After reading "Di Bono's Horizontal Thinking Dialogue Method", I re-understood what it means to be able to chat.
After chatting with a student who came for [career direction consultation] (https://www.solo.tw/consulting) a few days ago, I sat in the coffee shop and thought about something.
Looking back on that consultation, we actually had a good chat. It was not because I gave the other party any earth-shattering advice, but because she said something that stunned me: “Teacher Vista, your question just now reminded me of something I had never thought of.”
All I asked was: “You say you want to take on cases freely, but what if what you enjoy most is not freedom, but a certain work rhythm?”
This is not some profound talk. But it’s a horizontal question - not digging down her logic, but opening a window to the side.
Well, this thing reminds me of a book I recently read.
Well, I wonder if you have ever had this experience?
In a party, a meeting or a meal, the topic breaks off two or three times after sitting down. You are desperately looking for something to pick up, and the other person is also desperately looking for something to pick up. The two of you are like playing table tennis, but the ball keeps falling to the ground. In the end, you had no choice but to take out your phone and pretend to read some important message.
Or another scenario: You clearly have an idea, but the other person makes a conclusion as soon as he opens his mouth. You feel something is wrong but you can’t explain it, so in the end you have no choice but to nod and say “Yeah, that’s right” - and then you feel depressed all day long.
To be honest, I’ve experienced both. And not just once.
Until I read Edward. Debono(Edward de Bono) “De Bono’s Lateral Thinking Conversation Method: Say goodbye to boredom and awkward chats, and become a truly “interesting” person” (original book title: How to Have a Beautiful Mind), I realized one thing: the problem is not that my speaking skills are not good enough, but that my way of thinking needs to be upgraded.
What is this book about?
**Making people want to continue chatting is an ability that can be cultivated. **
Di Bono is “Lateral thinking” (Lateral Thinking) and the founder of “Six Thinking Hats” (Six Thinking Hats), he has written 67 This book, is known as the “Father of Creative Thinking”. IBM, Microsoft, and Nokia have all asked him to serve as a consultant. In this book, he did something that few masters are willing to do - use a lifetime of thinking and theory to solve a seemingly “small” problem: How to chat?
But if you think about it carefully, this problem is not trivial at all.
How many of the most important decisions in your life—choosing a school, choosing a job, choosing a partner—were shaped by conversations? Did your most profound learning come from the words in a textbook, or a conversation with a professor, colleague or friend?
To put it bluntly, conversation is a showcase for thinking. How you chat reveals how you think.
Among the 18 classes, the three classes that impressed me the most
The entire book is divided into 18 lessons, ranging from “How to Express Consent” to “From Awkward Chat to Deep Talk”. I’m not going to do a book excerpt - that would be too boring. What I want to talk about are three things that really changed my behavior after reading it.
Agree, it requires more technology than objection
This sounds counter-intuitive. Most people think that disagreeing is the hardest thing in a conversation. But DiBono says the real test is how you agree.
Why? Because too many people’s consent is actually perfunctory—“Yeah, yeah,” “You’re right.” This consent will not advance any conversation, it will just stop it where it is.
What does good consent look like? It is to take another step forward from the other party’s point of view:
“You’re right, and I noticed something you probably didn’t mention-”
“I agree with your starting point. If you push it a step further, it might mean-”
This is not flattery. You catch the opponent’s ball and throw it in a new direction. The other person’s feeling will be: “This person is listening carefully, and he makes my ideas better.”
Going back to my experience in counseling: Most people who come to counseling do not need me to tell them “you are wrong.” What they need is someone to add a layer to their thinking that they can’t see themselves. I later called this “additive consent.”
Digressions are not digressions - that’s the most interesting part
The 13th class is called “The Art of Bifurcation: The Joy of Getting Lost.” Haha, just reading the title made me laugh.
We have been taught since childhood: speech must be logical, focused, and not digressive. The result? Everyone’s conversations have become like a briefing—beginning, key points one, two, three, conclusion, thank you. It’s very efficient, but boring as hell.
DiBono’s point of view is that the most valuable discoveries in a conversation often occur at the moment when the topic goes off the rails. When A talked about work pressure, B suddenly thought of a documentary he watched last week. There was a passage in the documentary that made A suddenly figure out the problem that had been bothering him for three months - this kind of thing would never happen in a logical conversation.
To use an analogy: a conversation about vertical thinking is like taking an elevator, from the first floor to the tenth floor, directly to the destination. Horizontal thinking conversations are like taking a walk. You don’t know where you will go, but the scenery along the way is the focus.
Secretly, my best inspiration for articles almost always comes from off-topic conversations. Once I was chatting with a friend who works in catering, and the conversation got sidetracked into “Why Taiwanese people are more patient in lining up to buy things than waiting for traffic lights.” Then I suddenly figured out a framework about consumer psychological expectations, and later wrote an article that received a lot of response.
If I had insisted on not going off topic that day, this insight might never have come to me.
Losing the debate is actually winning.
There is a sentence in the book that I read three times:
When you lose an argument, you may well have gained a new point of view.
This sentence directly challenges our most deep-rooted misunderstanding of “dialogue” - dialogue is about winning.
Think about it, when was the last time you “debated” with someone? Do you care about finding the truth or proving that you are right? If you’re like most people, the answer is the latter.
DiBono said that dialogue should not be a battle between competing egos but a genuine attempt to explore a subject.
This had a great impact on me. In speaking and teaching settings, I occasionally encounter challenging questions from audience members. In the past, I would subconsciously adopt a defensive mentality - first stabilize my position, and then find a way to refute. But after reading this book, I started to practice one thing: first assume that the other person is right, and then ask myself, “If he is right, what does this mean?”
Well, the results are amazing. I find that many times, the other person does see my blind spots. And when I am willing to admit, “I didn’t expect your perspective,” the atmosphere in the whole room will instantly change from “confrontation” to “we are thinking about things together.”
That moment of transformation is what Di Bono calls “beautiful mind.”
In the AI era, “interesting conversations” are even more needed
While reading this book, a question kept popping up in my mind: In the age of AI, has the value of dialogue increased or decreased?
Without further ado, my answer is: a substantial increase.
The reason is straightforward. AI can now write articles, give presentations, answer questions, and simulate interviews—I would venture to say that any communication output that can be standardized, AI can do better than most humans. But there’s one thing AI can’t do, and that’s have a real conversation.
What is a real conversation? When you say something, the other party not only responds to your content, but also responds to your status. He could hear the tiredness in your voice today, so he asked, “How are you doing lately?” instead of rushing to answer your question.
Yes, AI won’t do that. AI has no curiosity, no immediate emotional resonance, and will not be silent for three seconds after you finish speaking - that kind of silence means “I am seriously thinking about what you said.”
I discovered one thing while teaching AI Application: the most difficult thing to teach is not the operation of tools, but the ability to ask good questions. It’s not that the students don’t know how to use ChatGPT or Claude, it’s just that they don’t know how to ask. They are used to waiting for standard answers rather than using questions to explore.
If you also want to learn to “use dialogue to drive AI” - my Vibe Coding Practical Workshop is designed for this purpose. No need to write a program, just learn to ask the right questions. Just like lateral thinking conversations, how you talk to AI determines what it can do for you.
Having said that, this completely echoes what Di Bono said about “the art of asking questions” (Lesson 7). Good questioning, whether the subject is a human or an AI, is essentially lateral thinking—you are not digging down the same hole (asking finer questions), but trying to dig new holes in different places (asking questions in different directions).
I even think that “horizontal thinking dialogue” is the interpersonal version of prompt engineering. How you ask determines what you get—whether the person sitting across from you is a human or an AI.
Who is suitable to read this book?
Honestly, if you’re looking for a quick three-step guide to becoming a social master, this book isn’t for you.
Di Bono does not teach speaking skills. What he teaches is the transformation of the way of thinking - from “I want to win” to “Let’s explore together”; from “Don’t go off topic” to “It might be more interesting to go off topic”; from “You’re wrong” to “I didn’t expect your perspective.”
I think it is especially suitable for these types of people:
- People who think they are “not very good at chatting” but are actually “don’t know what to think”
- People who often stay silent in meetings and think of what to say as an afterthought
- People who want to improve the quality of conversations but don’t want to learn those greasy social skills
- People who want to find their “irreplaceable communication value” in the AI era
If you are interested, you can refer to here: [“Di Bono’s Horizontal Thinking Conversation Method: Say goodbye to boredom and awkward chats, and become a truly “interesting” person”] (https://www.books.com.tw/exep/assp.php/vista/products /0011047001?utm_source=vista&utm_medium=ap-books&utm_content=recommend&utm_campaign=ap-202604) (Baoding Publishing, 2026 April of the year).
After reading, three exercises I gave myself
- Assume the other person is right first - The next time someone makes a point that you disagree with, don’t refute it yet. Ask yourself first: “If he is right, what does that mean?”
- Allow yourself to digress - When a seemingly unrelated association pops up in your mind, try saying it and see where it leads. The best insights are often hidden around unexpected corners.
- Practice additive agreement – When you agree with someone, don’t just say “yes.” Try to take his point a step further: “You’re right, and—”
These three things require no tools, no money, and no waiting to be ready. You can start your next conversation today.
After all, DiBono is right: making people want to continue talking is a skill that can be developed.
And the way to cultivate it is starting with the next conversation.
