Edward de Bono
I was invited to the VECCI Business Leaders Luncheon for an interview with Edward de Bono. It was a conventional interview followed by a brief question and answer session with questions from those attending. He spoke about a number of topics but the one that caught my attention was on the Creation Of Value. It was a question from one of those attending that sparked this off. The question was about how we can be more innovative in developing our businesses.
His answer, as usual, showed an amazing depth of perception. Here is how I remember it.
The western world, and particularly due to the influence of The Church, has done an excellent job of teaching people how to think about finding the truth. But what we have not done is to teach people how to think about Creating Value.
That is a pretty hefty thought and I would have attended the luncheon just for that challenging insight alone. But he followed with this.
So when something happens, and particularly when a problem or setback occurs, instead of asking “How do we go forward from here” or “What does forward look like from here”, we get stuck on who is to blame and who did right or wrong instead of focussing on how we Create Value or move forward from here.
Double header. Now I am really challenged and encouraged at the same time. My business mentor, Dr Marc Dussault, is on about the same thing; Creating Value. So now I have 3 things to think about:
- “How do I create value”?
- “What value do I want to create”?
- “How do we go forward from here”?
I am going to be giving that a lot of thought as we prepare for 2012. I encourage you to do the same.
Successful Endeavours specialise in Electronics Design and Embedded Software Development. Ray Keefe has developed market leading electronics products in Australia for nearly 30 years. This post is Copyright © 2011 Successful Endeavours Pty Ltd