Doctor whose books introduced the world to concept of ‘lateral thinking’
Edward de Bono, who has died aged 88, was famous for introducing the world to the concept of ‘‘lateral thinking’’ and made a fortune by jetting round the globe to explain what it meant. He shot to fame in 1967 with his first book, The Use of Lateral Thinking. If you have a creased shirt and no iron, think laterally, he advised: take a frying pan, heat it up and cover it in brown paper. To his followers – and by his own estimation, since he had no false modesty – de Bono was a guru who offered the key to commercial and personal success.
‘‘Dr Edward de Bono is one of the very few people in history who can be said to have had a major impact on the way we think.
In many ways he could be said to be the best known thinker internationally,’’ he once observed in his website biography. His admirers praised his skill as a communicator. To his detractors, he was a purveyor of tosh who traded on people’s gullibility and used pseudo-scientific jargon to repackage the blindingly obvious.
Sociologist Antonio Melechi, author of Fugitive Minds (2003), rejected lateral thinking as ‘‘founded on nifty puzzles, a storehouse of anecdotes, an abundance of imperial generalities and no end of clunking analogies and neologisms’’.
De Bono’s work had its greatest impact in the world of business management. Especially popular was Six Thinking Hats (1985), a tool for speedy decision-making. It recommends that in meetings every participant should don a series of imaginary hats. Each colour represents a new approach to examining a problem. Managers declared the use of these fictitious hats highly effective. ‘‘We used to have terrible meetings, full of arguments and egos, but using the six hats we’ve had the best meetings ever,’’ claimed one manager. De Bono expressed no surprise. A self-contained man, he lived by his motto: ‘‘If you never change your mind, why have one?’’
Edward Charles Francis Publius de Bono was born in Malta in 1933. His father’s family had moved there from Italy in the 17th century. His mother, Josephine (nee O’Byrne), was an Irish journalist on Tatler in the 1930s. De Bono claimed that he inherited ‘‘cheek’’ from her and a penchant for academe from his father, Joseph, who was Malta’s chief professor of medicine.
At the age of 15 he went to the Royal University of Malta to study medicine. Qualifying six years later, he became the seventh generation of doctors in his family. A Rhodes scholarship brought him to Christ Church, Oxford, where he studied psychology and physiology. Spare time was devoted to sport, and he represented Oxford at rowing and polo.
After he qualified as a doctor, medicine led him to lateral thought. ‘‘I was dealing with self-organising systems such as the glands, kidneys, respiration and I started to ask myself what would happen if I applied the same principles to the brain,’’ he said.
He conceded lateral thinking was not ‘‘a magic formula’’ but was not a man given to self-doubt. His conviction that humans could only develop new ideas by escaping the logic-only approach to problem-solving soon attracted notice. He was invited to Japan to address an international advertising congress. When IBM and Bell Telephone printed his articles on lateral thought, they received requests for reprints from the Aerospace Research Centre and the Girl Scouts.
Every morning he rose before 6am to type his latest thoughts. So frequently was he heard bashing the keys that his son Charles, when asked at the age of 10 what his father did, replied: ‘‘He’s a typist.’’ For many years he combined writing with a full-time career in medicine. So stimulating was contact with patients – at hospitals in Cambridge, London or America – that de Bono said he had no need for the theatre or other forms of entertainment. He was also a lecturer in medicine in Cambridge, at St Thomas’ and Harvard medical school.
America proved quick to appreciate his talent. He was consulted by Nasa, the White House and Citibank. In a week in Manhattan he sold 20,000 copies of L Game, a 16-square, four-piece board game he had devised after a bet at his local pub.
Naturally frugal, he hoarded possessions and his home was full of curiosities including clockwork teeth and plastic dinosaurs. He was an inveterate collector of toys, especially those with a dual purpose. Amid apparent chaos reigned order: each of the many piles on the floor was topped with a white tile with a number, rating its importance.
In 1971 he married Josephine Hall-White, from whom he separated. They had two sons.
A self-reliant man, de Bono loathed arguments. He described them as ‘‘a primitive process’’. Finding ‘‘intense’’ relationships ‘‘a hassle’’, he lived alone in his several properties, ranging from chambers in Albany, New York state, to a palazzo in Malta. Although he lost more than £100,000 with Lloyd’s, his work also bought him islands in three continents and a Georgian hall in Norfolk.
He predicted that his epitaph would be: ‘‘Here lies Edward de Bono, lateral to the last.’’
‘‘If you never change your mind, why have one?’’
Edward de Bono