De Bono is in town!

"A beautiful face and a boring mind is boring, boring, boring.

A beautiful body with a boring mind is boring, boring, boring.

A fit and healthy body with a boring mind is boring, boring, boring.

A clever mind can also be boring, boring, boring.

People spend a huge amount of time, trouble, care, worry and money on becoming or remaining beautiful. How much time do they spend on becoming interesting?"


These were the few firsts lines in the book "How to be interesting?" that got me curious and interested to pick the book. This was three years ago when I dwelled into the book on a colleague's recommendation. At that time, I didn't have the slightest idea of the stature of the man behind the book. Soon after my brush with the book, I started hearing his name all over. And along with his name, the associated term 'Lateral Thinking'. Lateral Thinking, a term coined by De Bono is about reasoning that is not immediately obvious and which cannot be deduced by following the traditional step by step logic. Rubbish, is what you might think and dismiss it as offshoot of a quirky mind. And if this information wasn't enough to warrant your admiration, the facts below will sure elevate your respect for him.

Few quick facts about De Bono:

• The Six Thinking Hats that we all have been hearing as an ubiquitous management theory is his brainchild.
• Is a consultant for many a fortune 500 companies like Coca-Cola and Ericsson, IBM, DuPont, Prudential, AT&T, British Airways, British Coal.
• He has written 75 books with translations into 37 languages.
• Invited to lecture in 54 countries. So at any point of time, he could be at any country.
• worked with the Australian rugby and football teams and also had a very useful interaction with the ex-Aussie cricket coach John Buchanan
• In 1969 De Bono founded the Cognitive Research Trust (CoRT)
• In 1995, he created the futuristic documentary film, 2040:Possibilities by Edward De Bono, a lecture designed to prepare an audience of viewers released from a cryogenic freeze for contemporary (2040) society.
• In 2000 he advised a U.K Foreign Office committee that the Arab-Israeli conflict might be due, in part, to low levels of zinc found in people who eat unleavened bread, a known side-effect of which is aggression. He suggested shipping out jars of Marmite to compensate.
• When Microsoft held their first-ever marketing summit, they invited Edward De Bono to give the keynote address in Seattle to its 500 top managers.
  
• De Bono invented the L Game, a simple board game that requires strategy to win.

Well, a man of such great credentials to his name is in India, it is surely a great chance for the corporate honchos to derive some gyan out of him.