Edward de Bono Quotes

Ideation is not a synonym for innovation, conformity is not its simple antonym, and innovation is not the automatic consequence of "creative thinking.".

I believe that if creative people are open and generous enough when working with each other, a lot more can be learned and achieved by both parties. That's what it's all about, trying to produce the best work possible on any given project.

If you have somebody who's brilliant and highly creative with a different point of view than you have, and a very different intellectual background, great things can happen.

Juggling many projects and having all these accidental collisions that you can't predict enables a kind of comparative thinking. To focus on a single project from beginning to end is extremely difficult, not just for me, but for many people.

It's important to have people who will say to you that you're really off the beaten track.

Part of what made the Macintosh great was that the people working on it were musicians, poets, and artists, and zoologists, and historians. They also happened to be the best computer scientists in the world. But if it hadn't been computer science, these people would have been doing amazing things in other fields.

I guess some people are brilliant enough to be brilliant on their own and never doubt anything and come up with fabulous things. But I think it's good to get into arguments with people and have them say, 'That sucks' or 'You're crazy' or 'That's cheesy' or 'What do you think of this?'

The best work for creative folks on the team is when the problem is big and the solution escapes everyone.

I hire people brighter than me and then I get out of their way.

Many years ago, I think I got my first insight on how an incredibly diverse team can work together and do astonishing things, and not just misunderstand each other and fight.

Creativity is as important as literacy and numeracy, and I actually think people understand that creativity is important - they just don't understand what it is.

Just imagine how fast, innovative and excellent your business will be once every single teammate - from the janitor to the executive - begins to see themselves as the CEO of their own area of responsibility.

For good ideas and true innovation, you need human interaction, conflict, argument, debate.

You get the best out of people by allowing them to do their best work.

If you want me to work with you, then come with an idea. Come with music.

I love leaving the door open to good ideas. I love the collaborative swirl. I get charged by problem-solving, usually under some kind of stress - the sun is going down, and we have eight minutes, and we have to solve it. Great things come out of it.

As a songwriter, you always look for guys that you can write good with. Show up, have an idea, knock it out of the park.

Sometimes a crazy idea can make something special.

If you really want to step up your team's creative thinking, take a hard look at how many people you're putting in a room together. More than three to five is probably too many.

I want to work with anybody original.

If you have a culture of respect, creativity flows. You create this energy, and then people have more desire to take risks.

If coming up with ten ideas sounds too hard, then come up with twenty.

Having everyone get exposed to brainstorming, prototyping, thinking about a problem, that's a best practice. One of the things I love seeing is how genius people are. You'll be thinking about some area that needs improving, and then someone just comes in and gives you that little bit of energy. Free online education doesn't solve everything, but you open the window and you build on each other.

The trick to having good ideas is not to sit around in glorious isolation and try to think big thoughts. The trick is to get more parts on the table.

Solve problems, make art, think deeply.