HANDBOOK FOR THE POSITIVE REVOLUTION

EDWARD DE BONO

PENGUIN BOOKS              1991

PART III

Special Talent and Positions

Some people have a special talent or are in a special position and contribute much more. Some people are in a special position and contribute much more.

There are wealth creators. These are entrepreneurs who set up businesses or people who run businesses that have already been set up. They may be people who have inherited or bought land. Wealth creation is a valuable part of society for it provides both employment and food and goods to raise the standard of living. Wealth creation can also provide the exports which earn the money to buy goods from abroad.

• How can the talents, energies and risk-taking of entrepreneurs be harnessed for the good of society?
• A business has to survive in a competitive world and has to be profitable. Risk, enterprise, organization and hard work should be rewarded in relation to the contribution.
• Leaders should be encouraged and given responsibility, provided they can show that they are constructive and can contribute. Leadership training should be part of education.
• Survival is important. But the point of survival is contribution.

Contribution is much more than just playing by the rules. You may stick to the rules and laws and yet contribute very little.

Contribution is a basis of judgement. Instead of saying ‘Is he (or she) right or wrong?’, we might say: ‘What is his or her contribution?’. Instead of saying ‘Is he (or she) god or bad?’, we might say: ‘What is his (or her) contribution?’

Selfishness

There are people who only want to contribute to their own well-being – not even to their own self-improvement. These are the people who will cheat and exploit others. These are the people who will jump queues instead of waiting in line, and will find ways of beating the system. 

How should such people be treated?

Such people are often talented. The first step is to see if that talent can be used to play the new game: the constructive game. Such people often want an opportunity to use their enterprise, energy and ingenuity. Could this be used in a constructive way?

Information networks in any community quickly identify such people. This identification will be made easier by the naming process that is also part of the positive revolution (and which will be described later). Such a process will bring about the loss of respect for that person by the local community. All dealings with that person will be on this basis.

• The key weapon against selfishness is perception.
• A gradual change in perception of such people from heroes to social cockroaches is the most powerful way of changing behaviour.
• Almost everyone needs the respect of other people at some level.

 

Effectiveness

• Without effectiveness there is nothing.
• The greatest dreams in the world stay as dreams if there is no effectiveness.
• Not everyone can be born beautiful or intelligent but everyone can become effective.
• Effectiveness is a skill that we can build up for ourselves. We only need the will to do it.
• There are very few really effective people.
• Why is effectiveness so rare? We have to build it up until it becomes a habit. Otherwise our laziness and emotions destroy our effectiveness.
• Effectiveness is setting out to do something and doing it.

Effectiveness needs three things:

Control: you are in control of your actions and you know what you are trying to do.

Confidence: like a skilled craftsman you are confident that you can do the task.

Discipline: to give patience, perseverance and concentration.

Like any skill, the skill of effectiveness has to be built up gradually through training and practice.

• Any task can be divided into very small steps that are easy to take. Take one small step at a time and complete the task.

An author who writes just 1,000 words a day, every day, will have written five books in a year. Small things add up.

Whenever there is a any task to do and you do it, you should pause to say: ‘I have done that task and I have done it well.’

The Joy of Effectiveness

What is wonderful about effectiveness is that it becomes a joy and source of happiness. This is based on the following factors:

1. As we get involved in something that thing becomes more interesting.
2. As we develop the discipline of effectiveness then all tasks get much easier.
3. There is joy in achievement.
4. As we become more effective we become far more able to set up our own business or far more valuable to an employer.

The skill of effectiveness will be used to energize the positive revolution. The joy of effectiveness can become the hobby of achievement. This involves the companionship of working with others, the involvement of designing and planning a task, and the sense of accomplishment in telling others what has been achieved. All these things come together in the idea of the E-Clubs which are set up to provide a way in which ‘effectiveness’ and achievement can become a hobby. Setting up an E-Club is described in an appendix to this book.

Education

• Education teaches reading, writing, arithmetic and a lot of knowledge – the basic skills to survive in society and to contribute.
• There is, however, a skill missing from traditional education. This is the skill of thinking. Thinking in the sense of effectiveness.
• This is the thinking needed to get things done: objectives, priorities, alternatives, other people’s views, creativity, decisions, choices, planning, consequences of action.
• We have literacy and numeracy but we need ‘operacy’ or the skill of doing.
• Education must teach effectiveness.

Knowledge is not enough. Knowledge without effectiveness can be very dangerous. It can mean that the people with knowledge get into positions of power and do not know how to be effective.

The new education of the positive revolution must teach the thinking skills necessary for effectiveness, leadership and the skills of dealing with people.

Self-improvement

Self-improvement is a day-by-day slow process and can take place in four directions: 1. Developing positive attitudes, habits and skills.

2. Reducing the domination of bad habits and attitudes such as laziness, selfishness, depression and intolerance.

3. Getting better at whatever it is (work, job, task) that you are doing.

4. Acquiring specific new skills.

Increasing the Positive

The first direction for self-improvement is the development and improvement of positive attitudes and habits.

Reducing the Negative

The second direction for improvement is reducing the domination of certain negatives. These are not all going to disappear at once – or ever – but a slight reduction is worth having.

Better at What You Are Doing

• If you are doing a job, can it be done better? In the Toyota car factory in Japan there are 326 suggestions given by each employee every year, suggesting how the job can be done better.

 

New Skills

• We should not be content with the skills we have.

Involvement and adventure keep the mind young and energetic. Who has drawn the line that says: ‘Beyond this point in your life you must not do anything new’?

Emotions

• Self-improvement means gaining control of our emotions. Human nature is frightened, insecure, greedy, aggressive, hungry for immediate reward and subject to group pressure.
• Self-improvement is not going to change human nature but we can learn to ride wild horses by understanding their nature and gradually gaining control.
• No one is going to be an instant saint every minute of the day. If you are a saint for only one minute a day and eventually you become a saint for two minutes a day that is improvement.

Self-improvement is a gradual process that accepts all manner of ups and downs. But it should start today. Not tomorrow because tomorrow never comes.

Respect

Respect and human values go together. We respect the humanity and human values of another person. We respect the individuality of another person. Both are important. It is not much use respecting human values in the abstract and having no respect for individuals. There is no better definition of civilization than respect for others. Those who insist that self-expression and freedom are more important than consideration for others are less than civilized.

A revolution that forgets about people is no revolution but a retrogression (a step backwards). A revolution that treats people badly in order to do them good is a contradiction. The purpose of any revolution is that the people should benefit – not only ultimately but even while the revolution is going on.

That is why respect is so central to the positive revolution.

Respect is much more practical than love.

Respect is treating each other person as a human being with the dignity of a human being.

Respect is treating others as you would wish to be treated yourself.

The Chinese people never had a strong religion. Instead, hundreds of years ago, a scholar called Confucius laid down the rules of how people should treat each other. In contrast to Western religions, Confucius was not interested in the souls of people. He was only interested in how people behaved towards each other in society. He claimed that if everyone behaved properly towards other people civilization would work.

In that one word ‘respect’ we seek to cover the whole aspect of behaving properly towards other people.

Respect works at three levels:

1. Respect is the protection of the basic human rights of any individual.
2. Respect for others is a fundamental principle of the positive revolution and reminds us that people are what matters most in the end.
3. Respect is the way we indicate to people their value in society. Respect is a reward and acknowledgement of their contribution.

 

Human Dignity and Human Rights

Lack of respect is the most basic crime of all because it covers most other crimes. Murder and torture are the most extreme cases of lack of respect for the lives of others.

• In the animal kingdom there is often a total lack of respect. One animal kills another because it is in their nature to kill.
• Civilization is civilization because of the concept of respect for basic human rights.
• There is an absolute right to be protected from murder and torture because these are not necessary.
• Society can only provide health, education, housing and food as far as this is possible.
• There is a great need for new ideas, creative and design thinking, in order to make the best use of limited resources.

It is possible to be poor and to retain human dignity and human rights. A very large part of the population of the world is poor. The way out of poverty is through the creation and distribution of wealth, through self-help, and through the positive and constructive attitudes of the positive revolution. History has shown that the exercise of rights does not itself create resources.

Methods

Power

Sectors of society

Problems

Summary

• This is a personal handbook for a positive revolution. The positive revolution has no enemies, no central organization, and no dogma. It is based on individuals people, their attitudes and their perceptions.
• Everyone can become a member of the positive revolution. Each point reached is a goal that sets a new goal.
• The five basic principles of the positive revolution are: Effectiveness; Being constructive and positive; Respect and human values; Self-improvement; Contribution.
• The positive revolution uses perception rather than bullets and bombs.
• The are four positive categories and four negative categories with a neutral category in the middle

Category one: leader and organizer. Not only contributes but makes it possible for others to contribute in a constructive and effective way.

Category two: A major individual contributor but without the multiplying effect of category one.

Category three: Hard-working, cooperative and helpful. Motivated and tries hard even though eventual contribution may not be major.

Category four: Positive, agreeable, pleasant and cheerful. Does a job well enough and is nice to have around. Not very effective or even motivated to be effective.

Category five: Neutral and passive. Content to drift from moment to moment. Fills in the time with pleasures and distractions.

Category six: Critical, negative and destructive. Such a person uses his or her intelligence to attack rather than to build. May mean well.

Category seven: Behaviour that is totally selfish. Such a person is not seeking to hurt others but is concerned solely with his or her own interests.

Category eight: The bully who uses his or her own power to get what is wanted from others. The deliberate exploitation of other people.

Category nine: The psychopath who has no respect whatever for the rights or existence of others. No morals and no conscience.

The power of the positive revolution will come from positive and constructive attitudes together with an emphasis on effectiveness. Power will also come from the exercise of perception to change values. The final power comes from an alignment of all these things in a growing number of people who feel that passivity and negativity are not the best ways of moving towards a better future.

The power is not just the power of a group of people but the personal power that arises from being positive and constructive.

Appendix: How to Run an E-CLUB (Effectiveness Club)