Hello! I started this review yesterday and will complete it today
I started this title back on February 27, 2014, but never felt motivated enough to complete it. This was my second stab at it and I breezed through in 4 days. It is possible to read much quicker, but I am an diligent note taker and highlighter and obsessed with reading in depth.
I am currently teaching a course on problem-solving and decision-making and found some of the tools, exercises, and insights quite useful.
Edward De Bono is well known for his thoughts and writings, including the 6 -hats theory, the concept of lateral thinking and other thinking related works and models. Dr. De Bono passed away only last June but his system and thinking have impacted many internationally. His thoughts and techniques are often either admired or reviled there seems to be little middle ground. At the end of the day he tried his best to provide others with his insight and knowledge and for that he certainly cannot be faulted. To be continued...
Update:
Critiques. I personally foiund much to critique and it appears I am not alone as Dr. De Bono points out himself. My first observation matches that of many other individual readers, namely the artificiality of the use of his numerous acronyms. Despite his emphatic defense of his methodology, I found it a chore and an exercise in semantics to cope with his different acronyms, as well as questioning their constructive usefulness in many cases.
I did find his premise of the PMI analysis: Positive, Minus and Interesting...well, interesting and rather useful as well as the concept of lateral thinking - to an extent; others I found mush less so, and even to the point that they created a fog in the mind and an necessary cognitive burden, To his advantage De Bono wrote in a clear and concise way making the material easily accessible to the lay reader... albeit with some quite frivolous and annoying exceptions I will point out later.
The second point I found extremely annoying was his use of hand drawn and largely incomprehensible drawings to illustrate the points he made. They just did not --illustrate the points he made.
De Bono Mentions the term "Clash" to represent different forms of adversarial binary conflict yet fails to adequately define or describe it properly.
The author has strewn shameless commercial plugs throughout the work, we deter from its informative value. Much of the work makes no reference whatsoever to other sources or research and this is a weakness which, in fact, works against the very principles he espouses.
There is an annoying trend of I, me, my self-indulgence that grates on the nerves. His experience with the Japanese culture is telling and influences his analysis if a biased manner.
Pp. 38-39 was largely useless gibberish that I saw no usefulness in and was frustrated trying to follow his train of thought (which others has also questioned). I saw absolutely no purposes in this so-called experiment.
PP47 - 48 was less than useless to me, and a waste of time, as the manner in which it was explained escaped my comprehension.
P.88 There is a clear inference that anyone who dared challenge his perspectives was classified as having a mediocre mind.
Most of the chapter on perception (pp. 35-51) was poorly constructed and provided l little information of real value. Drawing a circle of dots and an arrow does not even come close to explaining the importance of and relationship between external stimuli, perceptions and cognitive processing in its richness.
P.117. The Easy Way out Technique, is actually poor advice as it is one of the classic traps of poor strategic thinking. The easy way out is little more than the lazy person's heuristic -- best avoided.
P.118. De Bono provides a shopping list of interesting and useful techniques that redeem weaknesses in other sections.
P. 127. Here De Bono makes a very good and solid point. He underscores the importance of establishing clear goals with reference to decision-making and implementation of the solution. A good goal setting analysis such as a SMART (Specific -Measurable - Achievable - Relevant -and Time-bound) is a sine-qua-non for effective decision-making.
P. 151 the 5-minute think was not worth 4 minutes and 59 seconds of thought.
Summary: The book has merit, if you consider the plus versus the minus and balance these with the interesting -- in other words apply de Bono's own method to it. I would recommend it particularly for those with an interest in problem-solving and decision-making, both concepts that I teach at the university level to senior leadership. At the end of the day we need to ask ourselves a simple question once we turn the final page and that is -- did I learn or achieve anything from this effort? This is particularly true in the case of a reference work such as this. I do believe the title has merit, but it is starting to show its age and like an aging structure or dwelling is sags in certain areas.
If you are like me, you might be put off at first, but if you come back refreshed you can get through this title in a very short clip of 3 -4 days. I tend to take a little longer reading reference titles since I take copious notes along the way.
Whatever you do, it should be enjoyable and meet your intended objectives.
Wishing you an enjoyable read.