The De Bono Self-Organizing Information System Model
Understand the brain as a pattern-making system that excels at developing ideas but struggles to generate them, requiring lateral thinking to escape established patterns
De Bono describes the brain as a self-organizing information system that functions like a landscape where information creates channels. Once channels are established, incoming information flows into existing patterns automatically, which makes the brain excellent at pattern recognition and terrible at generating genuinely new patterns. The brain is a good computer precisely because it is a bad memory: rather than storing information exactly as received, it processes and distorts information to fit existing patterns. This processing behavior is what gives the brain its computing power but also creates its fundamental limitation. De Bono identifies four types of thinking that emerge from this architecture. Natural thinking follows the established channels wherever they lead. Logical thinking uses the artificial tools of classical logic to verify and extend established patterns. Mathematical thinking uses notation systems to perform operations impossible through natural thought alone. Lateral thinking is the only type designed to escape established patterns and generate genuinely new ones. De Bono argues that Western education and culture have focused entirely on establishing and defending ideas while providing no tools for changing ideas. Since people now live longer than ideas, we desperately need tools for re-forming concepts rather than just forming them. He proposes that a new functional word, analogous to mathematical symbols like zero, could be invented to perform operations on ideas that are currently impossible.
- The brain is a self-organizing pattern-making system that creates channels for information flow
- The brain is a good computer because it is a bad memory that processes rather than stores information
- Once patterns are established, the brain follows them automatically, making new pattern generation difficult
- Lateral thinking is the deliberate process of escaping established patterns to generate new ideas
- Western culture excels at forming and defending ideas but has no tools for changing them
- People now live longer than ideas, creating an urgent need for re-forming concepts
- Recognize the pattern-making nature of your thinkingObserve how your mind automatically categorizes new information into existing patterns. Notice how first impressions become fixed, how assumptions go unquestioned, and how familiar solutions are applied to new problems. This automatic pattern-following is the brain's default mode and the source of both its efficiency and its limitations.
- Identify where established patterns may be wrong or limitingExamine your key assumptions, categories, and problem definitions. Consider that many of these were formed arbitrarily based on the sequence in which information was received rather than on the inherent nature of the information. The brain's patterns are path-dependent: different sequences of the same information create different patterns.
- Apply lateral thinking to escape established patternsUse deliberate techniques to disrupt automatic pattern-following. These include random entry points where you introduce an unrelated concept to force new connections, reversal where you deliberately consider the opposite of current assumptions, and analogy where you apply patterns from unrelated domains. The goal is not to find the right answer but to generate alternative ways of looking at the situation.
- Use the restructuring insight to create new patternsWhen lateral thinking produces a new way of seeing a problem, the restructuring insight occurs: suddenly the information reorganizes itself into a new pattern that seems obvious in retrospect. This is the mechanism behind humor, which also works by suddenly restructuring expectations. The new pattern must then be tested and developed using conventional logical thinking.
- Build organizational practices that support pattern-breakingCreate regular practices for challenging established thinking. Schedule deliberate lateral thinking sessions. Invite diverse perspectives that bring different patterns. Make it safe to question assumptions that seem obvious. The most dangerous ideas are those that are so established they are never examined.
De Bono tells of his first night at Oxford when he needed to climb into his locked college. Following instructions to climb two walls, he climbed the first wall and then a second wall, only to find himself outside again. He had climbed in and out across a corner rather than penetrating deeper into the college.
De Bono contrasts the brain with a computer. Computers have exact memories and separate processing units. The brain has no separate computing part; instead its imperfect memory IS the computer. Because it distorts and processes information rather than storing it faithfully, the brain creates patterns that enable rapid recognition and response.
Edward de Bono developed this model while studying at Oxford as a Rhodes Scholar and later earning a PhD from Cambridge and an MD from the University of Malta. He observed that the brain's pattern-making behavior, while extremely efficient for survival, created systematic blind spots that prevented creative thinking. In 1967 he coined the term lateral thinking to describe the deliberate process of escaping established thought patterns. The Mechanism of Mind was written to provide the theoretical foundation for why lateral thinking is necessary by explaining the mechanical behavior of the brain as an information-processing system.