How to run better meetings and make faster decisions — lessons I learned from the Six Thinking Hats by Edward de Bono

Edward de Bono is a name that I recognized from when I was younger. When I was younger, I was extremely interested in these book of puzzles called ‘lateral thinking puzzles’ — essentially they are puzzles that require you to think about and question some of the assumptions that you have. For example, here is a lateral thinking puzzle for you: a man buys 3 bananas for a dollar and sells 5 bananas for a dollar. In the process, he becomes a millionaire. How?

With a lateral thinking puzzle, someone asks the puzzle and reads the answer. Those that are solving the puzzle are allowed to ask any yes or no questions that they want — only questions that can be answered with ‘yes’ or ‘no’. Of course, when I was young, I would look at the puzzle and then read the solution right away — I didn’t have anyone else that I could ‘play’ the puzzle with so I cheated a little.

At a recent used book sale, I saw Edward de Bono’s name and was happy to realize that he had written a number of books on lateral thinking and critical thinking in general. This is one of his books — the book title refers to his strategy for running better meetings and making faster decisions.