His point is that there is much that can be done to improve the way in which humankind thinks.'This is not a nice book' writes De Bono. 'It is not intended to be a nice book. You cannot shift complacency with niceness [and] we are completely complacent about the quality of our human thinking.'

De Bono states that human thinking is in need of a radical rethink. And nothing has been done about human thinking - bar in the field of mathematics - for more than two millennia.

The ways in which we think were developed 2,400 years ago by Socrates, Plato and Aristotle, and they focused on argument, truth and logic. Thanks to the Renaissance, these ways of thinking seeped into Europe and into the heart of its administration, culture and education.

Today, he says, humankind still believes these ancient thought mechanisms are perfect, complete and beyond change. However, he argues that an approach that may be ideal for science or technology neglects creativity and inventiveness. It is also outmoded for much of today's society.

Using the slogan 'think grey', he suggests that we try to use our brains, or grey matter, afresh. This, he believes, can bring about major results.

'Most of the problems, conflicts and fights in the world are caused by poor thinking,' De Bono says. 'An improvement in human thinking would help solve such issues. If we get our thinking right then it becomes easier to solve not only environmental problems, but other problems too.'

The author also argues that thinking is intrinsically linked to human values. Values without the right sort of thinking, he believes, are dangerous and have been responsible for inexcusable behaviour across the centuries.

'Thinking without values is pointless - for thinking then has no purpose,' he writes.

Thinking, according to the author, should be closely tied to one's powers of perception, rather than emotions.

He believes that perception controls emotions which in turn control behaviour. His ideas are based on his original 48-year-long career in the field of medicine and his belief that by understanding the system - in this case the human brain - one can design appropriate action.

He believes that the brain is a self-organising system. By understanding its behaviour, we can learn how its information system works. Once we are armed with that information, we can all think better about diverse areas such as conflict resolution, perception and human affairs. 'This is very different from philosophers playing around with words and concepts but with no understanding of how the brain works,' he writes.

What makes this book far from a sun-oil-spattered lazy beach read is the Da Vinci Professor of Thinking's deliciously imperial tone. This distinguished, much lauded author and genius of thought is no shrinking violet.

He puts his points across with the reticence and delicacy of a medieval battering ram. Such is his belief in the importance and urgency of what he has to say, making his didactic approach justifiable and his book hard to put down.

De Bono is renowned for designing operational tools and frameworks for thinking.

His research and ideas are used and revered by governments, universities, schools, businesses and institutions, and are particularly popular on the mainland and across Asia.

'I am providing what philosophy and psychology have never provided,' he says. 'I am providing new software for human thinking.'

Five insights

1. Creativity is a huge deficiency in our thinking habits, according to Edward De Bono, the author of Think! Before It's Too Late. Although everyone knows that progress is due to creativity, most of us simply sit around waiting for someone creative to bring about new ideas and possibilities. In a world where people constantly require new values, we need a lot of help with this type of thinking.

2. De Bono argued that, aside from knowledge and information, we need to speculate and hypothesise or we risk stagnating and becoming mired in outdated concepts. 'In traditional thinking, if there is an obvious and apparently satisfactory answer, we stick with it and never explore other possibilities,' he wrote, adding that this stultified creativity and new ideas.

3. Universities may well be excellent, but they are not enough in themselves. Being obsessed with finding out the truth can stop people from branching into speculation and possibility. Sharing the wisdom of the ages is indeed important, but so are creativity and exploration of what might or might not be possible.

4. Research by a Harvard academic shows that 90 per cent of the errors in thinking are errors of perception. So why has humankind totally neglected perception in favour of logic? We can improve our perceptual thinking with our attitude by paying attention to what is really around us.

5. Thinking should not be boring, heavy. Instead, it should be all about excitement, achievement and hope. 'Art has done very little to encourage thinking ... [because] art seems to believe the true essence of human beings is emotion,' he wrote. But art and indeed music can stimulate viewers to think and provide understandings and insights.

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Book Think! Before It's Too Late Author Edward de Bono Publisher Random House Group