With vertical thinking one may look for different approaches until one finds a promising one. With lateral thinking one goes on generating as many approaches as one can even after one has found a promising one. With vertical thinking one is trying to select the best approach but with lateral thinking one is generating different approaches for the sake of generating them.

Edward de Bono

Categorized in : Thinking Trying Different

Creative thinking is not a talent, it is a skill that can be learned. It empowers people by adding strength to their natural abilities which improves teamwork, productivity and, where appropriate, profits.

Edward de Bono

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You can analyse the past, but you need to design the future. That is the difference between suffering the future and enjoying it.

Edward de Bono

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Creativity involves breaking out of established patterns in order to look at things in a different way.

Edward de Bono

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There is no doubt that creativity is the most important human resource of all. Without creativity, there would be no progress, and we would be forever repeating the same patterns.

Edward de Bono

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Sometimes the situation is only a problem because it is looked at in a certain way. Looked at in another way, the right course of action may be so obvious that the problem no longer exists.

Edward de Bono

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If you wait for opportunities to occur, you will be one of the crowd.

Edward de Bono

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Humor is by far the most significant activity of the human brain.

Edward de Bono

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Intelligence is something we are born with. Thinking is a skill that must be learned.

Edward de Bono

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Studies have shown that 90% of error in thinking is due to error in perception. If you can change your perception, you can change your emotion and this can lead to new ideas.

Edward de Bono

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Many highly intelligent people are poor thinkers. Many people of average intelligence are skilled thinkers. The power of a car is separate from the way the car is driven.

Edward de Bono

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Companies that solely focus on competition will ultimately die. Those that focus on value creation will thrive.

Edward de Bono

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(...) being right all the time acquires a huge importance in education, and there is this terror of being wrong. The ego is so tied to being right that later on in life you are reluctant to accept that you are ever wrong, because you are defending not the idea but your self-esteem. (...) this terror of being wrong means that people have enormous difficulties in changing ideas.

Edward de Bono

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The winner is the chef who takes the same ingredients as everyone else and produces the best results.

Edward de Bono

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You can't dig a different hole by digging the same one deeper.

Edward de Bono

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Asking a question is the simplest way of focusing thinking...asking the right question may be the most important part of thinking.

Edward de Bono

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You cannot look in a new direction by looking harder in the same direction.

Edward de Bono

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If you do not design the future, someone or something else will design it for you.

Edward de Bono

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Most of the mistakes in thinking are inadequacies of perception rather than mistakes of logic.

Edward de Bono

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If you never change your mind, why have one?

Edward de Bono

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We may have a perfectly adequate way of doing something, but that does not mean there cannot be a better way. So we set out to find an alternative way. This is the basis of any improvement that is not fault correction or problem solving.

Edward de Bono

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