.bodytext {float: left; } .floatimg-left-hort { float:left; margin-top:10px; margin-right: 10px; width:300px; clear:left;} .floatimg-left-caption-hort { float:left; margin-bottom:10px; width:300px; margin-right:10px; clear:left;} .floatimg-left-vert { float:left; margin-top:10px; margin-right:15px; width:200px;} .floatimg-left-caption-vert { float:left; margin-right:10px; margin-bottom:10px; font-size: 10px; width:200px;} .floatimg-right-hort { float:right; margin-top:10px; margin-left:10px; margin-bottom:10px; width: 300px;} .floatimg-right-caption-hort { float:left; margin-right:10px; margin-bottom:10px; width: 300px; font-size: 10px; } .floatimg-right-vert { float:right; margin-top:10px; margin-left:10px; margin-bottom:10px; width: 200px;} .floatimg-right-caption-vert { float:left; margin-right:10px; margin-bottom:10px; width: 200px; font-size: 10px; } .floatimgright-sidebar { float:right; margin-top:10px; margin-left:10px; margin-bottom:10px; width: 200px; border-top-style: double; border-top-color: black; border-bottom-style: double; border-bottom-color: black;} .floatimgright-sidebar p { line-height: 115%; text-indent: 10px; } .floatimgright-sidebar h4 { font-variant:small-caps; } .pullquote { float:right; margin-top:10px; margin-left:10px; margin-bottom:10px; width: 150px; background: url(http://www.dmbusinessdaily.com/DAILY/editorial/extras/closequote.gif) no-repeat bottom right !important ; line-height: 150%; font-size: 125%; border-top: 1px solid; border-bottom: 1px solid;} .floatvidleft { float:left; margin-bottom:10px; width:325px; margin-right:10px; clear:left;} .floatvidright { float:right; margin-bottom:10px; width:325px; margin-right:10px; clear:left;} It’s a creative thinking process that has helped Peruvian engineers come up with better methods for mining gold. The 3M Corp. used it to research the unusual ways that people use duct tape and to develop products around those uses. Closer to home, Pella Corp. and Pioneer Hi-Bred International Inc. have also used it to improve their business processes.

The de Bono Thinking Systems courses, created by Edward de Bono, have been used by many Fortune 500 companies and multinational corporations for years. What many people may not know is how the companies that provide this corporate training came to be located in Greater Des Moines.

Innova Training & Consulting Inc. in Clive is the top U.S. distributor of de Bono Thinking Systems courses, with a network of more than 200 trainers. In 1999 the owner of de Bono Thinking Systems, Steve Keay, spun off the training distribution division of the company as Innova.

Keay’s three companies – Innova, de Bono Thinking Systems and Perfection Learning Corp. – will move next summer to a new building now under construction at 2680 Berkshire Parkway in Clive. The 19,000-square-foot building will bring together the three businesses, now located in two leased buildings in Clive, under one roof.

As a training company, de Bono Thinking Systems is probably best known for The Six Thinking Hats and Lateral Thinking courses. The company last month rolled out its newest training program, Six Value Medals.

“The core of what we’re doing is innovative thinking skills, which also have an impact on team building, collaboration and communication,” said Natalie Jenkins, Innova’s vice president and director of sales.

Companies are increasingly realizing that creative and innovative thinking “are real business tactics, not just a fluffy, feel-good kind of thing,” she said. “So in the last couple of years, there has been a real upswing in people understanding that innovation isn’t just a buzzword. They’ve spent a lot of time in research trying to figure out they need to do in the area of innovation; that’s really leading people to our organization and the de Bono method.

“It gives people a process so that when the (company) says, ‘Be innovative,’ they actually know how to get started and get good results instead of something where they just don’t know how it’s going to turn out.”

Innova’s origins date back the mid-1980s, when Perfection Learning obtained permission from de Bono to incorporate some of his concepts into its courses for high school creative writing classes. Kathy Myers, who had taught at Lincoln High School in Des Moines prior to becoming an editor with Perfection Learning, found that teaching her students de Bono’s techniques enabled them to vastly improve their ability to express their ideas.

“However, the program struggled because schools didn’t have funding for nontraditional courses like this,” Jenkins said. “So the idea was born that businesses could use these skills to improve their thinking and their bottom line. That’s when Advanced Practical Thinking Training was formed, which is now de Bono Thinking Systems.”

APTT certified its first business trainers in 1992. Rebranded in 2004 as de Bono Thinking Systems, the company publishes training materials in 13 languages for more than 1,100 certified trainers in 57 countries.

Barbara Stennes, owner of Resources Unlimited in Des Moines, is among the independent trainers who subcontract their services through Innova. Stennes, who has conducted de Bono courses since they were first offered in 1991, has written a book detailing case studies of how companies have used the de Bono methods.

“I had been in training and consulting for 15 years prior to that,” she said. “It made sense to me that creativity and innovation were going to be important in the years ahead.”

Stennes, who employs 10 trainers who also provide de Bono training, says she travels about 48 weeks a year, often conducting daylong seminars in two cities a week. Because of her experience, she is one of just four de Bono trainers in the world certified as a lifetime master trainer.

“The innovation and creative thinking courses are going to appeal to a highly competitive organization that wants to carve out a market where they think they need tools outside of logical or top-of-mind thinking,” Stennes said. “This is very skill-based, where people want to facilitate better meetings, to make the best use of the brainpower they have in their organization.”

Jenkins said the de Bono courses have always been popular with insurance and financial services companies, and in recent years more marketing companies have sought the training.

“It’s an area where they think of themselves as being highly creative, but they’re failing,” she said. “They need a way to keep repeating what they’re doing. They need a process to really think differently about how to concept ideas and launch them. … And they can’t look back at the past, because (new media channels such as blogs) weren’t there before.”

Companies that have completed one course are likely to enroll for others, Jenkins said. “The tools very much fit together nicely, add another level of thinking,” she said. “There are tool sets focusing on how to check your perceptions, others on breaking routine patterns of thinking, tools to separate out your thinking. And our new course, Six Values Medals, helps businesses to evaluate their decisions against their values. All the tools are geared around separating out your thinking and getting clearer about what you’re thinking and what you’re trying to deliver.”