‘If you give computers to young children, they start to believe that you don’t have to think, all you have to do is search’

•With Buddha somewhere around the same time, as well.

Okay. And it is very much based on judgment. Now in a conflict situation, we judge who’s right, who’s wrong. What we don’t use enough is design — how to design the way forward. Also, another factor, perception is by far the most important factor in thinking, and research by cognitive psychologists has shown that in thinking, 90 per cent of the errors are errors of perception, not of logic. And if your perception is wrong . . . your logic can be erroneous.

•And perception comes from prejudice, and vice-versa.

It can be from prejudice. Unless you develop habits of opening up your perception . . . I’ll give an example. In South Africa, in the Karee mines, where seven different tribes work, there have been 210 major fights every month based on traditional hostility. Colleagues of mine taught different ways of thinking to these totally illiterate minds — never been to school one day — and what happened? The fights dropped from 210 a month to just four. Now, in other words, once you change people’s perceptions, you change their emotions, you change their behavior. Very powerful, very powerful. Our existing thinking is very good. The rear left wheel in the motorcar is very good, nothing wrong with it. But if you believe that was all you needed, that’s not enough. We need perceptual thinking, we need creative thinking, we need design thinking, we need logical thinking. All of them, yes. But judgment and logic are not enough.

•Because, you know, different cultures also think differently. In India, we take great pride in our innovativeness, in a way, and yet we reverse engineer everything. I’ll give you an example. When the US Air Force came here for a joint exercise, the Indian Air Force contingent commander was asked, ‘The US aircraft are so much modern, so powerful, how will you handle them?’ He said, ‘We have very good training, we have very good motivation, and above all, we have the Indian jugaad.’ Now, jugaad is a very Indian term for innovativeness. We put a few things together. And they actually got the better of the Americans. So how do you look at that? Have you had a chance to figure out this Indian circular thinking? It sometimes works, sometimes doesn’t work.

Well, it’s a bit like the Italians. The Italians have a very complicated political system. What makes Italy work is the concept of ‘everything can be arranged’. And there is a certain amount of creative thinking in that. But it’s not the same as changing basic ideas. It’s finding a way around.

•You won’t be surprised that an Italian-born is our most powerful leader right now. Sonia Gandhi.

(Laughs) I often say, ‘There’s an India which is mainly Hindu, and so on. And the president was a Muslim (A.P.J. Abdul Kalam), the leader of the biggest party is Italian, and the prime minister is a Sikh.

•The Speaker of our Parliament is a communist, who doesn’t believe in any god.

(Laughs) That’s good, it shows that you have tolerance.

•Our new vice-president is a Muslim. And yet there’s an Indian way of thinking that cuts across religious lines.

You know something interesting about Islam? The Prophet Muhammad had more to say about thinking than any other religious leader.

•Is that so?

In the Hadith, he says, ‘One hour of thinking is better than 70 years of praying.’ He says, ‘The ink of a scholar is more holy than the blood of a martyr.’ He says, ‘One learned man gives more trouble to the Devil than a thousand worshippers.’ That’s Mohammad. In the Koran there are 130 verses about thinking. So, actually, when I go to the Middle East and tell them this, they don’t know.

•You’ve been to India before and met Dr Kalam.

I first came when Lord Mountbatten was the Viceroy, and I’ll tell you a really amazing story told to me by Edwina, Lady Mountbatten. At a state dinner, every chair has a coloured ribbon because Hindus don’t eat meat and the Muslims don’t eat pork, okay? For dessert she served zabaglione, and Mr Jinnah said, ‘This is wonderful, what’s in it?’ She said, ‘There’s eggs, and there’s . . .’ She realised there’s marsala . . . and he’s a Muslim, so she left the marsala out. Six months later, before leaving India, she gets a phone call from Mr Jinnah, saying, ‘Can you let us have your cook?’ And she says, ‘Why?’ And he says, ‘Our cook has been trying for the last six months to make zabaglione without the marsala.’ (Both laugh) I think there’s tremendous potential in India, and one time I had a meeting with Rajiv Gandhi, and I told him about the work we are doing in schools, and he was very enthusiastic. And then he asked me to go and see the minister for education, Mr Narasimha Rao, and (laughs) let’s say he was less enthusiastic. Nothing happened. But if you teach thinking to youngsters, it makes a huge difference. I give you two examples. Teaching thinking to unemployed youngsters in England, teaching thinking for just five hours, increased the employment rate 500 per cent, stronger than anything they had ever done. Because these kids had left school thinking they were stupid, and once they realised they could think, they took charge of their lives and got themselves jobs. And there’s a centre in London taking in youngsters who are too violent to be taught in ordinary schools . . . they’d stab the teachers, set the school on fire. Twenty years ago, the principal started teaching thinking to those youngsters. He’s now done a 20-year follow-up and he’s found that those youngsters who were taught thinking, the rate of conviction is one-tenth compared to those not taught thinking. Also, research shows that teaching thinking improves performance in every subject by between 30 and a hundred per cent. And yet we don’t teach thinking . . . in most countries. In Venezuela every school is required by law to teach thinking. I was told that in Canada about 40 per cent of the schools do it. But thinking is a skill, the most important human skill, and we don’t teach it deliberately, formally in school.

•In fact, one of the things that strikes me, reading your interviews and writings, is that you say that one thing that hasn’t changed in the past 100 years is our schools. You know, similar curriculum, taught the same way. One would have thought that now, with computers, connectivity and mobility, it would have changed radically, while it hasn’t.

What I say is that there’s a little danger in that. If you give computers to young children, they start to believe that you don’t have to think, all you have to do is search, and you’ll find the answer. So, using computers is excellent, but you need, at the same time, to think. Now that extends beyond school. I’ve worked with major corporates throughout the world and they develop a habit of saying, ‘Put all the information, all the information or data, into our computers, and our computers will analyse the data and that will set our strategy, make our decisions.’ Very dangerous. Because unless you can look at the information in different ways, you are not going to make progress. And that’s happening worldwide with the biggest corporates.

•You said you met Rajiv Gandhi and he was very enthusiastic about teaching thinking. And then you met Narasimha Rao, who was education minister, and he was non-committal. What was your impression about Dr Kalam? Because he is so popular with children.

I liked Dr Kalam. A lot. In fact I made a suggestion to him. I said, ‘Why doesn’t India get close to China? It’s like a marriage. You can still kill each other in a marriage.’ (Both laugh) And then, if they get together, then Europe could be worse off. He liked the idea.

•He’s very popular with young people, he’s very popular with school children.

He’s a good fellow. I liked him.

•There’s one more striking sentence I read in one of your interviews. You said the people with the greatest power to change are 17-year-old girls. Because all the men up to the age of 28 are bound to try to impress them.

That’s true, that’s quite true. And if the girls were to say, ‘We like a good, thinking man.’ Then all the men will start thinking.

•But then you said that the impediment are girls at 16, who all want to become adults so fast.

Yes, that’s true. That’s quite true.

•Those with the power to change, themselves become the impediment to change.

Exactly. Exactly right. But 17-year-old girls do have that power. But at 16, they want to be the same.

•What happens when you tell this to 17-year-old girls?

(Laughs) Well, they like the idea in the abstract, but whether they will use it, I doubt. But I’ll tell you an interesting story. One day in England, I had a call from the Foreign Office. They said there’s this top Indian businesswoman who wants to come to England to discuss trade. But she said she won’t come unless she can have lunch with you. I agreed. So she turns up for lunch with her minders from the Foreign Office, and she’s read my books and she’s enthusiastic. She said, ‘I was educated at Yale and Columbia but I went back to India to have an arranged marriage.’ She said, ‘In the West you start with violins in the sunset, and then it’s downhill all the way. We start down below and we go up.’ And she’s very convincing. And it’s interesting, when I give seminars here, I often give this as a thinking exercise to men, mainly businessmen. And arranged marriages are 70 per cent in favour. And I think it’s a good idea. Because if you meet someone in a discotheque and you fall in love with him, you’re not going to spend your life in the disco. (Both laugh)

•Dr de Bono, all your readers swear by your six thinking hats. White for facts, black for critical thinking, red for emotion, yellow for optimism, and so on. In practical life, can somebody do it? Can somebody juggle six hats?

Well, it’s very widely used.

•Just imagine US President George W. Bush juggling six hats before going into Iraq.

Last year I was told by a Nobel Prize winning economist, I forget the name, it could have been Joseph Stiglitz, I’m not sure. And he said, ‘Last week I was in Washington, the top economics meeting in the United States, and they were using your six hats.’ Later, when I visited New Zealand, in Auckland, I met a woman who said she was teaching my six hats in the islands of Papua New Guinea, where there’s almost Stone Age culture. So from Stone Age Papua New Guinea to top economists.

•But not George Bush before going into Iraq.

Well, if under the white hat, he asked, ‘What’s the information?’ And that’s not good enough? Yes. . . But it’s widely used (this thinking tool). I’ll give another example.

•I think George Bush falls under the red hat.

Probably, probably. A colleague of mine, who’s doing work with juries in court, in the United States, teaches them using the six hats. As a result, they reach unanimous decisions very quickly. So much so that the judges were so impressed that in at least three states, the judge can now ask that the jury be trained in using the six hats. That’s the first change in the jury system in a thousand years.

•Give me a one-minute primer on the six hats. How does it work?

First I’ll give you the reason why we need the six hats. In the brain there are certain chemicals. So for instance, if there’s an antelope in African, and when there’s a sound in the savannah grass, the chemical concerned with fear sensitises all the neural circuits concerned with fear, and when the lion appears, the antelope runs away. In the lion’s brain, on the other hand, a chemical sensitises it to greed and benefit, so when it sees a zebra, it thinks, ‘That’s my lunch.’ So there are different chemicals, according to different moods. If we try and do everything at once, we will confuse things. So the six hats separate out the thinking. Under the white hat, everyone is looking for facts, information, what we have, what we need, what questions have we asked, how do we get the information. Red hat: permission to put forward your emotions, your intuition, without having to justify or explain it. Black hat is critical: what is wrong, the risks, the downside, why it may not work. The yellow hat: values, benefits. The green hat: creative, new ideas, possibilities, alternatives and so on. The blue hat is the organizing hat: summary, outcome. The point is everyone is wearing the same hat at the same time. That’s parallel thinking. That’s important. Let me give an example. In a normal meeting, we may have someone who is against the idea being discussed. Normally, that person will spend the whole meeting attacking the idea. With the hats, under the black hat, he or she will be encouraged to be as critical as he or she can possibly be. Then, when it’s the turn of the other hat, he’s expected to look for value. And if he says, ‘I can’t see any value’, and everyone else is seeing value, then he’s seen to be stupid. So everyone is challenged to use their brain fully.

•I’ll tell you the first time I sort of got sensitised to your writing. It was when General Pervez Musharraf came to India for a summit, almost a decade back. He said that the way to solve the India-Pakistan problem is a step-by-step approach. First step, you recognise a problem, second step, you call me, third step, look at solutions. It was all vertical. And a friend of mine sent me an email the next day, because I was on some TV discussions about this visit, saying, ‘Hey man, Gen Musharraf needs to bone up on de Bono.’

Well, I know Gen Musharraf, and I’ve been in Pakistan, I’ve had breakfast with him.

•Because he’s not one given to lateral thinking. He’s . . . very military.

But even in those steps you say, in a sense, he was mirroring that.

•So tell us about your meeting with Gen Musharraf.

Well, I was invited by his minister of higher education. And I gave several talks about teachers teaching our work in school. Even in the madrassas in Pakistan.

•What’s the most interesting thing that Musharraf said to you?

It’s difficult to say if there was any particular thing. But I’ll tell you something very interesting. When you see him on television, behind the desk, he looks quite short. When he’s standing up, he’s as tall as me. Well, now, I didn’t look to see if he has platform shoes, but I told him, ‘I thought you are very short.’ But he’s as tall as me. No, but I can’t remember any particular thing. But I liked him.

•You advise individuals, you advise states, you advise corporates. Can individuals, corporations, and states think alike? Or think the same way?

Well, the answer is, ‘Yes.’ And, again, the point I make is: design rather than judgment. For example, in the Israel-Palestine situation. Here we have two of the most intelligent groups on the earth, and for 60 years, they’ve been fighting each other. Palestinians know that Israel is not going to disappear; Israelis know Palestine is not going to disappear. So we need to design a way forward. Just a suggestion: you let them vote in each other’s elections, let them have half a vote each. So the Israelis will never elect Hamas, the Palestinians will never elect Sharon. They’ll end up voting constructive leaders who will design a way forward. And that’s design. Instead of saying, ‘You’re bad and if you don’t stop doing this we’re going to bomb you.’

•Did you ever apply your mind to the India-Pakistan Kashmir situation?

No. But if you invite me to, I will.

•Because we’ve heard the same lines now, for more than 60 years. And anyone who would think differently is called a traitor on either side.

Yes, yes. Perhaps you need to do what happened with the oil industry. Remember when Paul Getty was in Saudi Arabia, they created the neutral zone. I don’t remember what the benefits were, but it was a neutral zone. Maybe we need to create a neutral zone.

•Dr de Bono, reading up on you, one is struck by the fact that you were trained to be a medical doctor. You would normally have expected a psychologist or psychiatrist to get into this business. But why a medical doctor?

Well, this is very important. Because in medicine, I was dealing with complicated systems. From that I developed ideas on self-organising systems. I then applied these principles to the brain: how the brain works, how neural networks work. And that was the basis for my thinking. I said that if the brain is good at this — making patterns and using patterns — then what it’s not good at is changing patterns. And that was the basis for lateral thinking. So the fact is that I was relating thinking to the way the brain actually works. For the first time in history. It was not philosophers just playing with words. That’s why the medical thinking became very important.

•Well, I think even if you had studied engineering, you would have come up with wonderful ideas, because you have a brilliant mind.

Well, it’s true, (studying) engineering and systems behavior might have done that too, but in medicine I learnt how the brain functions and from that, on the whole, I say, ‘We’ve learnt so little about thinking.’ In schools, in top levels, in diplomacy. What I propose to do this year is to set up a palace of thinking.

•You have a centre for thinking in Malta.

This is going to be much bigger, much more iconic. Giving thinking the dignity it deserves, and then, periodically, have international meetings on issues. Because the United Nations is totally incapable of new ideas. Because in representative bodies, people have to represent their countries. So to provide alternatives, possibilities, new thinking, I’m going to do that in this year and the coming years.

•Well Dr de Bono, I know you turn 75 next month. All the very best to you. Keep getting younger and younger in body and mind.

Thinking keeps you young.

•And keep thinking for all of us. Thank you. Wonderful to have you on the show.

Thank you.

(The transcript was prepared by S.B. Easwaran)