He was probably one of the great thinkers of the 20th century but, when he died in 2021 at the age of 88, Edward de Bono’s 19-year-old-son commented: “I haven’t met anyone my age who’s heard of him….”

And yet this Maltese born writer, described as a ‘prodigy’ when he was barely out of shorts, was courted, and read, by kings, celebrities and leaders across the world for decades, from Russia’s perestroika president Mikhail Gorbachev, Robert Maxwell and even the Philippines’, Imelda Marcos, through to American President George H.W. Bush and former British Prime Minister, Tony Blair, who came close to introducing many of his ideas into UK schools.

Now, you can discover more about this fascinating man, author of 66 books and the father of ‘lateral thinking’, courtesy of writer Sarah Tucker’s biography, Love Laterally, which takes an intimate, behind-the-scenes look at what made De Bono tick, and why he was able to simplify many of life’s difficult concepts into bite size, understandable chunks that world leaders could grasp.

I Am Right You Are Wrong, The Use of Lateral Thinking, Think! Before it’s Too Late and Why I Want To Be King Of Australia, were just a handful of the headline grabbing titles he penned, however, it is probably 1985’s The Six Thinking Hats: An Essential Approach To Business Management for which he is best remembered.

Collectively, his books sold millions of copies worldwide.

And yet he died with little formal recognition – no honour or ‘title’ as such from the British government - some would say passed over by the very establishment figures who seemingly clung to his every word: genius or charlatan?

That is the implied question, I think, that Tucker seeks, in part, to shed light on in this fascinating book which, rather than simply listing his accolades – he was a trained medic and Professor, won a prestigious Rhodes Scholarship to study at Oxford and was nominated for a Nobel Prize in Economics - seeks to get under the skin of a man who, at one time, owned several islands and a raft of high value properties.

And yet, when he died, bequeathing £40,000 to his long-standing assistant, Paddy Hills, there was just £11,900 in his account, making it impossible for his generosity to be fulfilled.

“My challenge in writing this biography is to describe the multiple aspects of De Bono’s personality, and to impart something of his true essence which I discovered from meeting him, his family, friends and colleagues over more than a decade,” says Tucker.

And she achieves just that in this fascinating book which not only took seven years to research and write, but which is crammed with anecdotal information from those De Bono shared intimate moments with, including ex-wife Josephine.

Loved and despised by academics in equal measure – many hated the fact that he failed to offer evidence for his numerous theories – it was the ‘advertisers’ who initially ‘got him’. Advertising guru, Dave Trott, tells Tucker: “He was nothing if not provocative. But provocative is good. Provocation is what the world needs.”

And De Bono supplied it in spades.

“(He) didn’t just stamp all over the linear way of thinking we encourage in schools, universities, commerce, and politics – he kicked it into touch.

“He gave (his) different way of thinking a structure, relevance, applicability, and a name: lateral thinking. Ironically, the education establishment – an establishment born of learning – has yet to embrace his ideas fully.”

Almost hero worshipped in his Malta homeland, where cafes and shops were disinclined to even charge De Bono, you perhaps get the measure of the man when you read how, early on, he avoided bullying in school, by mapping a secret escape route out of the schoolhouse, before making duplicate keys to a huge set of iron gates.

Instead of thumping him, his would-be be tormentors simply kept him sweet so that they could borrow his keys and avoid lessons!

Move that early genius forward several decades and, highlights Tucker, you have someone who often outshone those around him and, perhaps, even discovered loneliness in his genius because there were few who could match his intellect.

De Bono thought that politicians should be chosen from the community and from a larger cross-section in terms of class, age and industry with more solution-focused individuals in their ranks.

“Debating societies in schools,” De Bono told Tucker, “especially then, were designed to be antagonistic, and tend to breed people who focus on winning, not on problem-solving…….this is why we often end up with the politicians and leaders we do. If you are able to win the argument, why bother finding the solution to the problem?”

What I like about Love Actually is that it makes you stop reading; momentarily! Because, every now and then, you have to pause for thought, if only to digest the nugget of information you have just been fed. You find your inner voice saying: ‘Wow, so true. Why don’t we do that?’

Explaining why De Bono was engaged by so many corporates to teach their teams to think and, in doing so, make more profit. His consultancy work inspired Qantas Airlines to develop the first baby-care centre on its planes.

Between 1960 and 1970 De Bono flew over 500,000 miles dipping into countries, boardrooms, seminars and conference centres across the globe, and rubbing shoulders with senior managers from the likes of Nestlé, J. Walter Thompson in the States, BP and Ford.

He consulted on the challenging social issue of crime in New York after which Neighbourhood Watch was born.

“De Bono is a national treasure like Stephen Hawking,” rails Dave Trott, “it’s ridiculous he hasn’t been honoured and celebrated in the same way……he was Harry Potter before Harry Potter was invented, with his belief that every government should have a Minister of Thinking.”

Even Tony Blair bemoaned the fact that De Bono’s ideas weren’t taken up more fully in the UK: “Many headteachers and teachers still have de Bono’s books on their bookshelves, but I believe it’s rather regressed back to its old ways since I left – which is a shame.”

Rather than worshipping De Bono’s genius, although I believe Sarah Tucker is one of his great defenders, she simply sets out to show the gamut of people who placed stow on De Bono’s work.

There were the politicians, corporate leaders and even the late Prince Philip, Duke of Edinburgh, with whom the great man was a close friend, sharing correspondence and sending signed copies of his books.

Annie Lennox from the Eurythmics used De Bono’s Six Thinking Hats approach to trigger ideas and when the Sweet Dreams (are made of this) album was launched in 1983, the record sleeve included a thank you to De Bono in recognition of his contribution to her and Dave Stewart’s work.

And so, Tucker’s book continues with its cornucopia of fascinating facts.

It is hard to ignore the De Bono legacy and clearly Sarah Tucker believes that he was the real deal and that any suggestion that he was the ‘King’s new clothes’ would betray one of the world’s great minds.

De Bono was less than impressed by Western education: “Education is like a ship where the lights have gone out,” he said, “the rudder is broken, the crew is demoralised and it’s drifting in the wrong direction. You can fly in a new captain, mend the lights, fix the rudder and inspire the crew but you’ll still be heading in the wrong direction.

“There’s a lot of fixing needed in education. But I do not think that who manages the administration of the education system will really make much difference to the direction in which it is heading.”

De Bono upset people and, towards the end, his reputation was left tarnished by many, including the Media.

Sarah Tucker’s book gets under the skin of this intriguing man and her book makes for compulsive bedtime reading, as you race through its pages trying to understand why a man who achieved so much, bought four islands, had affairs and courted some of the greatest people of his generation, died with little more than £12,000 in his accountant. But she does put forward an intriguing answer!

Even more concerning is that you are left wondering whether, in the final event, the western world sidelined one of its greatest ever thinkers and, in the name of arrogance, pride or closed mindedness, crucified yet another of its great Messiahs.

Well worth a read.

Love Laterally
Price £12.99
ISBN 978-1-913641-48-1
Available here.

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