Think Before It's Too Late

This book comes across as arrogant and lazy.  De Bono labours his point over and over until it sounds a bit like a primary school principal discplining kids.  Material is often repeated throughout the book and the writing is sketchy and jumps over the place.  It's like he jotted down some ideas and mashed them together into a book.  This is his first book I've read but I sincerely hope his other books are better written.  The most disappointing and ironic thing is that he states in the book that perception is important, yet he has obviously not paid any attention to how his words will be perceived by the readers!

I began with that crushing criticism because it's warranted and seems like a lack of respect to readers who spend money to buy his book, but there are some good ideas in the book if you haven't heard of De Bono or his ideas before.  I first came into contact with De Bono as a primary school kid where we were trained in the Six Thinking Hats and some perception thinking skills.  I actually use some of his techniques myself, I certain think having a "software" as he calls it, or a method to approach thinking is a good idea. 

His main point of the book is to convince readers that challening our way of thinking is to paraphrase, more important an issue than climate change.  He argues that traditional thinking is based on that of the G3 - three famous philosophers Aristotle, Plato and Socrates.  He says that critical thinking is based on judgement, and hence is not good enough by itself, because it closes our minds to other possibilities. 

However as mentioned before he does himself a huge disservice through his writing style.  His main source of evidence are anecdotal examples used to illustrate how effective his system of thinking works. He doesn't reference and doesn't cite sources, because he feels he doesn't need to as the ideas are his own.  I appreciate the point he is making, good ideas don't need to conform to traditional academic or educational structures, however it does make his points less convincing.

I think he would have been better off  if he had used the examples of "bad thinking" (my term) and shown some better ideas that he had thought up which were practical.  He does this at least once in the book for democracy but I was very underwhelmed by his idea.  Of course he is not suggestion he is the bastion of creativity, but rather than his technique can help people be more creative. 

I think there is value in looking at creativity and thinking from his perspective.  He has a lot of practical tools for improving thinking, but they are covered in other books of his.  He tends to oversell a bit in this book and as a result I would say that there are probably better De Bono books out there for someone who is genuinely interested in improving their brain/ creativity power.  


Overall a rating 3 out of 5, a solid enough introduction to what he is about.