Dr. Edward de Bono dedicated his life to teaching thinking as a skill. He was interested in a deliberate and structured approach to creative thinking. His ideas for creating ideas have been used by engineers, architects, musicians, artists, writers, business people, scientists, governments and school children.
Born in Malta, Dr. de Bono received his initial education at St Edward’s College, Malta, and the Royal University of Malta, where he achieved a degree in medicine. Then as a Rhodes Scholar at Christchurch, Oxford, where he gained a degree in psychology and physiology and a D.Phil. in medicine. He received a Phd from Cambridge and held faculty appointments at the universities of Oxford, Cambridge, London and Harvard.
He became interested in the nature and teaching of thinking while working in medical research investigating the self-organising nature of physiological systems. This led to his description of the behaviour of the mind as a self-organising system, (see his book Mechanism of Mind) and his interest in the development of lateral thinking to change perception.
Dr. de Bono originated many thinking methods that are widely used today. He originated the phrase Lateral Thinking, which has an entry in the Oxford English Dictionary. He described Parallel Thinking, also known as the Six Thinking Hats® method as an alternative to argument.
He has written over 60 books (many of them at Cranmer), with translations into 43 languages, lectured in 58 countries and made three television series. More in depth biographies are available on deBono.com here
Portrait by Caspar de Bono based on a photo by Roy Zhao