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Maltese Physician Edward De Bono (born 1933) writes prolifically on the subject of thinking and and conducts training in the same field . Many people know him as having coined the term lateral thinking, of which they consider him the pioneer.
Born in Malta, De Bono studied at St Edward's College, Malta, and subsequently gained a medical degree from the Royal University of Malta. Studying at Oxford as a Rhodes Scholar, he gained an honours degree in psychology and physiology and a D.Phil in medicine. He went on to complete a PhD at Cambridge, and to faculty appointments at Oxford, London, Cambridge and Harvard. He is married with two sons.
In 1969 De Bono founded the Cognitive Research Trust (CoRT) which continues to produce and promote material based on his ideas.
He has written "62 books with translations into 37 languages". He has spent the last 30 years teaching thinking, including working with governments, corporations, organisations and individuals, speaking publicly or privately on many matters. He has started to set up SITO - the 'Supranational Independent Thinking Organisation' based in Malta, which he describes as a "kind of intellectual Red Cross".
De Bono has detailed a range of 'deliberate thinking methods' - applications emphasizing thinking as a deliberate act rather than a reactive one. He uses a clear and practical writing style. Avoiding academic terminology, he has advanced applied psychology by making theories about creativity and perception into usable tools. He does not reference others' theories of mind, preferring instead to build upon his own (the main tenets in his book The Mechanism of the Mind (1969) underpin all his subsequent work). This self-referential style has helped define the published genre of popular psychology.
De Bono's work has become particularly popular in the world of business - perhaps because of the perceived need to restructure corporations, to allow more flexible working practices and to innovate in products and services. The methods have migrated into corporate training courses designed to help employees and executives 'think out of the box'/' think outside the box'.
De Bono has a network of trainers who administer officially-trained De Bono thinking methods, but many other trainers will use them or parts of them even when not specifically trained.
Published works
Books by De Bono include:
- The Use of Lateral Thinking (1967) which introduced the term "lateral thinking"
- The Five-Day Course in Thinking (1968) which introduced the L game
- The Mechanism of the Mind (1969)
- Lateral Thinking (1970)
- The Dog-Exercising Machine(1970)
- Technology Today (1971)
- Practical Thinking (1971)
- Lateral Thinking for Management (1971)
- Po: Beyond Yes and No (1972)
- Children Solving Problems (1972)
- Eureka!: An Illustrated History of Inventions from the Wheel to the Computer (1974)
- Teaching Thinking (1976)
- The Greatest Thinkers (1976)
- Wordpower (1977)
- The Happiness Purpose (1977)
- Future Positive (1979)
- Atlas of Management Thinking (1981)
- De Bono's Course in Thinking (1982)
- Tactics: The Art and Science of Success (1985)
- Conflicts (1985)
- Masterthinker's Handbook (1985)
- Six Thinking Hats (1985)
- Serious Creativity: Using the Power of Lateral Thinking to Create New Ideas (1992) - a summation of many of De Bono's ideas on creativity
- Why I Want To Be King Of Australia (1999)
- How to Have A Beautiful Mind (2004)
De Bono has also written numerous articles published in refereed and other journals, including The Lancet and Clinical Science.
External links
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