Serious Creativity: Using the Power of Lateral Thinking to Create New Ideas by Edward De Bono

by Edward de Bono

Great book!

Genres: Nonfiction, Business, Psychology, Self Help, Design, Personal Development, Philosophy

Hardcover

Published January 1, 1992

About the author

Edward de Bono was a Maltese physician, author, inventor, and consultant. He is best known as the originator of the term lateral thinking (structured creativity) and the leading proponent of the deliberate teaching of thinking in schools.

Reviews

[Sergei · Rating 3 out of 5]

The content of the book is pure gold, but the way it is conveyed is utterly dull and boring. Had to make my self read it. If only there were more practical and goto shortened version of the work.

[Pavel Annenkov · Rating 4 out of 5]

О ЧЕМ КНИГА:
Эдвард де Боно собрал в одном месте все свои концепции и инструменты творческого мышления. Эта книга одновременно и справочник и руководство пользователя. В целом, другие книги де Боно можно не читать, так как здесь есть все его главные подходы: "Метод шести шляп", "Творческая пауза", "Фокусирование" и другие.

К концу книги автор меня убедил, что современная компания не может обойтись без применения методов креативности, если она хочет оставаться успешной и держать лидирующие позиции на рынке в долгую.

ГЛАВНАЯ МЫСЛЬ КНИГИ:
Во всех областях жизни мы серьезно недооцениваем методы творческого мышления. По старой привычке мы обычно применяем логические и шаблонные подходы к решению проблем. Мы можем сильно расширить возможности для развития бизнеса если научимся применять творческое мышление.

ЗАЧЕМ ЧИТАТЬ ЭТУ КНИГУ:
Чтобы разобраться, как работает творческое мышление и овладеть его методами.

МЫСЛИ И ВЫВОДЫ ИЗ КНИГИ:
- Зачем нужно знать теорию? Теория - это логические принципы, которые стоят за определенным работающим процессом. Если я не знаю и не могу до конца объяснить, почему работает тот или иной процесс, то я не смогу воспользоваться им по полной на практике. Например, если я не знаю логику креативного приема, а у меня есть только опыт его применения, то я не смогу до конца эффективно воспользоваться им на практике.

- Креативность - это не просто подход, который улучшит бизнес. Без него я не смогу полноценно использовать накопленную ранее информацию и опыт, потому что она или забудется или будет сидеть в моих старых шаблонах. Креативный подход приведет в движение всё, что есть у меня в голове и поможет создать новые модели в бизнесе.

- Не нужно приравнивать творчество к искусству. Это не синонимы. Чтобы человек стал художником, он не обязан вести себя как творческая личность.

- Для творчества нужно применение специальных методов, потому что наш мозг не заточен на креативность. Он собирает информацию и вставляет ее в шаблоны, которые обеспечивают нам выживание.

- Хороший прием креативного мышления - "незнание". Брать для генерации и обсуждения идей людей из других областей, которые не знают специфику нашей деятельности.

- Проще всего описать нестандартное мышление так: «Нельзя выкопать яму в другом месте, копая одну и ту же яму глубже».

- Надо четко различать аналитическое мышление и дизайн мышление. Анализ ищет логику и существующие взаимосвязи между элементами системы. Дизайн подход хочет установить новые связи, которые раньше не существовали. Мы ищем новые подходы для достижения результата.

- Надо разделять мышление с помощью которого мы решаем сложные ситуации и с помощью которого мы создаем новое.

- Прошли времена, когда для успеха компании нужно было только правильное руководство бизнесом и умение находить решения для текущих проблем.

ЧТО Я БУДУ ПРИМЕНЯТЬ:
Буду использовать методы креативного подхода в стратегических сессиях, которые провожу.

ЕЩЕ НА ЭТУ ТЕМУ:
Люк де Брабандер «Думай в других форматах»

[Janet Wertman · Rating 2 out of 5]

Ugh. This has been on my TBR list for literally twenty years. I quickly realized that much of what the author had to teach has already been generally learned and widely applied (design thinking, anyone?), but I thought it would be a good background/refresher from a master. Well...perhaps....but he was quite defensive about the need for creativity at all, he was repetitive and technical (and repeated his technical points multiple times), and he focused too much (for me, anyway) on large corporations and large new ideas. I might have allowed this to be my third-ever DNF but because I had held on all this time and was finally reading it I didn't want to allow myself to do that. Sigh. Po: I should be easier on myself....

[Ana Enriques · Rating 4 out of 5]

El tema del pensamiento lateral es muy interesante. Hace tiempo que sentía curiosidad por conocer mejor de qué se trataba. Este libro ofrece una excelente explicación sobre el concepto de pensamiento lateral, su importancia en distintas áreas y las principales técnicas para ejercitarlo de forma deliberada y sistemática. El estilo del autor es ameno y solo se vuelve un poco tediosa la lectura cuando se ejemplifican de forma muy minuciosa las distintas técnicas y su aplicación a diversos contextos. Otro punto a favor es que el libro ofrece una serie de apéndices que resumen el contenido desarrollado para poder jerarquizarlo de una forma más clara.

[victoria · Rating 2 out of 5]

me empezó encantando pero se volvió súper repetitivo y poco práctico aunque prometía lo contrario. pensé que aprendería más

[Lloyd Downey · Rating 5 out of 5]

I had to think long and hard before I gave this book a five star rating. And, much of this prevarication can be attributed to my ambivalent attitude towards the author, Edward de Bono....public intellectual and the pioneer of teaching creative thinking. I first came across de Bono when I found his book,"Lateral Thinking', in the CSIRO library where I was working in about 1967.. It blew me away. De Bono, made the point that we all tended to think inside the box and he encouraged thinking outside the box. In fact, he claimed that you could actually teach thinking and, whilst we taught our kids mathematics and history,,,we never taught them any techniques for thinking. To me this was totally revolutionary thinking and ever since I've tried to apply some of his principles. (I think he might have also given some principles about brainstorming....like don't be negative).I can still remember trying to solve his matches problem...creating triangles out of matchsticks ......when the answer was not to do it in two dimensions but use three.
However, a few years later he came out with another book and then another...and I think I read a couple of them...including the "Six thinking Hats" but was left wondering whether he actually had anything new to say. It all seemed to be a variation on the original themes. Admittedly, the six thinking hats gave clear methodology to coming up with creative ideas but at base it seemed to me more of the same. What I did find with the later books was an increasing tendency for self-promotion: how he'd run courses for various Governments and international agencies etc. etc. and how....until de Bono had come along nobody was doing what he was advocating. And how he had the prescience to suggest mechanisms of the mind way back in the 1950's that were only coming to be recognised in the 2000+ years. In other words, an increasing tendency to self promotion........which actually seems to have served him very well.
But then, I came face to face with the great man himself. In fact, had the challenging role of speaking AFTER de Bono ....but not only after him ....it was at a meeting of the "Professional Speaker's Association of Australia". And I have to admit he was a delightful speaker and enchanted the audience and he was very graceful about my own feeble speaking efforts.......even if his performance was if slightly tainted by that powerful streak of self promotion. But I'd come forewarned. My boss at the time mentioned to me beforehand that she had once had the job of escorting de Bono on a previous speaking tour lasting about a week ...and found him "one of the greatest bores of all time". Apparently because all his conversation was about himself. The same characteristic that comes through in his books.
But onto the present book. Coming with all this baggage about the author, it's really hard (maybe impossible) to be objective about the book. But I'll try. It was first published in 1992 and the sub-title (in some versions) suggests that it's a summary of de Bono's thinking/teaching to that time. And really, it's very good. If you want a book that can give you some techniques for coming up with new ideas or you are trying to run a workshop to find new solutions to old problems, there is a plethora of ideas here.
He's got the six coloured thinking hats (red is intuition and thinking); black is caution and what could go wrong).
He's got the creative pause...might there be another way?
The challenge...are we doing something this way because that's always the way it's been done?
Looking for alternatives ...when you don't have to....you already have a perfectly acceptable solution.
Then the concept plan....maybe working backwards from the purpose of the thinking to concepts about how to get there.
Provocation and movement to cut across established patterns: what happens when we drop something that is always taken for granted? Or reversing the normal course of action; or exaggeration, distortion and wishful thinking.
Adding random input....eg from random words...like "unemployment false teeth")
Movement:...this is a bit hard to grasp but I think the essential principle is that it should involve "moving forward" with some idea. (That is, taking some action)
Stratal...putting together 5 unconnected statements about the situation and seeing what emerges.
The filament technique...putting ideas one under the other and drawing connections.

He also suggests techniques for "harvesting " these creative ideas....which all seem pretty reasonable and sensible. After all, not much point having wildly creative ideas if nothing emerges from it.
In fact, critiques of de Bono have been along the line that it's all very well coming up with new and creative ides but have his techniques ever been evaluated against alternatives? The implicit answer being NO.
Much of this creative thinking, at it's foundation, relies on metaphor and the brain's capacity to look for connections ..or make connections ...which is the classic memory....mnemonics technique (making wild stories to help memorise facts or names etc).

I've got a number of books on creative thinking ... all of them written after de Bono's first books and they all seem to be derivative from his work. Even the much vaunted "mind-mapping" ...which I have found pretty useful for group work, can be linked back (more or less) to de Bono's ideas . So he has had tremendous influence and he is a rather extraordinary individual. Credit where credit is due. And this is a seriously good book. In fact, the title is "Serious creativity". So whether or not de Bono, in person, might be a bit "full of himself", I have to give his book five stars. It's beautifully written. Clear and understandable and really delivers to anybody who wants some methods for generating new ideas.

[Trung Vinh · Rating 5 out of 5]

Everyone can be creative. You will know how to be creative in any circumstances. No matter who you are, where you are, working in groups or alone. There are many methods and ways to solve a problem or answer the question you want to know before starting a business.

[Ahmad Sardar · Rating 5 out of 5]

Few books have a potential to take your ability to the next level and Serious Creativity is one of them. Complete guide for creating and implementing new ideas. Ground Breaking stuff

[m_forooz · Rating 2 out of 5]

* provocation methods:
1. moving on (without judgement, regardless of final result)
2. escape what's already there / taken for granted
3. exaggerate dimension or measurement
4. wouldn't it be nice if...
5. use a random word to base a concept around

* can "value" be achieved in a simpler, more practical way that saves time (less energy, less mistakes)?

* search for alternatives at different levels: 1. overall purpose, 2. concepts, 3. then detail level.

* stage 1. focus - identify, clarify, choose subfocuses for later
stage 2. technique - choice of technique, setting up a provocation, use of technique
stage 3. output - extracting concepts, harvesting future concepts / projects / ideas

* focus on matters everyone else has ignored

* write down all brainstorming in a formal way to force yourself to be more definite in your own mind about the ideas and concepts (and "harvesting" or conjuring future ideas & concepts)

[Javier Die Salguero · Rating 4 out of 5]

Es un gran libro para aquellos que piensan que la creatividad es algo místico y solo al alcance de unos pocos. El autor explica el proceso creativo a a través del concepto de pensamiento lateral y describe una larga lista de técnicas para su aplicación, consiguiendo de esta manera que las ideas nuevas dejen de estar en manos de la inspiración.

El tema me interesa muchísimo y lo considero de mucha utilidad, sin embargo me ha costado mucho terminar el libro. La parte teórica sobre el pensamiento lateral y la descripción de las técnicas es interesante a la par que útil, pero la larga lista de ejemplos, la reiteración de ciertos conceptos y la concreción excesiva hacen la lectura algo pesada. Otro de los motivos que me echan para atrás es que siento que este libro está muy orientado a organizaciones y empresas. Es cierto que en este sector es sumamente importante la creatividad, pero un estilo de vida creativo e innovador no debería limitarse a lo laboral.

[Cristian China birta · Rating 4 out of 5]

Bună cartea asta ”Creativitatea serioasă”, bună rău!

Pentru că, practic, îmi dă apă la moară. Pentru că eu zic de multă vreme că pur și simplu nu doar artiștii pot fi creativi (bine, unii spun că oricum în fiecare dintre noi zace un mare artist…), ci și oamenii care lucrează în alte domenii decât în artă, ca să îi zic așa, generic.

Ori autorul Edward de Bono fix asta susține: creativitatea este ceva ce poate fi antrenat, luat la pilă, îmbunătățit, nu doar oftări prelungi și clipit des din ochi așteptând să fii lovit de inspirație.

Mai multe în recenzia video pe care am făcut-o cărții în acest episod din #RaftulLuiChinezu https://cristianchinabirta.ro/2018/12...

Iar pentru toate recenziile cărților pe care le-am citit, vezi secțiunea specială de pe blog https://cristianchinabirta.ro/tag/carti/

[Christopher G. Moore · Rating 5 out of 5]

If you wonder about you can become more creative, this book will be of assistance.
de Bono takes you the process and teaches you how the brain works, and how you can work your brain to become more creative.

[Filip De · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book helped me to convince myself that creativity resides in everybody and that everybody can make use of their creative talent. I hope to be able to use this knowledge in my personal and in my working life.

[Micheal Mckay · Rating 3 out of 5]

Good material, but needed to be more succinct. The summary and appendixes capture the most relevant content; if you’re short for time, you can get the gist.

[Shhhhh Ahhhhh · Rating 5 out of 5]

If anyone that is reading my reviews is looking for a particularly meaty de Bono book, this is it? He goes into detail explaining particular methods, how to perform them, how they're supposed to work on a mechanical level, what to avoid in executing them, etc. The people who reviewed this book, pointing out that all of this exist in design thinking, missed the point. Whatever overlap they have, they are fundamentally different bodies of practice. This technology is a lot less restricted in its potential applications.

Key points:
- The brain is a mechanism that uses past inputs to process future inputs and thus has the habit of getting stuck into ruts. Exploratory work, such as research, does not lead to new concepts but rather just follows existing pathways in the brain and makes new constructions out of existing concepts.
- In order to navigate to novelty, we have to use approaches that take us far away from the beaten path and work our way back.
- All novel approaches look logical in hindsight and so people assume that you can reach them using logic but you cannot.
- From the appendix, here are the basic functions of the tools that de Bono lays out:
Focus and subfocuses

Alternatives and elaborated alternatives (concept fan)
Challenge to the existing
Escape from the existing
Radical rethinking (stepping-stone)
Fresh ideas and new start (random word)
Sensitization (stratal and filament technique)

- The methods themselves, by name are:
Improvement Thinking
Challenge
Alternatives
Escape
Greenfield Thinking
Random Input
Stratals
The filament technique
Wishful thinking
Organizational thinking
Distortion

For my own purposes in reading this review in the future, I'll write a brief summary of each method inasmuch as I can remember.

Concept fan: A logical exploration of ideaspace. In de Bono's usage, idea means application and concept means the abstraction being applied. One of the examples from the book is that a straw is a way to move fluid. So the straw is the application. Moving fluid is the concept. We work backward from ideas to concepts and then go from concepts to ideas to discover alternatives. This happens in layers (hence a fan shape). So, you might say that moving fluid is actually the idea. How do we accomplish that? Pressure differentials. So pressure differentials are the concept. Now how can we use that? That leads us to the next alternative idea, up and down the layers of abstraction.

Challenge: Challenge techniques are meant to break lock-in from the various inertial forces that build up in people's minds and organizations. It asks why a particular thing needs to be done or needs to be done a particular way, then generates hypothetical scenarios to discover alternatives that we would normally gloss over.

Stratals: Essentially this technique involves a random assortment of attributes of the subject you're hoping to innovate around. You cannot select or in any way filter the randomization process here. You get what you get and you use what you get to generate novel ideas, ignoring all other attributes you may have in mind (more on that in harvesting methods).

Filament: My take on this is that it is a deconstruction-reconstruction method. You take each of the requirements for the thing you're trying to innovate and you consider how to satisfy the requirement entirely absent the current context. After you do that, you recombine those independent concepts into a new idea.

Random word: Basically, you get a completely random word and you consider that word entirely divorced from your current concept. Think around that word. Then, take the things you thought around that word and attempt to build a bridge back to the idea you're working on.

Escape: I treat escape as a special case of challenge. Basically, you identify things you take for granted about the subject you're focusing on (similar to both stratals and filaments) and then you cancel it. So, paper but you can't write on it. You go from there.

I recommend this book to anyone that is doing any sort of work that requires independent design. Whether it be programming, conducting experiments, marketing, art, writing, law, it doesn't really matter. Read the book. Use the techniques.

[Lina Aljamal · Rating 4 out of 5]

" إن أبسط وصف للتفكير الخلاق يكمن في مقولة أنك لا تستطيع أن تحصل على حفرة جديدة طالما أنك تحفر في نفس المكان ولكن على عمق أكبر "
الكتاب جميل ومميز وهو وصفة لكل شخص يبحث عن الإبداع ،،، و يمكن استخدام عملية التفكير الإبداعي بالشركات وبالمدارس وغيرها من المجالات المختلفة فهو طريقة للتفكير و حل المشكلات وطرح أفكار جديدة ،،، طريقة الطرح بالكتاب و المواضيع التي تم التطرق لها تشمل جوانب التفكير الإبداعي وتغطيها .
ولكن تبقى دائمًا معيقات الإبداع الخارجية هي التي تقف بوجه الأشخاص المبدعين والتي لا يمكن التحكم بحلها أو تجاهلها وهذه المعيقات هي التي تؤخر التطور و التقدم في دولنا العربية .
"يجب أن تسمح الشركة بالإبداع وتدعمه"

[Raghav Kakkar · Rating 4 out of 5]

Author known for the concept of six thinking hats. For the ones that likes to think out of the box or "lateral think" about various things in life, this books all be treat to your eyes. The book provides practical tools for boosting creative thinking. It simplifies the process of creative thinking as a deliberate and formal skill rather than a god gifted talent. The language of the book is easy and I would recommend to any age.
It is those kind of books that can can referred every now and then. Edward de Bono never fails in creating tools for future reference whenever we are in a cerebral process.

Edward de Bono
Serious Creativity: Using The Power Of Lateral Thinking To Create New Ideas

[Lina Aljamal · Rating 4 out of 5]

" إن أبسط وصف للتفكير الخلاق يكمن في مقولة أنك لا تستطيع أن تحصل على حفرة جديدة طالما أنك تحفر في نفس المكان ولكن على عمق أكبر "
الكتاب جميل ومميز وهو وصفة لكل شخص يبحث عن الإبداع ،،، و يمكن استخدام عملية التفكير الإبداعي بالشركات وبالمدارس وغيرها من المجالات المختلفة فهو طريقة للتفكير و حل المشكلات وطرح أفكار جديدة ،،، طريقة الطرح بالكتاب و المواضيع التي تم التطرق لها تشمل جوانب التفكير الإبداعي وتغطيها .
ولكن تبقى دائمًا معيقات الإبداع الخارجية هي التي تقف بوجه الأشخاص المبدعين والتي لا يمكن التحكم بحلها أو تجاهلها وهذه المعيقات هي التي تؤخر التطور و التقدم في دولنا العربية .
"يجب أن تسمح الشركة بالإبداع وتدعمه"

[Sam Stroud · Rating 3 out of 5]

An interesting look into a new way of thinking expressly for the purpose of generating new ideas for creative endevours.

I highly recommend taking notes as you read this, and highlighting sections that you find interesting as you go, because the material in this book is fairly dense.

Depending on what you want to get out of it, there are also a number of sections that you can skip, should you wish. I personally skipped over the section in which de Bono discusses methods in which you can introduce Lateral Thinking into an organisation, as I don't believe I'll have a need for that. Not yet, anyway.

Overall, Serious Creativity is an interesting read, in which you are given plenty of tools to help you be more efficient in your creative efforts.

[Phillip · Rating 3 out of 5]

I appreciate that the book approaches creativity in a systematic way with analytical tools and thinking modes aplenty. I didn’t appreciate how paternally condescending the tone was and how poorly that tone aged.

I recommend a full read for those who enjoy the challenge of wading through unfortunate personality inflections in style in order to excavate meaningful principles. I recommend the spark notes for those unwilling to wade in those waters. (These are actually genuine recs by the way, no sarcasm implied)

[Luca · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book is inspiring! It sets the concept of creative thinking under another light.
The books provide a great structure to make you work with your creativity. The basic theory, the techniques and session's structures, how to harvest ideas, and how to finalize the whole session. All of this in great details.

Is this book as good as E. De Bono says? Aren't there already better techniques out? The only way to answer this questions is to understand and try creative thinking first hand.

[Craig · Rating 5 out of 5]

As many of you know, I developed an enhanced method of group creativity (think brainstorming) called Infinite Ideas (for more information, visit ideas.coach). This book was my introduction to creativity. It is now out of print, but other de Bono books like Lateral Thinking or The Six Thinking Hats are great reads about creativity.

[Joy · Rating 3 out of 5]

Good tools to use as reference. However, the writing style is like a long professorial lecture (perhaps this is a generation gap because this was published before the current era of self-help/business/advice/psychology/behavioral science books.

[Tu_vecino · Rating 3 out of 5]

Buen libro sobre la creatividad pero le sobra un poco de autobombo

[Naved · Rating 2 out of 5]

somewhat theoretical and less practical. Not bad for its generation.

[Félix Mijango · Rating 5 out of 5]

good book

[Vi · Rating 3 out of 5]

not the easiest read, but artistic creativity is not creative thinking.

[Saleem Sona · Rating 5 out of 5]

I want to become more creative

[Andres Huerta · Rating 4 out of 5]

Muy instructivo.
Muy teorico.
Muy sesudo.
Leelo solo en caso de que quieras aplicar su conocimiento.
No es adecuado para el mero entretenimiento.

[Anouar Ayadi]

This book helped me knowing how the mind works and use that knowledge to give more creativity and unleash the power of mind