Main How to Have a Beautiful Mind

How to Have a Beautiful Mind

Despite the modern day emphasis on physical appearance, there is an easier way to become a desirable person rather than dieting or buying expensive clothes. Regardless of outer appearance, if people have minds that are fascinating, creative, and exciting—if they are good thinkers—they can be beautiful. The clear, practical instructions in this guide demonstrate how applying lateral and parallel thinking skills to conversation can improve the mind. The greatest impact is made on others through speech, and by learning how to listen, make a point, and maneuver a discussion, anyone can become more imaginative, more engaging, and more beautiful.

Year: 2004
Publisher: Ebury Press
Language: english
Pages: 240
ISBN 10: 0091894603
ISBN 13: 9780091894603
File: EPUB, 235 KB
Download (epub, 235 KB)

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Most frequently terms



About the Book

About the Author

Also by Edward de Bono

Title Page



The Need to be Right

The Logic Bubble

Special Circumstances

Special Values

Special Experience

Sweeping Generalisations




Errors of Logic


Selective Perception


Different Experience

Sweeping Generalisations


Possible and Certain

Differ or Disagree



Two Sorts of Difference

Sources of Difference

Spell Out the Difference

Spell Out the Reasons for the Difference

Accept the Difference




What if?

Possibilities and Alternatives



Creativity and New Ideas

A Most Useful Habit






Examples and Stories

Build Upon


Carry Forward





Getting Value


Repeat Back


More Details

Two Focuses



Fishing Questions and Shooting Questions

Source and Validity

More Detail


Alternatives and Possibilities


Multiple Choice Questions


The Basis for Your Thinking?



Co-operative Exploration

The Six Thinking Hats

The White Hat

The Red Hat

The Black Hat

The Yellow Hat

The Green Hat

The Blue Hat

Use of the Hats




Why Bother with Concepts?

Pick Out the Concept


Levels of Concept

Types of Concept



Compare and Contrast





Alternative Values

Generating Alternatives




Selective Perception



First Reaction





Different Parties

Personal Values

Organisation Values

Quality Values

Innovation Values

Ecology (impact) Values

Perceptual Values

Negative Values










How Much?

The Zulu Principle

The Mirror Strategy

Knowledge Input

Making Do



Why Have Opinions?

Provoking Opinions


Point of View

Changing Opinions

New Information

Less Complete

Value Change

Comparison and Difference



My Turn

Ego Interruptions

Amplifying Interruptions

Challenge Interruptions

Immediate or Later




The Battle Attitude

The Ego Power Game

The Learner Attitude

The Explorer Attitude

The Constructive Attitude

The Fun Attitude

The ‘Who Cares?’ Attitude



Current Topics

On-going Topics

What do You do?

False Starts

New Leads


Anger and Emotion









The Organiser


Agenda and Topics


Cross Visits

Range of Activites


About the Book


We spend a fortune on clothes, cosmetics, diets and work-outs – even surgery – to make our bodies more attractive. Yet we hardly consider the one thing that enhances everyone’s appeal. It costs nothing, takes very little time, and without it even the most physically beautiful person will be unattractive: it is a beautiful mind. No matter how stunning you are, if your mind is dull you have no hope of impressing people in any situation.

It doesn’t need a high IQ, or reams of knowledge, or a great personality. All it needs is creativity, imagination and empathy – all techniques that anyone can learn. Here Edward de Bono, world-famous for changing the way people think, shows you in clear, practical language how to impress people with simple conversational tactics.

Want to be irresistible? Then follow de Bono’s advice: you won’t believe how much it can revolutionise your life until you do.

About the Author

Edward de Bono is the leading authority in the field of creative thinking and the direct teaching of thinking as a skill. While there are thousands of people writing software for computers, Edward de Bono is the pioneer in writing software for the human brain. From an understanding of how the human brain works as a self-organising information system, he derived the formal creative tools of lateral thinking. He is also the originator of ‘parallel thinking’ and the Six Thinking Hats. His tools for perceptual thinking (CoRT and DATT) are widely used in both schools and business.

Edward de Bono’s instruction in thinking has been sought by many of the leading corporations in the world such as IBM, Microsoft, Prudential, BT (UK), NTT (Japan), Nokia (Finland) and Siemens (Germany). The Australian national cricket team also sought his help and became the most successful cricket team in history.

A group of academics in South Africa included Dr de Bono as one of the 250 people who had most influenced humanity in the whole course of history. A leading Austrian business journal chose him as one of the twenty visionaries alive today. The leading consultancy company, Accenture, chose him as one of the fifty most influential business thinkers today.

Edward de Bono’s methods are simple but powerful. The use of just one method produced 21,000 ideas for a steel company in one afternoon. He has taught thinking to Nobel prize winners and Down’s syndrome youngsters.

Edward de Bono holds an MD (Malta), MA (Oxford), DPhil (Oxford), PhD (Cambridge) and DDes (RMIT). He has had faculty appointments at the universities of Oxford, Cambridge, London and Harvard and was a Rhodes Scholar at Oxford. He has written 67 books with translations into 37 languages.

Also by Edward de Bono

The Six Value Medals

Lateral Thinking

Six Thinking Hats



There is this beautiful woman at a cocktail party. She has flawless skin, elegant clothes and a perfect figure. Surprisingly, she seems to be much on her own. People come up to her and quickly drift away.

Then there is this short, balding and mousy man. He is always surrounded by people in animated conversation with him.

What is going on?

You can do a great deal to make your body more beautiful. There are exercises at the gym. There are nips and tucks and liposuction and inserts.

You can do much to make your face more beautiful with cosmetics and even plastic surgery. A man can have hair implants.

But what about your mind? Do you make any effort at all to have a beautiful mind? Great physical beauty with a boring mind is boring. You might get attention but you will never keep that attention.

At the cocktail party the beautiful woman had a boring mind and the mousy man had a beautiful mind. That is why the man got more attention than the woman.

So what can you do to make your mind more beautiful?

You are born with a certain shape of face and body. There is only a certain amount you can do to make them more beautiful. But there is very much more that you can do to make your mind more beautiful. That is exactly what this book is about. This book tells you what to do to make your mind more beautiful.

If you have natural physical beauty it is a tragedy to waste this beauty by having a boring mind. It is like buying an expensive car and then not putting fuel in the tank.

If you do not have great natural beauty, one of the things you can do to make yourself attractive is to develop a beautiful mind.

As you get older, physical beauty tends to fade. But beauty of mind is independent of age and can actually increase with wisdom and experience.

Many people spend a great deal of time, effort and money to make themselves more physically beautiful. It makes sense to spend some time and effort to make your mind more beautiful.

What is beauty? Beauty is something that can be appreciated by others. The beautiful mind described in this book is a mind that can be appreciated by others. It is not the mind of a person who sits in a corner and solves very complex puzzles. It is a mind that can be appreciated by others – usually through conversation.

The beauty of your mind shows in your conversation. That is what this book is about. The beauty of your mind should show in your conversation. Just as people can look at your physical beauty they can listen to the beauty of your mind.

If you want to make your mind more beautiful you can. It is not a matter of innate intelligence or great knowledge. It is how you use your mind that matters. That is exactly what this book is about.

Edward de Bono

1 how to agree

TO HAVE A beautiful mind you must genuinely seek to find points of agreement with the person to whom you are talking. Surprisingly this is the most difficult aspect of all.

It is so difficult because the agreement must be genuine and not just sycophantic pretence. It is difficult because the motivation to do this is contrary to most people’s natural inclinations.

We can look at two extremes of agreement and disagreement:

You are so right …

I agree with everything you say …

I completely agree with you …

Absolutely right …

I agree one hundred per cent …

If you agree with everything, there is not much of a discussion, not much of a conversation and not much of an exchange of views. The other person might as well be giving a lecture. Nice as it may sound, your contribution is not very significant.

Then there is the other extreme:

Yes, but …

I totally disagree …

You are wrong there …

That is not so …

This is the person who makes a point of disagreeing with everything that is said. This highly argumentative person seeks to demonstrate superiority through disagreement. Too often, academics or highly educated people behave in this manner because they have been encouraged to do so. This type of mind is intensely irritating and is far from being a beautiful mind.

You need to be somewhere between these two extremes. You do not have to agree with everything. You should not disagree with everything.


This is very much tied up with the ego. An argument is a battle between egos. When you agree you seem to be submitting to the other point of view – so you lose. When you disagree you are asserting your ego and indicating that you may be superior. All this is reinforced by the emphasis on argument and debate in school and also in society, whether in government, the law courts or the media. In government, for instance, an opposition party will often seek to disagree with those in power, whatever the circumstances. Most people are now coming to see this as extremely silly.

If you insist on always winning an argument you end up with nothing more than you started with – except showing off your arguing ability. When you lose an argument you may well have gained a new point of view. Being right all the time is not the most important thing in the world and it is certainly not very beautiful.

* * *


* * *


I created the term ‘logic bubble’ in a previous book. When someone does something you do not like or with which you do not agree, it is easy to label that person as stupid, ignorant or malevolent. But that person may be acting ‘logically’ within his or her ‘logic bubble’. That bubble is made up of the perceptions, values, needs and experience of that person. If you make a real effort to see inside that bubble and to see where that person is ‘coming from’, you usually see the logic of that person’s position.

In the school programme for teaching thinking (CoRT (Cognitive Research Trust) programme) there are tools which broaden perception so the thinker sees a wider picture and acts accordingly. One of these tools is OPV, which encourages the thinker to ‘see the Other Person’s Point of View’. We have numerous examples where a serious fight came to a sudden end when the combatants (who had learned the methods) decided to do an OPV on each other, a very similar process to understanding the ‘logic bubble’ of the other party.


This is the major way in which disagreement can be turned into agreement.

Someone makes a statement with which you immediately disagree. For example: ‘Woman believe in psychics and fortune tellers more than men do.’

Your instant reaction is that this is untrue. It may be that women have more fun with fortune tellers even if they do not ‘believe’ in them. Women with somewhat dull lives may enjoy the new events offered. In the past women did not always have full control over their lives so they had to ‘wait’ for things to happen to them and the fortune teller would suggest events or incidents. When women had no political or military status, their only source of power was the occult. This meant that they developed the areas of sorcery and witchcraft because these gave power. Note the success of the Harry Potter books. Younger children who have little real influence enjoy the idea of wielding the power of wizardry and spells.

These are all special circumstances within which you might agree that some women do show more interest in psychics than do men.

In a different conversation, someone suggests that ‘arranged marriages’ are a good idea. Your immediate reaction is to disagree, because you believe in romance, love and free choice. Then you consider some special circumstances. In isolated communities the chance of meeting a suitable bride or groom might be slight. Relatives and a marriage broker might be better placed to identify potential couples.

A senior Indian business woman who had been educated at Columbia and Yale once told me: ‘In the West you start off with love, violins in the sunset – and then it is downwards from then on. We start off in neutral and then we invest and make the relationship ever stronger. We have to try.’

So another special circumstance might be that both parties grow up in a culture where such betrothals are an expectation. You may also want to make a clear distinction between ‘arranged’ and ‘forced’ marriages.

In practice, you make an effort to find some special circumstances within which the statement does make sense and then you agree with the statement but only for those circumstances.


Here you are saying: ‘If I had those values, I would agree with you.’

This process is similar to the search for special circumstances. Instead of seeking the special circumstances you seek out the special values which would allow you to agree.

For example: ‘Telling a lie is never acceptable. That is a moral principle.’

You can agree or disagree. As a matter of interest, philosophers over the ages have disagreed on this point. Some say that telling a lie is always wrong. Others say that you may tell a lie ‘for the greater good’. Philosophers use the following traditional exaggeration: ‘Suppose a murderer is pursuing a potential victim and asks you which way the victim has gone. Should you tell the murderer the correct or the incorrect way?’

Here we see a set of conflicting values: moral principles; pragmatism; value of human life.

So you spell out the different values and show that you would agree under one set of values but not under another set of values. You may still give your opinion.


It is always difficult to argue with special experience. A person with years of experience looking after battered women may suggest that they often go back because their self-esteem is so low they need the relationship.

As a listener you may feel that they go back because they have nowhere else to go.

You can agree that in some instances the ‘self-esteem’ factor may be relevant, but not in all cases.


It is usually very difficult to agree with sweeping generalisations (see here). Unfortunately, our logic habits demand that we think in this way: all crocodiles are vicious; all puppies are messy; no politician can be trusted; men are logical, women are intuitive.

The latter statement is exactly the sort of generalisation with which most people would disagree. But you can disagree with the generalisation as such and still agree with some aspects of it. For example: ‘Women can be as logical as men when necessary but also tend to be more intuitive.’

Or: ‘Men usually work in groups and logic is a way of convincing the other members of the group to go along with a plan. Women tend to act on their own and can rely on intuition as they do not need to persuade anyone else.’

Or: ‘I agree that women do tend to have a more scanning mind that takes in more factors instead of just moving from one point to another.’

So, in this way, you can disagree with the sweeping generalisation but show agreement with some of the implications.

In real life there are many gradations between ‘none’ and ‘all’. These might be:


a few




the majority

by and large


Unfortunately, our Greek-based logic system, with its inclusions and exclusions, cannot deal with such gradations. All fire burns, therefore this fire will burn you. No sand is good to eat, so do not eat this sand. This system has been wonderful in science and technology where properties are permanent, but much less useful in human affairs where there are interactive loops. The person you call an idiot is no longer the same person you called an idiot.

Dogmatism, rigidity, prejudice and bigotry all arise from this ‘box type’ thinking. Something is ‘in the box’ (and for ever) or ‘outside the box’ (and for ever). To be fair, this is very useful thinking and so we do have to use it. But the beautiful mind sees below the rigidity of the box structures and explores things in a more subtle way.


Genuinely seek to find points of agreement in what the other person is saying.

There is no contribution if you simply agree with everything.

To disagree at every point is irritating and boring.

Being argumentative is not at all beautiful. There are better methods of exploring a subject.

There is no need to be ‘right’ all the time. Remove your ego from the discussion and focus instead on the subject matter.

Make a real effort to see where the other person is coming from. Explore that person’s ‘logic bubble’.

See if there are any circumstances in which the other person’s views might be right. Spell out such circumstances and show your agreement under those circumstances.

See if there are any special values which might make the other person’s view valid. Show that under those values you would agree. But also have your own opinion.


Reject a sweeping generalisation but see whether you agree with any of the implications or any aspect of the generalisation.

Take a genuine delight in discovering points of agreement – even when there is overall disagreement.

Changing your perceptions to look at things in a different way is an important step in reaching possible agreement.

2 how to disagree

IF YOU DO not know how to disagree you will never have a beautiful mind. This is the critical operation. If you get this wrong then your mind will be ugly even if it is effective.

There are those who disagree in a rude and aggressive way.

There are those who disagree in order to do battle and to show they are winning.

There are those who disagree in order to vaunt their egos.

There are those who disagree in a bullying way.

There are those who disagree in order to demonstrate their superiority.

There are those who disagree because they have been taught that is what conversation is about.

There are those who disagree because they simply do not know any other way of exploring a subject.

A court of law is actually a rather primitive way of exploring a subject. If the prosecutor thinks of some point which would help the case for the defence, is the prosecutor going to bring that point forward? Of course not! If the defence attorney thinks of some point to strengthen the prosecution case, is he or she going to put that point forward? Of course not! Each side makes its own case, defends that case and attacks the case of the other side. This ‘battle’ does not mean that the matter is thoroughly examined. A much more effective way of exploring a subject is given by the use of ‘parallel thinking’ (see Chapter 8). With this method both parties jointly explore the subject.

Even though disagreement can be unpleasant, it is often necessary both for the sake of the truth and in order to investigate any issue objectively and fully.


You are just stupid.

That is the silliest thing I have heard in a long time.

That is wrong.

That is poor logic.

I disagree with everything you have said.

How stupid can you be?

All these are rather harsh and rude ways of expressing disagreement. A better choice of expression can still communicate disagreement without being offensive:

I am not sure I follow your reasoning.

There might be another way of looking at it.

That is only one point of view.

How about this other possibility?

I think I have some doubts about your conclusion.

Maybe that is so, and maybe it is not so.

I can think of an alternative explanation.

Gentle disagreement is as valid as aggressive disagreement. On the whole, it is more beautiful to be gentle than to be aggressive.

There may be many different reasons for the disagreement. Some are listed here.


Across Europe the number of people in prison ranges from 89 to 120 per hundred thousand of the population. In the USA the figure is more than six times as much at 750 per hundred thousand. Could this mean that the USA is less law abiding?

The conclusion does not necessarily follow from the statistics.

It may be that in the USA the police are better at catching criminals.

It may be that in the USA more types of crime are treated by prison sentences.

It may be that in the USA people stay longer in prison.

It may be that since 95 per cent of criminal cases in the USA are settled by plea bargaining, the number ending up in prison is higher.

By seeking such alternatives, you can show that the number of people in prison does not necessarily mean a greater amount of crime. That is just one possible explanation.

Someone might say: ‘People do not like short politicians so they will not vote for Harris.’ It may be true that, all things being equal, people prefer taller politicians. But things may not be equal. Mr Harris could have much more administrative experience than his rivals.

One thing may ‘seem’ to follow from another but you may disagree as to whether it ‘has to’ follow. You can challenge that necessity. If you can show a possible alternative, that makes your challenge much stronger.


This is related to the previous source of error. One interpretation of statistics is given, and the impression is given that this interpretation is the only possible version. Yet there are other possible alternative explanations.

For example: In Sweden almost 50 per cent of babies are born to unmarried mothers. In Iceland the figure is 66 per cent. This might mean that marriage is not regarded very highly or that there are low moral standards, or that it represents a breakdown of families.

One other possible interpretation is that couples do not get married until there is a real ‘baby-reason’ for getting married. The statistics do not tell whether the couple eventually do get married after the baby is born.

To take another example, statistics in Australia show that people born under the Zodiac sign of Gemini are more likely to have car accidents than any other sign.

It is rather unlikely that the accident rate for all Zodiac signs would be exactly equal. So you would like to know whether this finding is significant across different periods and in different countries. The size of the difference would also be important.

One possible explanation is that those with a Gemini birthday reach the legal age for driving in winter (June in Australia) and so start driving in difficult conditions.


A wife who finds out her husband is having an affair looks back over the whole marriage and picks out only those points which suggest that the husband does not truly love her.

Selective perception means perceiving things in such a way as to support a pre-formed idea.

The classic use of selective perception is with stereotypes and prejudices. The mind has a fixed pattern and then notices only those things which fit the pattern. Racial prejudice is an obvious example.

A fierce feminist would be ready to pick on any male behaviour evidence to indicate male chauvinism.

Selective perception can work both ways. For instance: At one time 50 per cent of the employees at NASA were Indian and 26 per cent of the employees at Microsoft were also Indian.

This might suggest that Indians were especially intelligent or skilled at computer work. There is a big software industry in India (around Bangalore) and there are good training institutes for computer work. So Indians going to the USA were likely to end up in such jobs. In addition the shortage of IT specialists in the USA meant that the USA gave special visas to Indians with these skills.

Selective perception is difficult to challenge because what is said may be correct. The listener has no way of knowing what has not been said, or has been left out. A person who tells you all the instances where an employee seems to have been lazy may choose not to tell you all the instances where the same person worked exceptionally hard.

If you believe that a certain race commits more crimes, you will only notice instances of that race committing crimes. You may not see that crime occurs more often in certain economic groups and there happen to be more of that race in these groups.


Emotions follow on from prejudice and stereotypes.

Is the person really giving an objective view or is there an emotional tinge to it? It is usually very easy to tell the emotional content by the adjectives used. (See here.)

Adjectives such as lazy, useless, dishonest, careless, dangerous, devious and shifty immediately suggest that an opinion is very much emotional. If you strip the adjectives from the opinion then the opinion collapses. The opinion is therefore just a vehicle for the emotions.

Everyone is free to express their emotions. A listener, however, does not have to be persuaded by the emotions or to agree with them. It is when emotions enter the logic of an opinion that they become dangerous. If emotions are clearly labelled as such, there is no danger: ‘This is what I feel about the matter.’

The listener may still ask why these emotions are in place.

* * *

Emotions can be reactions to events. Emotions can also determine the way the events are perceived.

* * *


In Chapter 3 it is pointed out that different personal experiences lead to different opinions. The same holds for disagreement. If your personal experience differs from the speaker’s personal experience, you may well find yourself disagreeing with the conclusions put forward by the speaker.

A person who lives in a country that has a monarchy may have a very different experience from someone who lives in a country without royalty. A person who has gone through a divorce will have a different experience from someone who has never been divorced.

Having a different experience never means that your experience is the right one and the experience of the other party is invalid. In disagreeing, you simply point out that your experience is different: ‘My experience in working with young offenders is obviously not the same as yours. I found that …’

Once again there is both different experience and also different interpretation of experience. For instance:

As a young doctor, I found that the nursing staff took very good care of the patients.

As a young doctor, I found that the nursing staff had little time for the patients.

At first, the two sets of experience seem contradictory. It then turns out that in the second case the hospital was understaffed and the nurses were overworked, therefore seeming to have little time for the patients.


In general there should always be a tendency to disagree with sweeping generalisations, as discussed in Chapter 1 (see here).

The very nature of generalisations means that the same label applies to everyone or everything that is placed in the labelled box: all children are cute; all lawyers are argumentative; all Italians are romantic; all Frenchwomen are marvellous cooks.

As a challenge to such sweeping generalisations you might suggest whether the words ‘many’ or ‘most’ would do as well as ‘all’. If such words will not do because they destroy the logic of the argument, then you need to doubt that logic – at least where it applies to people. In technical areas, generalisations may indeed apply.


There is a joke about the airline pilot who apologised to the passengers for having to shut down one engine. He explained that it meant they would arrive two hours late into New York. A second engine failed and he explained that they would be four hours late. Then a third engine failed. At this point the co-pilot leaned across to him and said: ‘I hope to goodness the last engine does not fail or we shall be up here all night!’

Extrapolation means taking a trend forward and assuming the trend will continue. Ecologists have to do this all the time in their warnings about global warming, for example. Sometimes they may be right and sometimes they may be wrong.

The number of students entering tertiary education is rising in most countries. Can we extrapolate that to a world in which everyone has tertiary education and there are not enough suitable jobs to go around? The Chinese economy is growing at 8 per cent a year (much faster than most other countries). Can we extrapolate that to make China the dominant economic power in the world?

Like sweeping generalisations, extrapolations need to be treated with caution. There may be some element of truth in them but they are unlikely to work out as claimed. Very often, counter forces come in which oppose the trend.


This is one of the most important points about disagreement.

You may be willing to accept something as a ‘possibility’ but very unwilling to accept it as a ‘certainty’.

It is possible that raising the school leaving age will reduce juvenile crime. It would be difficult to accept this as a certainty.

It is possible that the higher suicide rate among men after the break-up of a relationship is due to the break-up being more of a surprise to men than it is to women.

There is a whole spectrum between ‘just possible’ and ‘certain’:

just possible



very likely


most probable


When disagreeing with something that has been put forward as a certainty, you can indicate the level of ‘possible’ at which you are prepared to accept the statement. For example:

It is possible that China may become a dominant economic power in the next fifty years.

It is just possible that a human colony will be established on the moon or a planet.

It is very likely that HIV will become the major problem in Africa.


Disagreement implies a regard for the truth. There is a truth concern. You do not want to let someone get away with something which is either untrue or offered as true without being proved to be so.

In the spaghetti metaphor used in Chapter 3 (see here), the range of different sauces is a matter of choice. If someone suggested sprinkling ground coffee on the spaghetti, you would probably reject that as plain ‘wrong’. (In fact, I have tried this and it works very well!) If, however, someone suggested using diesel fuel on the spaghetti you would certainly reject this – not only in terms of taste but it may also be poisonous.

So in disagreement you may be implying one of several things:

That is simply wrong

That is possible but not certain

That is only one of many alternatives

That fits your experience

That fits your values

That is right for you but not for me

That is based on emotions and prejudice

That is based on selective perception

The conclusion does not follow

That is one possible view of the future

This wide range of types of disagreement should, as far as possible, be indicated and spelled out. It is too abrupt simply to say that you disagree. The method of disagreement does need to be indicated.

Once this is done the disagreement can be explored.


Do not disagree for the sake of disagreeing.


When you disagree, do so politely and gently rather than rudely and aggressively.

You may need to disagree to point out that a fact or statement is simply wrong.

You may need to point out errors of logic or to show that a conclusion does not necessarily follow from what went before.

You may need to point out selective perception and particular interpretations of statistics or events.

Where emotions, prejudices and stereotypes appear to be used, you may want to indicate this.

You may want to disagree to show a different personal experience.

Almost always you will want to challenge sweeping generalisations.

You will want to challenge conclusions based on extreme extrapolations into the future.

It is very important to challenge ‘certainty’ and to suggest ‘possibility’ instead.

Distinguish between having a different opinion and disagreeing with an opinion.

3 how to differ

ACTORS AUDITION TO get parts in a play. Quite often the actor gets turned down. Being turned down a number of times is very discouraging and the actor tends to lose self-confidence. So their agents tell them: ‘You are an apple. They are looking for oranges. This does not mean you are a bad actor or a bad apple. They simply want something different.’

Some people like spaghetti with a puttanesca sauce. Some people prefer an arrabiata sauce and some like a traditional Neapolitan. These are all different but there is no suggestion that one is better than the other.

Children in a family can be different from each other but may all be equally loved by their parents.


Surprising as it may seem, it is said that in the dark most people would be unable to distinguish between whisky and cognac. So, in the dark, a glass is handed around and players in the game are asked to guess what is in the glass. Some people say it is whisky, others say it is cognac. The opinions differ. But there is only one truth, or correct answer. What is in the glass is either whisky or cognac and not both. So the opinions differ but only one set of opinions is ‘right’.

‘What is this?’ There may be differences of opinion but at best only one will be right (they may all be wrong). So there is the type of difference where one opinion is right and other opinions are not right.

There is, however, another sort of difference. Consider the following two statements:

If we raise the selling price of the magazine, fewer people will want to buy it and we shall lose money.

If we raise the selling price of the magazine, people will regard it as a more prestigious magazine and we may even get more readers – in addition to the extra revenue from the sales.

Whenever we look forward into the future, it is always possible to have different opinions about what might happen. It is very difficult in foresight to tell which opinion is ‘right’. There may, in some cases, be research or precedents to suggest which opinion may turn out to be correct. Usually, however, the future is open to differences of opinion.


This food needs more salt.

This food has enough salt.

Differences may arise from personal preferences. Some people like horror movies. Some people like ‘bang-bang’ movies. Some like Westerns. There is enough difference in personal taste to enable most people to marry a partner of their choice.

Let us imagine that two people are arguing over the best way to get from A to B.

‘It would be best to go through the village of Clickford,’ says one.

‘Using the turnpike would be a better bet,’ says the other.

It all depends on what is meant by ‘best way’. There are several possible meanings:

best means the fastest route

best means the most scenic route

best means the easiest route to follow

best means the route with least traffic

best means the shortest route

Unless ‘best’ is clearly defined, the differences of opinion are all valid. It may be that for one person the easiest route to follow is the best. For another person the fastest route is best. And so on.

Envisage a person standing to the north of a church, who describes the church from that point of view. Another person is standing to the south of the church and describes the church from that point of view. Both views are valid views of the church. They are different but both are valid.

There is the story of a man who painted half his car white and the other half black. His friends asked him why he had done this strange thing. He replied:

‘When I have an accident, it is such fun hearing the witnesses in court contradict each other. One witness claims it was a white car which knocked the cyclist over. Another witness, also under oath, claims that it was actually a black car.’

Both witness would be right – given their different points of view.

From the point of views of people who have to borrow money for business or mortgages, a low interest rate is a good thing. From the point of view of those who lend money or who live on the income from savings, a low interest rate is not a good thing at all. There is a strong difference of opinion, but both opinions are correct.

A different point of view will give a different perception. Even from the same point of view, however, there can be differences of perception.

From a parent’s point of view the use of computers in school enables the children to access a vast range of information that would otherwise be inaccessible. From a parent’s point of view computers reduce the social interaction between youngsters and so limit their social experience and the ability to get on with others. Both perceptions are from the same (parent’s) point of view. Both are valid. Yet they are different.

In another example, the pessimist looks at a glass half filled with wine and claims it is ‘half empty’. The optimist looks at it and says it is ‘half full’. The re-engineering consultant looks at it and claims ‘there is too much glass’. The wine maker looks at it and notes that it is ‘red wine’.

As suggested in the chapter on agreement, different values will always lead to a difference of opinion.

When the US government suggested giving child benefits to babies still in the womb, different values led to a difference of opinion. There were those who welcomed the acknowledgement that pregnant women had extra needs due to the child they were carrying so it was logical to give much needed assistance. There were those who saw the move as a way to discourage abortion because the unborn child had been declared to be a human being. It might also mean that abortions could now be reported and recorded.

When more and more students achieved higher grades in school-leaving examinations in the UK, there were those who welcomed the fact that more pupils were now getting good grades which might help them in the job market. There were others, however, who lamented the ‘dumbing down’ of the examinations and who asked for a new superior grade so the elite of the cleverest could still be picked out.

Differences are also based on differing experiences. A teacher teaching in an economically deprived area will have experiences different from those of a teacher in a more affluent area.

For example, we find that the direct teaching of ‘thinking’ as a skill in schools (see here) has a marked effect on self-esteem and behaviour in deprived areas. Youngsters now feel able to take control of their lives and to make decisions, choices and plans. In affluent areas the effect is more on the school work than on behaviour.

The experience of a person coming out of a bad marriage will differ from that of a person in a good marriage.

I remember one young Australian woman, Katie, telling me that in an ideal marriage the wife should adore the husband and he should appreciate that. Whenever I quote that to other people there is a wide difference in response: ‘It should be the other way around’; or ‘It should be equally balanced’. These differences arise from direct personal experience – a good or bad marriage, perhaps; from experience within a family; and from the experiences of others (as read in magazines, for instance).

There can be a huge difference with regard to views of the future. No one can be sure about the future. We can get some idea about the future from the past and from research. At best these only give some indications of what might happen – a guess. Personal experience and experience within a field will also help to form ideas about the future.

Suppose there was a suggestion that marriage should be a formal five-year contract, which could be renewed at the end of five years if both parties so wished. There would also need to be provision for any children born during the five years. What would happen? What would happen to society? What would happen to men and to women? What would happen to the children?

The ‘judgement’ as to whether this was a sound suggestion or not would depend on personal values and experience. The judgement, however, could only be applied if you, personally, looked into the future. You have to imagine the possible consequences before you can judge the value of the suggestion. There might be many possibilities. The outcome would not be uniform. Some might be affected for the better, some for the worse. It could be argued that those in a happy marriage would simply renew the contract. Those in a poor marriage would have a simple way out. Others might envisage irresponsible people going through a series of marriages.


The most important thing to do about differences of opinion is to spell out as clearly as possible the actual difference. For example:

I think that raising prices will increase sales. You think that raising prices will reduce sales.

I believe that ‘thinking’ can be taught directly as a skill in school. You believe that you cannot teach thinking directly but can only pick up good thinking habits through studying other subjects.

You believe that severe punishment is the best way to control crime in all cases. I believe that giving youngsters an alternative way of sensing achievement will reduce crime amongst the young.

Lay out the differing opinions alongside each other. Seek to be as honest as you can about this. Get the other person to agree that you have spelled out the point of difference correctly. If necessary, invite the other person to summarise the point of difference as he or she sees it.

Try to reach the point where you can say: ‘We agree to differ on this point.’


Having laid out the nature of the ‘difference’, the next step is to try to lay out the reason for the difference:

I believe that you are looking at it from that point of view … and I am looking at it from this point of view … (and give the two different points of view).

We are looking at it in two different ways. This is my perception … and I believe your perception to be … (and give the two perceptions).

The difference may just arise from personal preference. You like clever people and I prefer charming people.

We are using different sets of values. My values are as follows … Your values seem to be … (and lay out the differing values).

The difference may arise from differing personal experience. My experience has been … Your experience may have been different (give your personal experience).

We seem to have different views about what might happen in the future. My view is based on … Your view seems to be different (give some basis for your view of the future).


Before accepting the difference, an attempt should be made to reconcile the difference.

Sometimes it can be shown that both opinions are valid but they apply to different parts of the situation. For instance: ‘I accept that for many types of crime severe punishment is the best deterrent but for youth crime I think there is another approach: give youngsters other opportunities for achievement.’

This is very similar to the suggestions made in Chapter 1 (How to Agree).

It might be shown that both parties are not really looking at the same thing. In the case of the half-empty wine glass, one person is looking at the empty space and the other person is looking at the remaining wine.

As in the example of the ‘best route’ from A to B, a clear definition of what is ‘best’ can often reconcile differences of opinion. An opinion is a sort of judgement. What is the basis for that judgement? Are we looking to see if something is good for society in general, or just for me?

Differences of personal experience can be jointly explored. It may be that the experience is valid but the interpretation of the experience is not necessarily the only one. Maybe youngsters in deprived areas do commit more crime and not because of economic needs but because they have to relate more to a gang than to their family – and gangs have to have activity.

Differences of opinion about the future can be explored by looking at parallel situations, such as: ‘When they raised the price of that perfume, sales actually increased.’

There may be precedents. Some of them may be more valid than others. Raising the price of a perfume may not be the same as raising the price of a magazine.

Research and further information may help sort out differences about the future. There is no way of being certain about the future. But some guesses are more likely than others. The intention is to work together to try to forecast the future.

Having made a genuine effort to reconcile the different opinions, there may be ‘an agreement to disagree’. This may take the form of an agreement that with different priorities or different sets of values, opinions will inevitably differ. At least the basis for the difference will be clear to all parties.

Difference of opinion is not a bad thing. Difference enriches the situation. Clarification of different values and experiences adds to the discussion. The intention is not to ‘remove’ the difference because difference is bad, but to investigate a subject through exploring the basis for the difference.

There is nothing worse than a ‘hidden’ difference where both parties think they are discussing the same thing from the same point of view with the same values and experience – and this is not so at all. The fiercest and the stupidest of arguments usually arise in this manner. This is like the witnesses in court arguing whether the accident was caused by a white car or a black car. It would never have occurred to them that a single car could be both black and white at the same time!


There are times when only one of a different set of opinions can be right. This is where ‘truth’ can be checked out.

More often different opinions can all have their own validity.

Difference may arise from a different definition of the basis for judgement (the ‘best’ road).

Difference may arise from personal preference, taste or choice.

Difference may arise from a different set of values.

Difference may arise from a different point of view or perspective.

Difference may arise from a different perception even if from the same point of view.

Difference may arise from differing personal experience or differing knowledge.

Difference may arise from a different view of possible futures.

Seek to lay out as clearly as possible the nature of the difference. Lay one opinion alongside the different one.

Seek to explore and explain the reasons for the difference.

Seek to reconcile the differences and then agree to differ on what cannot be reconciled.

4 how to be interesting

BEING INTERESTING IS much more important than winning an argument.

Being interesting is much more important than showing how clever you are.

If you are interesting people will want to be with you. People will seek your company. People will enjoy talking to you.

You may be interesting because you have taken part in an expedition to a remote part of the Amazon to meet up with a tribe that had never seen a white man before.

You may be interesting because you have sailed single-handedly around the world.

You may be interesting because you are carrying out fascinating DNA research on the population migrations in the history of humanity.

But for the sake of this book we shall assume that you have not done or are doing anything so spectacular. This is a little unfair because whatever you are doing, no matter how humble, is capable of being interesting.

The first rule is to talk about what you are good at and what interests you. It may be your job or it may be your hobby. You will need to fashion your discourse to suit two different audiences. The first is made up of those who know nothing about the subject. It is up to you to present the subject in an interesting manner. The second type of audience is made up of those who know something about the matter and want to know more. In the latter case you should invite questions and seek to answer them.


Did you know that female stick insects can have baby girl stick insects without any need for a male at all? If we could work out the hormonal combination that triggered the cells to divide then feminists could really get rid of men.

The seahorse may be the most feminist of all creatures. The female produces the egg, which the male fertilises. The female then ‘hands’ the fertilised egg to the male who has to look after it until the babies hatch.

In Queensland, Australia, there is a frog that swallows its eggs which have been fertilised by the male frog. The frog then turns off the hydrochloric acid and digestive juices in its stomach. The eggs develop in the frog’s stomach. When the young frogs are mature, the mother frog opens its mouth and the babies just hop out.

Unusual information is one type of interest. You can accumulate such information by remembering paragraphs you have read in newspapers or magazines. You can also take a special interest in some exotic matter and really become an expert: Zulu wars; yacht design; or family structure in Kazakhstan.

For the moment, however, let us suppose that you have no special information and are not doing anything very special. How then can you be interesting?


What if dogs could be taught to speak? What would happen?

It would be hard to keep family secrets because your dog would tell the neighbour’s dog and so on around the community.

Your dog could answer back. If you told your dog to go outside the dog might ask: ‘Why should I?’ Your dog could also indicate whether it liked the food it was given and when it was hungry.

You could set your dog to work: to answer the phone and to carry out errands. Your dog might ask a burglar: ‘Excuse me, what are you doing here?’

Single children and older people on their own would have a friend they could talk to.

Dogs might want political rights and even votes.

Television and other advertising would take into account the fact that dogs could listen to the advertisements and that dogs could now influence their masters.

Dogs might work for newspapers as reporters using voice recognition software to type out their stories.

What if China became the dominant economic power in the world?

What if women had to propose marriage?

What if human cloning became available and relatively cheap?

What if the HIV level in the USA reached the level in parts of Africa?

What if subliminal techniques made TV advertising extremely powerful?

What if we all began to speak in code instead of ordinary language?

What if everyone read this book?

The ‘what if?’ approach involves playing with ideas. Since the ideas are to be played out in the future, there is no way of checking which will happen and which will not. Because it is so open-ended, an effort should be made to put forward ideas that are as ‘logical’ as possible. For the sake of humour, the occasional ‘fantasy’ might be allowed.

Using this playful approach, the simplest of situations can be turned into an interesting game. For example: What if chief executives were to be trained as chief executives from the youngest age – as soon as they entered the corporation?

In France, judges are trained as judges from the earliest age. In the UK successful barristers are chosen and asked to become judges, although they often decline because the drop in income may be huge.


Most conversation and argument strives towards certainty: ‘this is the way it is’; ‘this is not right’; ‘this is what should (or should not) happen’.

Putting forward alternatives and other possibilities can make the discussion more interesting. The possibilities can then be explored – even if they are finally rejected. For instance: Maybe tax could be handled in a different way. The taxpayer could decide with up to half the tax being paid what that money should be used for – health, education, defence. This would allow a sort of voting through taxation.

Alternative solutions could be offered for recognised problems or conflict situations. Once the solution has been offered then it can be discussed and considered.

Around 150,000 people have been killed in the conflict in Algiers. About 56,000 people have been killed in the war in Sri Lanka. Around 39,000 people have been killed in the fighting in Colombia. Could there be any better approaches to solving these sorts of conflicts (also Kashmir, Northern Ireland, Israel, etc.). Could the UN function in a different way?

A young Australian doctor suggested that peptic ulcers might be caused by an infection. At first everyone laughed at him. It turned out that he was right. People who had spent years on antacids could now be cured in a fortnight. Serious operations to remove part or all of the stomach (Billroth operations) were now no longer necessary. Science advances through hypotheses and alternative possibilities.

It is said that in the USA 75 per cent of people marry someone with whom they work. This seems a very limited choice. What other alternatives could there be: the Internet, newspaper columns, agencies, marriage brokers?

In Roman Catholic countries official suicide rates seem very low. Is this because a strong religious element reduces suicides or because a suicide cannot be buried in a church graveyard so suicides are not recorded as such?

Quite recently the lowest birthrate in Europe was in Spain, which is a Roman Catholic country that forbids contraceptive devices. What was happening?

Fat people often seem happy. Is this just an illusion? Is it that the same hormones that make them fat also make them happy? Do they eat more because they are happy? Do they seem happy because they see that as the only way they can contribute to society?

Once you get into the habit of looking for alternatives and possibilities, any subject becomes more interesting.


I once knew a very famous philosopher. We were good friends but we found it difficult to hold a conversation because we each had a different view of what a conversation should be.

His idea of a conversation was that you should start out by defining your terms precisely. Then, at the end of the conversation, you would see whether or not the conclusions matched those initial definitions.

My idea of a conversation was more like climbing a ‘chimney’ in rock climbing. Each step took you further and further into new possibilities and new ideas. These could only be speculative. At the end you had a garden full of new plants.

Far too many people believe that thinking and talking should only be about the ‘truth’. It may be correct that we should only trust and act upon the truth but in order to get there we may have to explore possibilities (as with a scientific hypothesis).

In conversation there is also the entertainment value. Speculation also has a much higher entertainment value than truth. Playing around with ideas is both interesting and entertaining.

Are there fewer women artists than men because women are more serious and have to get on with the serious business of life and families, while men can be more irresponsible, frivolous and self-indulgent?


Making connections involves possibilities, alternatives and speculation. Is there a connection between the high suicide rate in China amongst women and the ‘one child family’ policy?

Was there a connection between the very successful organising of the 1984 Olympic Games in Los Angeles by Peter Ueberroth and the talk I gave to the Young Presidents Organisation in 1975 in Boca Raton? According to Peter Ueberroth there was and he used the creative techniques of lateral thinking to help him design the new concepts that made such a success of the Games.

Is there any connection between teenage pregnancy in England and a welfare policy that allocates public housing to mothers?

It is easy to see connections where there are none. Conspiracy theories and paranoia abound in imagined sinister connections. On the other hand, there is no harm in exploring possible connections so long as they are not taken seriously until proven.


If you are marking examination papers and one of the candidates puts forward a new idea, then that candidate moves ahead of all others. All the others may be very competent – but rather dull. A new idea shines out as being different.

It is the same in conversation. Most people can be reasonable and competent and rather dull. New ideas are rare because we have been taught analysis and judgement but never creativity.

There is a silly myth that creativity is a sort of mystical talent which some people have and which others can only envy. It is nothing of the sort. The main purpose of the brain is to allow incoming information to form itself into routine patterns. If the brain did not do this, life would be impossibly complicated and slow. So we identify situations and apply the routine pattern. This is the opposite of creativity. Instead of waiting for creative inspiration there should be some thinking methods which we could learn and use deliberately.

That is why I invented ‘lateral thinking’ with its formal methods. The term is now in most dictionaries and the methods are widely used in business and elsewhere. The methods include provocation, concept extraction, and random entry. All of them are based on an understanding of the behaviour of ‘self-organising systems’. A self-organising system is one in which information arranges itself into patterns. A provocation is a statement which we know to be false, but use to provoke new ideas by ‘moving forward’ from the statement. In any self-organising information system there is a mathematical need for provocation. I created the word ‘po’ to signal that what followed was a provocation.

Take, for instance, a factory on a river, which emitted pollution. People downstream suffered from this pollution. The following provocation, ‘Po, the factory is downstream of itself’, seems impossible and illogical. But from the provocation comes a perfectly practical idea. If you build a factory on a river then your input must always be downstream of your own output – so you have to be more concerned about cleaning up your own pollution. I am told this has since become legislation in some countries.

‘Po, people should decide, in advance, their own date of death.’

This was a provocation I used at a meeting of Nobel prize economists who were discussing pension schemes.

Creativity is a skill and a habit. You need to learn and practise the skill, which then becomes a habit. But even without any special creative skill you can always seek to have new ideas and to put them forward. If nothing else, the new idea will provide a starting point for fresh considerations.


You need to get into the habit of saying: ‘Now that is interesting.’

Once you are ready to use that phrase you can now direct the phrase at anything that comes up in the conversation. So instead of just carrying on with the flow of the conversation you now pause at that point. You explore the point. You elaborate around the point. You open up possibilities and alternatives. You make connections.

It is like having a bow and a quiver full of arrows. At any moment you aim your arrow at a particular point and let fly: ‘Now that is interesting!’

You will need to explain why you find that point interesting. You will need to build up and lay out the interesting aspects. You invite the other party to join you in exploring the point.

You should learn to use the phrase very formally as an attention-directing tool. It is not enough just to wait for the attitude to arise. You need to ‘direct attention’ in a deliberate manner (see here).


Being interested and being interesting go together. You need to develop the habit of finding interest in almost anything. Developing this habit of mind needs practice. A very simple way of doing this is to take different things and then to seek to find interest in them. Imagine you were talking about these subjects. What would you say? How could you be interesting about each of the following?




chewing gum


steering wheels



scrambled eggs

Try this simple exercise by yourself or with others. Cut out pieces of card and write different words (like the above) on separate pieces and put them into a bag. Without looking, draw a single card out of the bag. Everyone then tries to find something ‘interesting’ to say about that item.


It is always important to get to the truth, but being interesting is more important than winning an argument. You owe it to yourself and to others to be interesting.

Interest may arise from interesting things you have done, are doing or know about. Interest can also arise from how you conduct a conversation.

Using the ‘what if?’ technique can open up new possibilities and new lines of thought.

Looking out for possibilities and alternatives enriches the conversation. There is usually more than one way of doing things or looking at things.

Speculation looks forward and opens up new areas of interest. Description only looks backward.

Finding and making connections links matters together and generates interest.

New ideas are rare and freshen any discussion. Seek to be creative and to generate new ideas. Learn and apply the formal techniques of lateral thinking.

Provocation is a useful way to force new ideas. You put forward a statement you know to be wrong or impossible in order to provoke new thinking.

Use as a formal tool the phrase: ‘Now that is interesting.’ Be ready to apply this to anything you hear.

Seek to explore and elaborate and to pull interest out of any matter.

Practise simple exercises to develop your ability to create interest.

When someone else opens up an interesting line of thought, go along with it and help to develop the interest further.

5 how to respond

IN GENERAL, THE main objectives in any discussion, discourse or conversation could be summarised as follows:


To spell out and agree on the points of difference. This also includes spelling out the basis for the difference – values, experience or point of view, for instance.

To have as interesting a time as possible in the course of the discussion.

Those are the overall strategies or objectives. Getting there involves many other activities which happen from moment to moment. That is what this chapter is about. What is the immediate reaction, reply or response to something that has been put forward?

Some of the basic responses have been covered in preceding chapters.

You can agree with what has been said. You might agree completely. You might agree partially. You can agree with a modification of what has been proposed.

You can differ with what has been said. You need to show exactly where you differ, how you differ and why you differ. The other party needs to know the exact nature of your difference.

You can disagree with what has been said. You can disagree with facts, with values, with experience, with conclusions and with ‘certainty’. Once again you need to show the point of disagreement and the reasons for the disagreement.

You can suggest alternatives and possibilities, either to the whole proposition or to some part of it.

You can indicate a point of ‘interest’ and then seek to open up that point of interest.

You can summarise and then repeat back what you think you heard.

All these aspects have been considered in previous chapters and will also be revisited in future chapters.

This chapter is concerned with other aspects of a response.


There are few things more silly than two people arguing at cross purposes because each has misunderstood what the other person is saying. This is a waste of energy. So if there is the slightest doubt, you need to ask for clarification:

Is this what you said …

I understood you to say this … Is that correct?

I am not sure I understood what you said. Could you repeat it?

I am not totally clear about what you have just said. Could you clarify it for me?

Any speaker wants to communicate and to be understood, so no one minds being asked to repeat or to clarify something. To ask for a clarification does not mean that you are stupid. On the contrary, you are showing so much interest in what is being said that you want to be sure you have understood it correctly.

In asking for a clarification you can simply ask the person to repeat, perhaps in simpler terms, what has already been said, or you can give your version and ask whether this is indeed correct.

‘I understand you to be saying … Is that really what you are saying?’


Support goes much further than simple agreement. Agreement can be signalled with a mere nod of the head or the word ‘yes’.

Support means that you are going to put forward some opinion that actually makes the proposition of another person stronger. If someone says that he is hungry, you can agree that the person probably is hungry. If you give food to that person you are going further than mere acknowledgement.

You may support a proposition from your own experience: ‘I agree with you. My experience in schools has been exactly the same. For example …’

You may support a proposition from your feelings or emotions: ‘I feel exactly the same way as you do about …’

You may support a proposition from a shared set of values or moral principles: ‘We may share the same values and that is why I agree with you about …’

You may offer support from facts, figures and statistics which you happen to know: ‘There are statistics which support what you have just said …’

You may offer stories, examples, anecdotes all of which support the proposition that has been put forward.

What should you do if you do not agree with the line of argument but you have evidence that supports that line of argument? Should you keep quiet, like a lawyer in court?

The natural tendency would be to keep quiet. Why offer support for something with which you do not agree? Here we come to a rather important point. That point is the difference between an honest exploration of a subject and ‘case making’.

In ‘case making’, as in a court of law, you make your case and defend it and then you attack the case made by the other party. For centuries we have accepted this as the best way to explore a subject. It is not. It is primitive and crude. A much better way is introduced in Chapter 8.

So if you think of evidence that will support the other point of view, you put forward the evidence.

Suppose a speaker is complaining of the poor quality of service in stores. You say: ‘Well the other day I was in a store and …’

You then tell a tale of appalling service which supports the point of view. However, you add: ‘There are examples of poor service, but on the whole I think standards of service have increased considerably in the last ten years.’


Examples and stories that fit in with what is being discussed add life and reality to any conversation. A conversation that is carried on entirely on an abstract philosophical level can be very boring.

Stories do not prove anything in the sense that statistics can prove something. A story about one enterprising and hard-working teenager does not prove that all teenagers are enterprising and hard working. Nor does it disprove the suggestion that most teenagers are lazy and only want to have a good time. Stories can be used to attack ‘sweeping generalisations’ (see here and here). The generalisation that ‘all teenagers are lazy’ can be reduced to ‘some teenagers seem lazy’.

Apart from the liveliness and ‘actuality’ of stories, they illustrate possibility. A teacher told how a schoolyard bully was totally transformed by the direct teaching of ‘thinking’ as a skill (not just critical thinking). I saw his letter to the teacher. In it he wrote: ‘I used to think I was good at nothing, now I know I am good at thinking.’ (And he was.)

Such a story does not ‘prove’ anything but it illustrates a possibility. The possibility is that youngsters who are not good at the usual school subjects are not stupid at all but potentially good thinkers. Once they realise this their self-esteem rises and they no longer need to be bullies.

Stories can illustrate principles – which is why there are the parables in the Bible.

Someone once told me about some complex calculations to see how much rocket fuel had been loaded. One day someone suggested putting in a window so that they could see the level of the fuel. The principle is that there may be a simpler and more direct way of doing things.

In Miletus, in ancient Greece, there was an epidemic of suicides. Young women heard that a friend of theirs had committed suicide and they proceeded to do the same. The hysteria was stopped by an old fellow in the Senate who introduced a law that the body of every suicide would be carried, naked, through the marketplace. There are many principles to be extracted from this story. One of them is the importance of vanity.

Examples from personal experience are particularly powerful. When I was a young Rhodes scholar at Oxford you were supposed to be back in college by a certain time. If you went off to a party in London and got back late you had to climb into the college. One foggy night I returned late from London. I knew that there were two walls to be climbed. So I climbed the two walls. I found myself outside again. In the fog I had climbed in and out across a corner. So when you are sure you are doing the obvious and correct thing, it is still worth checking!

There is a story about packers in a factory that used old newspapers in the packing process. The trouble was that the workers would spend too much time reading interesting bits in the old newspapers. They solved the problem (so it is said) by employing blind packers.

It is important to remember that stories do not prove anything. So a string of powerful stories does not prove a point. The stories illustrate matters and also show possibilities.


You may like the point that is being made. Not only do you agree and want to provide supporting material, but you actually want to ‘build upon’ the point.

Suppose someone is talking about ‘the need for achievement in youngsters’. In support of this point you can offer the statistic that in the USA, 94 per cent of youngsters rated achievement as the most important thing in their lives.

This is support. Then you build upon the point and try to see where youngsters could get their sense of achievement. If a youngster was not gifted in the academic or sporting areas and did not play the guitar, where was achievement to come from? One possible area was ‘hobbies’. Maybe a much more serious effort could be made to encourage and develop hobbies at school?

Someone else might be talking about how important self-esteem is to teenagers. You agree and then build upon this by offering a new idea. Suppose a rule, or suggestions, was in place that required all school principals to ‘say something positive’ about every child graduating from schools. Maybe the youngster was kind, or friendly, or on time, or helpful, or made people laugh. This would mean that teachers would start to look out for positive aspects outside the academic requirements.


An idea is suggested. You not only accept the idea but try to extend it.

The person putting forward the idea may not realise the full possibilities of the idea, so you help that person see these possibilities. Once again, this goes much further than mere agreement. There is a co-operative effort to get the most from the idea.

In the Veneto region of northern Italy there is said to be one business for every eleven people. The region is one of the most economically successful in the whole of the European Union. What is the secret of setting up small businesses?

One of the problems is risk. Someone suggests that low-interest loans (which are used in Italy) would help people to set up their own business. You can extend this attempt to reduce risk by suggesting another idea. When a small business collapses, the losses can be sold as a tax credit to any other company (which does not have to be in the same field). This removes some of the downside of setting up a small business.


This is really a version of the ‘what if’ process.

You take the suggested idea and then ‘carry it forward’ into practice and into the future.

It is suggested that in an election each voter should have both a positive vote and a negative vote. The negative vote would be used ‘against’ a candidate and would mean: ‘I really do not want that person in government.’

You imagine the idea in practice. It might be difficult for extremists or tyrants to get into power. Their supporters would vote for them but everyone else would give them negative votes, which would then cancel the positive votes. A negative effect might be that people in one party would give negative votes to the most able person in the other party.

Carrying something forward means looking at all the possible consequences and scenarios. It is a genuine exploration – not just a search for aspects which support a point of view.

I once suggested that in the Middle East, Tuesday would be declared a violence-free day. This would mean that people could relax on Tuesday and would look forward to Tuesday. Then they would start to ask why every day was not like Tuesday and the impetus for peace would be increased. There is also a precedent for the idea. In the time of Muhammad, one day in the week was declared ‘war free’ and on that day you bought and sold camels and carried out other business.

In all these suggestions there is the spirit of co-operative exploration rather than an argument ‘battle’.


You can offer to modify a proposition that is put forward. You may want to modify it to remove parts you do not like and so make the proposition more acceptable to you. You may modify the proposition to remove faults and weaknesses that occur to you. You may modify the proposition to make it even stronger.

One of the simplest forms of modification is to seek to reduce a sweeping generalisation to a less absolute statement (see here and here). For example: All sex offenders should be castrated.

This might be modified to: There may be a place for investigating hormonal treatment of some sex offenders.

I once put forward an interesting idea in Northern Ireland. The suggestion was that when a political party lost an election, those who had voted for the losing party would pay 10 per cent less income tax. The logic is that if the winning voters were to be governed by their choice of government, the losers would be compensated by paying less tax! There would need, however, to be voter registration. The idea was not well received because the Unionists, who generally formed the majority of the assembly, did not see why others should be compensated.

Now that idea could well be modified to make it more practical and more acceptable. The level of tax difference could be altered. The system might only be used if the same party had been in power for more than two terms.

It is not a matter of ‘your idea’ and ‘my idea’. Once an idea has surfaced then it is there to be jointly developed and improved. Both parties benefit from that.


The overall objective in any conversation might be to agree, to disagree, to agree on the difference – and to have an enjoyable and interesting discussion.

If you are in any doubt about what has been said, it is important to ask for clarification. Misunderstanding and arguing at cross purposes are a waste of time and energy.

Support goes beyond agreement. You can support a point that has been made from statistics, from your own experience, from a shared set of values and so on.

Anecdotes, examples and stories add liveliness and reality to the discussion. They may be stories from your own experience or ones you have heard and believe to be relevant.

Stories do not ‘prove’ anything except perhaps to challenge a generalisation (by showing exceptions).

Stories illustrate principles, processes and possibilities. A process that might be complex to explain can be illustrated by a simple story.

You may want to go further than just agreeing with a point that has been made. You may want to build upon that point in order to take it further.

You may wish to extend a suggestion by enlarging it and growing the suggestion.

You can imagine an idea being put into action in the real world. You watch what might happen and describe what you see: in both a positive and negative sense.

You may want to modify an idea to make it more acceptable to yourself, stronger or more practical.

Once an idea has emerged it is no longer a matter of ‘your idea’ or ‘my idea’ but an idea to be improved and assessed.

Instead of the usual ‘battle’ of argument there is a joint effort to explore the subject.

6 how to listen

A GOOD LISTENER is very nearly as attractive as a good talker. You cannot have a beautiful mind if you do not know how to listen.

A good listener shows that he or she is paying attention to what is being said.

A good listener respects the speaker.

A good listener shows that he or she is genuinely interested in what he or she hears.

A good listener gets value from what is heard and shows that he or she is getting value.

All the above are to do with real attitudes and not just pretended attitudes. Unless you are going to be talking all the time, you are going to have to listen. So, do it well and get the most out of listening.


There are few things uglier than a listener who does not want to listen and is only waiting for the moment that he or she can speak. This impatience is usually very visible and is offensive to the speaker.

If you do not want to listen to anyone else then why should anyone else want to listen to you?

You may feel that what you have to say is more important than what others have to say – but that is probably not a view shared by the others.

So listen carefully and attentively and you should get more value than if you are just impatiently waiting for a chance to do your own talking.


If you listen carefully and attentively you will get more value from listening than from talking.

Talking can show how smart you are. Talking can convince others of your views. Talking can help you clarify your own thinking. But talking only rarely gives you something new. Listening, on the other hand, can give you new ideas – if you try to receive them.

There may be information that you did not know. You could, for example, find out why some countries drive on the right of the road and others on the left of the road.

There may be new facts. For example, statistics might be given. You may want to check these with a question before accepting them. Did you know that 95 per cent of US criminal cases are settled by plea bargaining? Did you know that in many countries more people are killed in road accidents through the driver falling asleep than through alcohol?

There may be a point of view you have not heard before. Smokers pay their pension contributions in the same way as everyone else. But smokers often live shorter lives (up to eight years shorter, depending on the extent of the smoking). So smokers often do not draw down the full pension to which they have contributed. So smokers are subsidising non-smokers – which is very altruistic of them.

There may be new insights and realisations. In the USA there are twenty-seven times as many lawyers per head of the population as in Japan. Law is one of the most popular faculties at universities. In Japan the total number of lawyers allowed to practise is itself limited by law. Why so many lawyers in the USA? Law is seen as a general-purpose qualification that both serves as a back-up and also allows you to do other things. It may also be that intelligent youngsters who want a mentally challenging profession but do not like mathematics go in for law. Law is one of the very few professions that do not demand a high expertise in mathematics as a gateway requirement.

You may gain new, alternative perceptions. You might always have looked at something in one way and, through listening, you find that there is another way of looking at the same thing. Perhaps you perceive retirement as a time for resting. The new perception is that, on the contrary, it is the time for even more activity – but doing things you have always wanted to do and not been able to do. You may have perceived some person’s rudeness as aggression and then come to see it as a cover for insecurity.

You may find value in seeing how a point of view, totally different from your own, is put together rationally. You could listen to someone who genuinely believes that prolonging life at all costs is not a good use of resources. It is said that in the USA some 75 per cent of health care costs are spent in the last month of life. You might listen to ‘pro-choice’ and ‘pro-life’ views with regard to abortion.

You may find value in discovering what values matter to different people. What are these values? How do they operate these values?

Contrast someone sifting through mud to find diamonds and someone walking along a beach looking at the driftwood. The diamond seeker has to go through a lot of mud to find a single diamond. But the person knows what a diamond looks like and knows the market value (or sale value) of the diamond. This is equivalent to looking for things of known value.

However, the person walking along the beach looking at the driftwood is not looking for something of ‘known value’. This person ‘finds value’ in the unusual shape of the driftwood, which might make a good lamp, or a walking stick.

So value may be defined and recognisable, or it may be what you bring to something that creates the value. Perhaps something already in your mind can be put together with something you hear in order to create a new value.


Take note of the words being used. Take note especially of the adjectives. Adjectives are almost always subjective. Adjectives tell you what the person feels rather than objective reality. (See here.)

That was a very boring journey. (In fact, the scenery was beautiful but the person had seen it all before.)

The restaurant was very exotic. (In fact, the restaurant was over-gaudy and rather vulgar – to someone else’s eyes.)

He is arrogant and aloof. (In fact, the person is shy and reserved.)

Pay attention to the turn of phrase and the analogies that are used. Some of them might be useful for you to use yourself in the future.


This is a very useful part of listening. You repeat back to the speaker what you think that person has been saying. Such repetition indicates that you have understood what was said. It also clarifies the situation in your own mind. For example:

I think I heard you say that recession is good for business in the long term because inefficient businesses are killed which leaves more market for the efficient businesses when the recession ends. Is that correct?

Are you saying that the USA may be the only industrialised country that really respects and admires success? Are you saying that in other countries, such as Britain, there is an automatic envy of success and attempts to bring it down?

Did I understand you to say that women might make better doctors than men because women are more intuitive and therefore likely to take many more factors into account?

Is it your point that increasing the punishment for crime is not really a deterrent if criminals feel that their chance of being caught is actually very small?

Are you saying that Korean immigrant groups do well because they have a powerful structure of ‘self-help’ groups through which they help each other?

To summarise, condense, recapitulate and feed back what has been understood is flattering to the speaker, who wants to know if his or her message has been received.


Questions are very much part of listening. They show attention and interest. They allow for the further exploration of certain points. They permit the clarification of any misunderstanding. They enable the speaker to elaborate on points which seem to be of interest to the listener. They can be used to check up on things. For instance:

Are those official figures or a ball-park guess?

Did Mr Horsley actually say that in your presence?

Did you see that with your own eyes or are you passing on what someone told you?

Is that a scientific fact?

Do the figures actually support the point you make about smokers?

Does that apply across all age groups or only youngsters (see the birthday explanation given previously)?

How many more accidents do these people have?

If the difference is only a few per cent it may be statistically significant but not have much practical value (like charging more for insurance).

If a speaker says, for example: ‘In New Zealand it has been found that children from a severely dysfunctional family have an increased chance of becoming criminals,’ this may not seem surprising. If you then ask what is the extent of the increased chance, you may well be surprised. Such children seem to have one hundred times the likelihood of becoming criminals. That is a huge figure.


You may ask for more details around a point which particularly interests you. For instance:

‘Could you tell me more about these Korean self-help groups? How do they function?’ This shows interest and attention and allows you to get far more value from your listening.

The speaker may be trying to make a point and has no way of knowing which part of his or her discourse is of most interest to his audience. It is up to the listeners to ask questions to get more details around the more interesting points. To take another example: ‘China may be the only country in the world in which the suicide rate for women now exceeds the suicide rate for men.’ Questions might be:

Is this a recent trend?

Is it related to the one child per family policy?

Is this across all age groups?

Is the figure the same for single and married women?


As you listen there are always at least two focuses.

The person speaking may be trying to make a point, to express an opinion or to create one side of an argument. You need to pay attention to this. What is the speaker trying to achieve? How well is the speaker achieving this? Do you agree with the speaker’s main point? Is the speaker convincing?

Respect for the speaker means that you are listening to what the speaker is ‘trying to do’.

At the same time there is a second focus.

Let us say you are driving along a road and you want to get to town ‘B’. As you drive along you pass through a quaint village or you drive by an historic site. You stop to explore what has caught your interest.

So as you listen, the second focus is concerned with matters of interest that arise in what you hear but have little direct relevance to the case the speaker is trying to make. When you hear a reference to Korean self-help groups you want to know more about them because such social structures interest you.

If you hear that the prophet Muhammad in the Hadith (his own sayings) has several references to ‘thinking’, you may want to know what these references are.

The trick is to keep both focuses in mind if you are to get full value from listening. Suppose you only focus on the main argument being made. At the end you find you do not agree with the argument. If you have only focused on the argument you have gained very little. However, if you have also focused on the ‘interest content’ of what has been said, you may have learned important new information, alternative perceptions and different experiences (see here and here).


The ability to listen and the enjoyment of listening is a key part of developing a beautiful mind.

A good listener pays attention and seeks to get the maximum value from what is being said. There are two focuses for attention: the point the speaker is trying to make; and the separate value of what is being said (in its own right).

Listening is not just having to wait impatiently until you can yourself speak.

You may get new information and you can probe for further information with questions.

You may get a new point of view which had not occurred to you before.

There may be new insights and realisations that are triggered by the speaker.

You might realise there are alternative perceptions that are new to you.

You may learn the reasoning behind a point of view quite different from your own.

You could learn how people apply values which differ from your own.

You should take note of the words used and especially the adjectives, which indicate feelings.

You should make a habit of repeating back to the speaker what you think you have understood. This is both useful and important.

You should use questions to check on facts and to ask for more details around points of interest.

7 questions

QUESTIONS ARE IMPORTANT because they are one of the main means of interaction between people in conversation or in any type of communication (see here).

What would the world be like if we were not allowed to ask questions?

Ask this question to anyone you like. Most people would answer that life would be very difficult. It would be hard to communicate and almost impossible to get what we wanted if other people were involved.

The real answer is that it would make almost no difference at all.

A question is simply a way of directing attention. For example:

‘What is your name?’ This means: ‘Direct attention to your name’; or even, ‘Tell me your name.’

‘Which country eats more chocolate per head than any other country?’ This means: ‘Direct attention to chocolate eating in different countries and tell me which one is at the top of the list.’

So we use questions to get someone to direct his or her attention to something we want or want to know.

The Greek philosopher Socrates had and has a great reputation for asking questions. But what sort of questions were they?

Socrates: If you were choosing your best athlete would you choose that person by chance? If you were choosing the best navigator for a ship, would you choose that person by chance?

Listener: Of course not.

Socrates: Why then do we choose our politicians by chance (in the last round)?

The listener is expected to say that chance is never the best way of getting the most able people.

The reason the Greeks did use chance was to avoid bribery, corruption and factions, which have nothing to do with athletics or navigation but everything to do with politics.

Socrates mainly asked ‘leading questions’. Step by step the listener gave the ‘expected answer’ to a question and so had to reach the conclusion that Socrates wished the listener to reach.

Socrates rarely asked open-ended questions.


In the CoRT programme (see here) a distinction is made between ‘fishing questions’ and ‘shooting questions’.

A huntsman goes out with a gun. He shoots at a bird. There are only two possible outcomes: he hits the bird or he misses the bird (leaving out minor hits). There are two features here. We know what the man is aiming at. We know the range of possible outcomes.

In a ‘shooting question’, we know the target. We also know the range of possible outcomes – ‘yes’ or ‘no’. For example:

Did you go shopping this morning?

Is George W. Bush the fortieth president of the USA?

You went to Cornell, did you not?

All these questions can be answered by a simple ‘yes’ or ‘no’. That is what the questioner intends. A shooting question is always designed to be answered by a yes or no.

The main purpose of a shooting question is to check on something, where what is to be checked falls within a limited range.

If you wanted to know in which month someone’s birthday fell you could ask: ‘Is your birthday in January?’ If you got the answer no you would then ask: ‘Is your birthday in February?’ And so on through all the months of the year until you got a yes.

It might be more efficient to ask: ‘Does your birthday fall in the first six months of the year?’ If the answer was yes, you would then ask: ‘Is your birthday in the first three months of the year?’ In this way the number of questions needed would be considerably reduced.

It would, of course, be much simpler to ask: ‘In which month does your birthday fall?’

We now come to ‘fishing questions’. When you go fishing you sit by the stream and cast your bait. You do not know exactly which fish you are going to catch or whether you will catch any fish at all. It is much more open-ended than shooting at a particular bird.

So, fishing questions are open-ended. The questioner does not know what answer will be given. For example:

What is the most popular girl’s name in the USA?

Who won the 100 metres race at the Sydney Olympics?

What is the best treatment for sinusitis?

The range of answers is, however, limited by the nature of the question. The answer to the question about the most popular girl’s name would not have been ‘Cornflakes’.

The person asking the question may or may not know the answer, or may offer a guess (I think it is so). The answer may sometimes be ‘none’ but this is still different from a shooting question.

* * *

Fishing question: Who were the female presidents of the USA?

Answer: There have not been any female presidents.

Shooting question: Have there been any female presidents of the USA?

Answer: No.

* * *

If you suspected that the answer to your question might be ‘no’ you would ask a shooting question. If you had no idea you would ask a fishing question. ‘How many father and son presidents of the USA have there been? And who were they?’

If you know exactly what you want to check on then a shooting question is appropriate. Otherwise a fishing question, at least at first, is more efficient. ‘What is the date of the statistics you are quoting?’ may be more effective than asking: ‘Are those statistics recent?’


An obvious use of questions is to check on the source and validity of figures, stories, reports, for example. Is there an objective report which anyone can look at? If an argument rests on certain points then you do need to check the source of those points. You might say: ‘Is that your direct personal experience or are you quoting someone else?’

There is a big difference between objective measurement and personal opinion. Even if you believe the data is from an official source, it is always worth checking with a question.


Perhaps the most frequent use of questions is to ask for more detail, or elaboration around a point: ‘Could you tell me more about that?’

You may need the elaboration in order to understand the matter more fully. You may need the elaboration purely out of interest.

When figures are given it could be important to know the relevant detail. How big was the sample? Was this a mixed age group? Do the figures hold across age and gender? How was the survey done? This is not so much to check the figures but more to extract more information from the figures.


‘Is an explanation given for this?’

You can ask for an official explanation if one has been offered. You can ask the person offering the information for his or her explanation. You might then proceed to offer your own possible explanation.

Science is all about hypotheses, which are provisional explanations for perceived events.

Sometimes an explanation will have been investigated and proved correct. You need to know this.


‘What are the alternatives?’

‘What are the possibilities?’

There are four levels of alternatives and possibilities:

Alternatives and possibilities that have been officially considered and have been checked out.

Alternatives and possibilities that are official but have not yet been checked out.

Alternatives and possibilities which the speaker has generated but not checked out.

The additional alternatives and possibilities that you, as a listener, can suggest.

The ability to generate possibilities enriches the discussion but also frees us from the certainty that something ‘must be so’ only because we cannot think of an alternative explanation. (See here.)

The speaker may be asked: ‘Would you accept this possibility?’

Some people have difficulty with possibilities on the basis that if everything is possible, how can any decision be reached? Yet the procedure is quite straightforward. In the ‘consideration’ phase you need to open up possibilities. In the ‘action’ phase you need to narrow down to probabilities and specific actions. You would not stand on the top of a burning building hoping that Batman might swoop down and rescue you.


A listener may have difficulty with an extreme position taken by a speaker. The listener may want to modify the proposition to make it more realistic and more acceptable. He or she might say: ‘Would you accept this modification to your proposition?’

There may be certain core elements the speaker does not want to modify at all. For example, he or she may want police forces to be as ethnically balanced as the areas in which the force works. Does this mean that merit has to be put aside in order to get this balance? That can be asked directly as a question. There is also a modified position: ‘All other things, including merit, being equal, then an effort should be made to get the ethnic balance. Would you accept this version?’

The speaker may not accept it on the basis that no effort will be made to improve education and skills if the modification is accepted.

Or, ‘Has this alternative been considered?’


The listener may pose a question in which the speaker is asked to choose between a limited range of answers. Many speakers will object and claim that the answer lies outside the boxes, between the boxes or in more than one box. Nevertheless, it can be useful to try this sort of question from time to time:

‘In your experience, are women in business a) more decisive than men; b) less decisive than men; c) no different at all from men?’

The answer might be that there is no general picture but a lot of individual variation.

Another multiple choice question might be: ‘Would you say that heart disease was related to any one of these factors more than the others: a) genetics; b) race; c) life- style; d) diet?’

And another: ‘Which of the following themes is mentioned most often by politicians in their election promises: a) health; b) education; c) taxation; d) employment; e) economic growth; f ) crime?’

The answer is ‘education’ and almost every US president declares himself to be ‘the education president’.

Would you say that it was economic factors or social factors which drove teenage crime?


People do not like talking about values. It is assumed that they are obvious. It is assumed that everyone shares the same basic values – freedom, for example. Values are private and talking about values is somewhat like talking about sex.

You may not get an answer but it is possible to ask what values are in use when a proposition is put forward: ‘In your views on prison and punishment what are your key values?’

Values put forward might include: justice; protection of society; deterrence; restitution; rehabilitation of criminals; cost to society. The next question might ask about the hierarchy – Which values come first? Which are the dominant values?

Questions about values can be put as multiple choice questions: ‘In times of heightened sensitivity regarding terrorism, which value should come first: protection of innocent people in society or individu