Edward de Bono Quotes

If you wait for customers to tell you that you need to do something, you're too late. Good business leaders should be half a step ahead of what customers want, i.e. they don't actually quite know they want it. That's what innovation's about. With Plan A, we didn't wait for the consumers to tell us.

The worlds I paint leave a lot to engage the imagination by hinting at what lies beyond the four edges of the painting. I think getting beyond the four edges of an opportunity or challenge is one of the basic skills you need in business.

At Stanford, we teach 'design thinking' - that is, we put together small, interdisciplinary groups to figure out what the true needs are and then to apply the art of engineering to serve them.

I was just taught very early that if I didn't solve problems, I was headed for a very dark path. Problems were everywhere. Now, even if there are no problems, I look for problems. I'm like, 'You know what? I don't like the way this spoon works. I want to design a new spoon.'

The manager has a short-range view; the leader has a long-range perspective.

What I sell is the higher knowledge of knowing what's next and not following the trend of what's now.

Health care is a design problem. Dependence on foreign oil is a design problem. To some extent, poverty is a design problem. We need design thinkers to solve those problems, and most people who are in positions of political power are not design thinkers, to put it mildly.

Often the most important moment in the design process is figuring out what the right question is.

For Stripe, being inventive is just about applying the right solutions from other areas.

We have to be about finding long-term solutions to our biggest challenges.

Design is a solution to a problem. Art is a question to a problem.

You know you can usually solve almost any problem, or you'll realize you can't, but usually you can solve almost any problem through some sort of trickery one way or another and get the shot to work, but you know when to give up.

We still seek to solve conflicts with 'judgement' instead of designing the way forwards.

What I love about design is the artistic and scientific complexity that also becomes useful . . . Great designers also pursue a mission. Great designers design with mankind in mind . . . The crossroads of science and art, innovation and inspiration are what I love about design.

The design is done when the problem goes away.

Design is a response to a specific problem. You are given a problem to solve, and then you let the problem itself tell you what your solution is.

I am enthusiastic over humanity’s extraordinary and sometimes very timely ingenuity. If you are in a shipwreck and all the boats are gone, a piano top buoyant enough to keep you afloat that comes along makes a fortuitous life preserver. But this is not to say that the best way to design a life preserver is in the form of a piano top. I think that we are clinging to a great many piano tops in accepting yesterday’s fortuitous contrivings as constituting the only means for solving a given problem.

I do feel that the world is entering into a period of the incredible period of reflection and introspection. A lot of people are questioning the future, and I can't help but think that's a positive thing. I'm not sure about the art world, but the design world may be able to offer some solutions. Design is about troubleshooting. As a designer, I ultimately feel like a gun for hire. Companies hire me because they've got a problem. That's kind of what it boils down to. And I think this is a moment in our history where we need different solutions.

You can analyse the past, but you have to design the future

You don't filter smokestacks or water. Instead, you put the filter in your head and design the problem out of existence.

Designers are inherently optimistic people who try to make the world a better place

If you look at the world today, there are as many solutions as there are problems. I think that is a big part of creativity. That's why I started Urban Zen. Because I wanted to dress and address people.

When any great design thou dost intend, Think on the means, the manner, and the end.

The genius is making a way out of no way.

The country needs and, unless I mistake its temper, the country demands bold, persistent experimentation. It is common sense to take a method and try it; if it fails, admit it frankly and try another. But above all, try something. The millions who are in want will not stand by silently forever while the things to satisfy their needs are within easy reach.