Finding the flexibility in business operations - and injecting your organisation with innovation - are the only ways left for South African companies to differentiate themselves from countries such as India and China, according to Edward de Bono, the world's foremost creative thinker, who will be appearing live in South Africa on Wednesday, 4 June 2008.
“It's no longer good enough for organisations to find better ways of following the same old routines,” says de Bono. “What is needed is a new degree of flexibility, a system that's open to innovation and suggestion, not merely a repetition of the methods of the past.
“The old efficiencies and standards of excellence still apply. The problem is that our organisations are no longer able to compete with the emerging giants of India and China, where they are able to do these things better, at a lower cost.”
De Bono will be teaching some of his patented lateral thinking techniques in person during an exclusive one-day event in Johannesburg, entitled Maximising Creativity and Lateral Thinking to Deliver Strategic Success, on 4 June at Gallagher Estate. During a similar event recently, participants came up with 21 000 new ideas during the day.
Lateral thinking
By using lateral thinking, de Bono says we can be innovative, to simplify problems and to find new ways of doing the same old things more effectively.
“It's all about adding value in the new world of work,” he said. “Every individual in the organisation should be able to come up with new, better ways of doing things and the organisation should have a process in place which recognises these, and acts on them.”
He believes that all countries should include these teaching methods in the national educational curriculum, following the example of China, for instance.
The full-day conference is the latest in a series of thought leadership events to be held in Johannesburg, organised by Global Leaders, following on from Tom Peters, Rowan Gibson, Scott Bedbury, Dave Ulrich and Deepak Chopra.
For more details, go to www.globalleadersevents.com/debonosa. Bizcommunity.com is a media partner.
