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•In fact, one of the things that strikes me, reading your interviews and writings, is that you say that one thing that hasn't changed in the past 100 years is our schools. You know, similar curriculum, taught the same way. One would have thought that now, with computers, connectivity and mobility, it would have changed radically, while it hasn't.

What I say is that there's a little danger in that. If you give computers to young children, they start to believe that you don't have to think, all you have to do is search, and you'll find the answer. So, using computers is excellent, but you need, at the same time, to think. Now that extends beyond school. I've worked with major corporates throughout the world and they develop a habit of saying, 'Put all the information, all the information or data, into our computers, and our computers will analyse the data and that will set our strategy, make our decisions.' Very dangerous. Because unless you can look at the information in different ways, you are not going to make progress. And that's happening worldwide with the biggest corporates.

•You said you met Rajiv Gandhi and he was very enthusiastic about teaching thinking. And then you met Narasimha Rao, who was education minister, and he was non-committal. What was your impression about Dr Kalam? Because he is so popular with children.

I liked Dr Kalam. A lot. In fact I made a suggestion to him. I said, 'Why doesn't India get close to China? It's like a marriage. You can still kill each other in a marriage.' (Both laugh) And then, if they get together, then Europe could be worse off. He liked the idea.

•He's very popular with young people, he's very popular with school children.

He's a good fellow. I liked him.

•There's one more striking sentence I read in one of your interviews. You said the people with the greatest power to change are 17-year-old girls. Because all the men up to the age of 28 are bound to try to impress them.

That's true, that's quite true. And if the girls were to say, 'We like a good, thinking man.' Then all the men will start thinking.

•But then you said that the impediment are girls at 16, who all want to become adults so fast.

Yes, that's true. That's quite true.

•Those with the power to change, themselves become the impediment to change.

Exactly. Exactly right. But 17-year-old girls do have that power. But at 16, they want to be the same.

•What happens when you tell this to 17-year-old girls?

(Laughs) Well, they like the idea in the abstract, but whether they will use it, I doubt. But I'll tell you an interesting story. One day in England, I had a call from the Foreign Office. They said there's this top Indian businesswoman who wants to come to England to discuss trade. But she said she won't come unless she can have lunch with you. I agreed. So she turns up for lunch with her minders from the Foreign Office, and she's read my books and she's enthusiastic. She said, 'I was educated at Yale and Columbia but I went back to India to have an arranged marriage.' She said, 'In the West you start with violins in the sunset, and then it's downhill all the way. We start down below and we go up.' And she's very convincing. And it's interesting, when I give seminars here, I often give this as a thinking exercise to men, mainly businessmen. And arranged marriages are 70 per cent in favour. And I think it's a good idea. Because if you meet someone in a discotheque and you fall in love with him, you're not going to spend your life in the disco. (Both laugh)

•Dr de Bono, all your readers swear by your six thinking hats. White for facts, black for critical thinking, red for emotion, yellow for optimism, and so on. In practical life, can somebody do it? Can somebody juggle six hats?

Well, it's very widely used.

•Just imagine US President George W. Bush juggling six hats before going into Iraq.

Last year I was told by a Nobel Prize winning economist, I forget the name, it could have been Joseph Stiglitz, I'm not sure. And he said, 'Last week I was in Washington, the top economics meeting in the United States, and they were using your six hats.' Later, when I visited New Zealand, in Auckland, I met a woman who said she was teaching my six hats in the islands of Papua New Guinea, where there's almost Stone Age culture. So from Stone Age Papua New Guinea to top economists.

•But not George Bush before going into Iraq.

Well, if under the white hat, he asked, 'What's the information?' And that's not good enough? Yes. . . But it's widely used (this thinking tool). I'll give another example.

•I think George Bush falls under the red hat.

Probably, probably. A colleague of mine, who's doing work with juries in court, in the United States, teaches them using the six hats. As a result, they reach unanimous decisions very quickly. So much so that the judges were so impressed that in at least three states, the judge can now ask that the jury be trained in using the six hats. That's the first change in the jury system in a thousand years.

•Give me a one-minute primer on the six hats. How does it work?

First I'll give you the reason why we need the six hats. In the brain there are certain chemicals. So for instance, if there's an antelope in African, and when there's a sound in the savannah grass, the chemical concerned with fear sensitises all the neural circuits concerned with fear, and when the lion appears, the antelope runs away. In the lion's brain, on the other hand, a chemical sensitises it to greed and benefit, so when it sees a zebra, it thinks, 'That's my lunch.' So there are different chemicals, according to different moods. If we try and do everything at once, we will confuse things. So the six hats separate out the thinking. Under the white hat, everyone is looking for facts, information, what we have, what we need, what questions have we asked, how do we get the information. Red hat: permission to put forward your emotions, your intuition, without having to justify or explain it. Black hat is critical: what is wrong, the risks, the downside, why it may not work. The yellow hat: values, benefits. The green hat: creative, new ideas, possibilities, alternatives and so on. The blue hat is the organizing hat: summary, outcome. The point is everyone is wearing the same hat at the same time. That's parallel thinking. That's important. Let me give an example. In a normal meeting, we may have someone who is against the idea being discussed. Normally, that person will spend the whole meeting attacking the idea. With the hats, under the black hat, he or she will be encouraged to be as critical as he or she can possibly be. Then, when it's the turn of the other hat, he's expected to look for value. And if he says, 'I can't see any value', and everyone else is seeing value, then he's seen to be stupid. So everyone is challenged to use their brain fully.