KNOWLEDGE AND CREATIVITY - Edward De Bono

YOU CAN ANALYSE THE PAST BUT YOU HAVE TO DESIGN THE FUTURE

Knowledge is not creativity but within any particular field it is difficult to come up with new ideas unless you have some ideas to play around with in the first place.

Too much knowledge sometimes means that you are unlikely to make mistakes by accident and unable to make them on purpose.

Being wrong is often an essential part of creativity.

1. The new idea does not fit in with previous ideas and is therefore judged as 'wrong' (i.e. misfit mistake).

2. The wrong idea may continue to be wrong but may act as a stepping-stone to an idea which is perfectly valid.

3. A mistake allows one to escape or to get some 'distance' away from the established idea.

4. A mistake may ask a question that could not otherwise have been asked.

Design is just as important as analysis. Analysis helps us to understand things. Design helps us to deliver value. Design is putting together what we have to deliver the values we want. Without design we just have routines. Some of these are very good and were set up by design in the first place. But routines have no way of changing by themselves. There is a major role for routine but also a place for design.