- Hardcover: 320 pages
- Publisher: Viking; 1st Edition edition (1998)
- Language English
- ISBN-10: 0670870129
- ISBN-13: 978-0670870127
- Product Dimensions: 23.6 x 15.2 x 3.4 cm
- Average Customer Review: 3.4 out of 5 stars See all reviews (8 customer reviews)
- Amazon Bestsellers Rank: 695,677 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
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Product Description
Synopsis
This text argues that in an increasingly complex world, "simplicity" is going to be a key value. The pace of change is not going to stop so we have to make a conscious effort to make things simpler. Edward de Bono shows that very often a lateral thinking approach can simplify a complex matter.
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First Sentence
There is often a much simpler way of doing things - if you make the effort to look for it. Read the first page Browse Sample Pages
Front Cover | Copyright | Excerpt | Back Cover
There is often a much simpler way of doing things - if you make the effort to look for it. Read the first page Browse Sample Pages
Front Cover | Copyright | Excerpt | Back Cover
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Customer Reviews
Most Helpful Customer Reviews
7 of 7 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
I'm not going to be able to review this very objectively I'm afraid, as I found it insufferably annoying! I can see what De Bono is trying to do - he's trying to embody his own message in his writing and presentation style. Unfortunately, rather than illustrating his points, his short and direct sentences felt contrived and inadequate to me. He also only writes on every other page, with a pull quote on the ones in between. I think this is so you can skim read the book if you wish. That's a neat idea, but considering the amount of empty space that leaves, and how many times De Bono repeats the same point, he could have written a book a third of the length and better for it.
It's a shame, because there's an important message about valuing simplicity at the heart of the book, and I'm all for that.
Others have found it useful, so don't take my word for it, but in my mind it's an interesting but ultimately unsuccesful book.
It's a shame, because there's an important message about valuing simplicity at the heart of the book, and I'm all for that.
Others have found it useful, so don't take my word for it, but in my mind it's an interesting but ultimately unsuccesful book.
16 of 17 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
First the good points about this book - making things simple *is* important so this book imparts an important message; it's also short; and it's cheap. Now the bad news...It's lacks fore thought, it lacks structure, it's repetitive, it's almost entirely bereft of good examples (maybe he doesn't have any). Would I recommend it? Yes - it's a quick, cheap read which (possibly because of its repetition) reminds you of the importance of making things as simple as possible...
18 of 20 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
This is a great book and I wish that I had read it years ago.
Edward de Bono not only makes the case for simplicity but he exhorts us to pursue it and he gives us a framework for doing so.
I can look back on many occasions when I wish I could whipped out such a book from my briefcase and thumped it in front of the annoying or imbecilic person with whom I was dealing at the time and said "Go home, read that, then come back and resume this discussion".
I find that I have underlined many useful comments or ideas. My favourite is possibly this:
"An expert is someone who has succeeded in making decisions and judgements simpler through knowing what to pay attention to and what to ignore." On the other side of the coin, de Bono has some harsh words for people who try to establish themselves as experts by making things more complex and more difficult to understand. Keep this in mind when dealing with "experts".
The book loses points for being way too long. In the edition I read, the main text was printed only on the right hand pages and an extract or summary of that text was printed in large letters on the facing left hand page, thereby turning a 150 page book into a 300 page book. Very irritating. Indeed, in illustrating a point in the book, de Bono says that he could have made the book - by which I assume he is referring to the main text on the right hand pages - shorter (simpler) but his publishers told him that it had to be a certain length! So, by his own admission (or, perhaps, apology) this should have been a 50 page book.
It's a pity, because it would have been a better book if it had been simplified.
Maybe one day de Bono will take a leaf out of his own book and simplify his main works into a single slim volume. It must be satisfying to look back on a life's work filling the bookshelves, but how much more satisfying would it be to have that life's work in a single volume and thereby easily accessible. It could be called "The Readers Digest de Bono", or "The Best of de Bono" or, perhaps, ideally, "de Bono Simplified".
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Most Recent Customer Reviews
Some good ideas but extremely irritating
As with most of EDB's books there are some good and thought provoking ideas in here but I found reading the book a chore rather than a pleasure because 1) the writing style has... Read more
Published on 8 Sep 2009 by A. Davies
Mind changing
Buy this book - find a quiet spot - read from cover to cover - and see if it doesn't change the way you look at and think about everything. Read more
Published on 9 Sep 2003
Simply simple
This book doesn't have the same potency as other De Mono books and I can't see his new word Simping making the dictionary the way Lateral Thinking did but I think it succeeds in... Read more
Published on 19 Nov 2001 by M. A. Nicholson
excellent
"All the best ideas are simple" - so they say and this book is no exception. It makes you really think about the whole meaning of simplicity and what an amazing thing it... Read more
Published on 29 Nov 2000
Some interesting nuggests lost in repetition & contradiction
The topic of 'simplicity' shouldn't be an excuse for writing so minimalist that cohesion and sense is lost. Read more
Published on 6 Sep 2000
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