know how something works, we can usually take better control of it. Same is true for our brain. Based upon this model, we can be more creative (Lateral Thinking), improve our thinking skills (Thinking tools), better understand and control different type of thinking involved in our day to day lives (Six Thinking Hats).

These new thinking skills (Lateral Thinking, Thinking Tools, Six Thinking Hats) are all based upon this new model of how our brain works.

Effectiveness of teaching thinking skills can be judged from a single evidence which deBono describes on his website. "In one mine, fights between the tribes working there were reduced from 210 a month to just four through the direct teaching of my thinking methods to totally illiterate miners."

The Need for New Thinking

The need for new thinking is aptly explained by this quote of Albert Einstein. "The problems of today will not be solved by the same thinking that produced the problems in the first place."

A brief bio of Edward deBono is available at wikipedia. He publishes a weekly messages on his official website www.edwdebono.com.