Tactics by Edward de Bono

I finished this book in September 2026. I recommend this book 3/10.

Why you should read this book:

In this book, the author interviews a large group of successful British businesspeople, athletes, and entertainers to identify the tactics behind their success. The book is a bit outdated, and collecting what seems like so many opinions and thoughts around questions of style, focus, strategy, and risk results in a fairly average set of tactics.

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🚀 The book in three sentences

1. Don’t get distracted by shiny objects or by what looks like success. Use money as a measure, not the end result.

2. Move things forward—one brick at a time. Find joy in building something, stay a constant learner, and take time to reflect and reassess your path forward.

3. Don’t let the “urgent” stop you from thinking. Make sure you are on the right path and have the right people on the team.

📝 My notes and thoughts

• P38. He [Lord Grade] had an image of himself as a 1950s movie mogul and he had to play up to that image. He had to tip the headwaiter in America $100 and he had to live it, he had to say, "Yes, you're on, we'll do it, and we'll spend more." So he had to do what he perceived was the obligation to that image and he was, or he thought he was, happy with the image. What was really happening was that Grade only had that facade for the public—not privately. He was a sad, frightened, worried man privately. Behind the facade people were tearing their hair out because they were facing failure. The ideas you want are real ideas; they're not fantasies. There is a difference. The real ideas can be put into action. They are not dreams; they're something real. And what gets the team confident is that the entire team, the whole company is successful. "The bankers of ACC were very concerned a year ago, they were withdrawing their support from my accountants. They get disclosure—that's one of the things I believe in. I would eliminate seven-eighths of the company legislation that controls company behaviour and replace it with total disclosure requirements. You see, the general public is led by the financial journals to believe that big business is a romantic exercise and they look for romanticism. It's not there. Big business is only small business with an extra zero on the end ... In reality it's just more dried ink on paper. I'm just motivated by doing what I'm doing as well as I can ... I could play chess with you and be motivated in the same way. It's making every move count."

• P65. Robert Maxwell: "I'm an industrialist. I make things. And if as a result of making things, I make money ... then so be it!" Robert Holmes a Court: "Money is a measurement, it's like a scoreboard, it's a measurement of how well you're doing. It's not an end in itself, and personal money is an illusory thing. You do not need very much, really, nobody does; it's trite to say, but it's awfully true. I think that a lot of people think that they want to make some money because they want more physical things than they've got, but I don't think making money is itself success—it's a by-product of success." An artist paints in oil on canvas. A composer works with musical notes and notations. In the same way, an entrepreneur works with money.

• P68. If I had to choose the one motivating factor that seems to me to be operating in most successful people it is the wish to make things happen. This is a direct extension of the child's wish to place one block on top of another in order to make something happen. I believe it to be exactly the same urge that drives an artist to create art. For successful people, life without making things is just time-filling.

• P70. Robert Holmes a Court: "Now I'm just motivated by doing what I'm doing as well as I can, and I was equally motivated practicing law. The difference between the two is hardly noticeable. I could play chess with you and be motivated in the same way. It's making each move count. You have to believe it's worthwhile, but you can believe a game of chess is worthwhile at that time and place. It doesn't have to be worthwhile in an idealistic sense, just that it's worth doing and worth doing well. Now every man in the company can apply that criteria to his job; it may be to do the accounts well. The test is that it's got to be done well by my own criteria; I must be satisfied. People who are just in it for money—they usually fail."

• P76. A section on Expectations. (It's a mindset of figuring out what you find interesting.)

• P99. If you were a champion squash player and you'd been having some difficulty, you feel you could get to number one in the world but you're not, the first step is for you to find out what the blocks are. Even if I can see what they are, I could tell you until I'm blue in the face, and it's not going to make any difference, because you're not aware of what those things are yourself. The very first step must be for you to discover what they are. Then we can look at ways around them. We try to make people more aware of what they're doing. In order to refine their awareness, we get them to start looking in a specific arena. If you ask somebody a question, they look closer in order to get the answer. So that is one way. If somebody is having problems, say with anxiety before each match, I may ask them, over a period of weeks, to start a little score sheet of how anxious they are—1-10 for each match. Then we get a graph and we begin to get some idea of what is happening. Up until then all they know is they get into a tizzy. It's useful to know how much in a tizz you are, so that then you know how much correction you need.

• P101. We are much too free with our absolutes in ordinary language and thinking. The proverb "Look before you leap" makes sense. So does the contradictory proverb "He who hesitates is lost." The proverb "Many hands make light work" is correct. So is the other one: "Too many cooks spoil the broth." It all depends on the circumstances. So it is with the value of self-knowledge. It can be useful and it can be destructive.

• P176. Most people in large organizations are so preoccupied with "urgent" matters that there is very little time for the "important" matters. That is one reason why so very little time is spent on deliberate thinking or conceptual thinking. There is always a problem to be solved. Problem-solving also implies the removal of risk, whereas opportunity-seeking implies increased risk and work. It is not at all difficult to see why problem-solving is so much preferred to opportunity-seeking. Management is forced to solve problems. No one is forced to look for opportunities until it is too late. By the time an organization is forced to look for opportunities it has probably already lost its best people, its market share, its credit rating, and its morale.

• P207. Chris Bonington explains: "The first thing in picking a team is to decide what it is you're trying to do. You then decide how you're going to do it. And from these two things you decide both how many people you need, what kind of people, and what skills you require. Having decided all those things, you then sit down and try to fit the right person into the job. This might sound terribly obvious but it's amazing how many don't follow that very simple line."