Sarah Tucker on Edward de Bono and the need for lateral thinking

The biographer of Edward de Bono on the need for some crossover discipline in life and in our careers

The idea that accountancy and art could meaningfully shake hands may sound like the setup for a bad joke, but increasingly, the punchline is changing. The meeting of linear logic and lateral genius is no longer just a novelty, it is an urgent necessity. Enter the Boardroom Bard, not a mythic figure, but a very real one, and as it happens, me, whose mission is to insert a little metaphor into margin sheets, a little poetry into performance reviews, and a great deal of sense into the nonsense of siloed thinking.

The problem is rarely talent or intelligence, it is language. When creative thinkers and corporate leaders attempt conversation, it is like two tribes meeting without a translator. Words become walls, not bridges. Jargon, a seemingly harmless shortcut, limits not just understanding but imagination. Words like ‘bandwidth’, ‘stakeholder alignment’, or ‘leveraging synergies’ become mental choke points, phrases designed more for signalling fluency than encouraging insight. The irony is delicious, the more jargon we use, the less we understand each other.

Edward de Bono, the father of lateral thinking, called this phenomenon ‘ludecy’, a term he coined to describe systems that exist solely to perpetuate themselves, a neat portmanteau of lunacy and bureaucracy. Ludecy thrives in both the arts and the corporate world, in the arts it appears in the romantic self-sabotage of starving creatives who refuse to sell out, and in commerce it is found in the obsessive chase for profit, regardless of whether the product, people or planet survive it.

I have worked in both worlds, the City, where following the money is not just a motto but a mantra, and the arts, where the very act of following money can be interpreted as treason. The city gave me spreadsheets, bottom lines and bonuses, the arts gave me metaphors, meaning and the vague hope of a grant. Somewhere between these extremes, I learned that what each side mocks in the other is often what they need most.
Creatives frequently harbour a quiet, or sometimes not-so-quiet, contempt for commercial logic. The idea of shareholder value makes them shudder. Meanwhile, many in the corporate world view artists as lovely but economically illiterate, fabulous dinner guests but unreliable business partners. Neither is entirely wrong, and both are entirely limited in that view.
When I married a City trader, my barrister offered this piece of worldly wisdom, ‘He trades every day, you write books, I trade too, I know the game.’ The implication was clear, beware the values mismatch, the game might be the same, but the rules are not. The marriage did not last, but the lesson did.

One of the biggest hurdles in the creative-commercial tango is the sheer difference in values. Creatives tend to prize originality, risk, and emotional resonance, while the corporate world worships efficiency, predictability, and, of course, the bottom line. This isn’t just a philosophical gap—it’s a linguistic minefield. The very same words get twisted into entirely different meanings depending on who’s saying them.
Take the word “disruptive,” for example. In marketing, it’s a badge of honour, the promise of shaking up the status quo. In finance, it’s code for “budget risk,” swiftly followed by the phrase “let’s circle back to that.” Rory Sutherland famously reminds us that context is king; words only have power if you agree on what they mean, which explains why meetings often feel like an episode of Lost in Translation with fewer subtitles.

Here are ten everyday examples where language trips up collaboration: “Vision” for creatives means a bold, perhaps fuzzy, picture of the future; for corporates it’s a quarterly target. “Pivot” in the arts is a fluid change of direction; in business it’s an awkward excuse for a failed plan. “Engagement” in marketing is emotional connection; in HR it’s compliance with mandatory training. “Innovation” to creatives is a radical experiment; to accountants it’s an expense line that needs justifying. “Scalability” might mean artistic impact expanding; to bankers, it means doubling revenue. “Storytelling” delights artists as craft; to executives, it’s a polished sales pitch. “Brand” conjures identity and values for creatives; in commercial circles it’s “market share.” “Culture” for artists is a way of life; for corporates, a neatly crafted internal memo. “Risk” to creatives is an essential ingredient; to finance it’s a red flag. And finally, “ROI” is a creative nightmare, but to business it’s the Holy Grail. The struggle to find common ground is real, but as Rory Sutherland often argues, understanding the psychology behind these differences is the first step to bridging them. After all, if you can’t agree on what words mean, how on earth can you agree on anything else?

The question remains, how do these worlds merge, not just co-exist at awkward networking events. The answer lies in acknowledging their differences and creating new shared frameworks. Lateral thinking, as de Bono insisted, is not about being different for the sake of it, but about seeing differently to produce better results. Dave Trott, the legendary ad man, said at the launch of my de Bono biography that the revelation was not in how creativity works, but in how and why it impacts the bottom line. That, he noted, got corporate thinkers finally listening.
Here are ten examples where seemingly incompatible industries found common ground:

1.         Accountancy meets choreography: Ernst & Young funded a residency where dancers worked alongside auditors to develop body language workshops to improve client communication. The accountants gained empathy, the dancers gained income.

2.         Banking meets visual art: Deutsche Bank’s long-standing commitment to contemporary art is not about decoration, but about creating environments that challenge conventional thinking, inspiring employees and clients alike.

3.         Property development meets immersive theatre: Developers in London have collaborated with theatre groups like Punchdrunk to stage events in derelict buildings, increasing the cultural cachet and market value of the site.

4.         Law meets literature: Clifford Chance hosts literary salons and creative writing workshops, training junior solicitors to think narratively, to consider motive and structure, to write with clarity and even beauty.

5.         Tech meets poetry: Google’s Creative Lab has a poet-in-residence. Yes, really. And she has helped engineers consider language, nuance and the emotional resonance of their designs.

6.         Architecture meets storytelling: Firms like Heatherwick Studio approach design as narrative, not just function, engaging authors and scriptwriters early in the concept process.

7.          Finance meets jazz: A Wall Street mentoring programme uses jazz improvisation to train traders in adaptive thinking and listening, rather than knee-jerk analysis.

8.         Healthcare meets theatre: Medical schools now use professional actors in role-play scenarios to train doctors in empathy, ambiguity and reading between the lines.

9.         AI development meets visual art: OpenAI’s DALL·E collaboration with artists allowed engineers to better understand not just aesthetics, but the ethics of creative representation.

10.   Marketing meets sculpture: A soft-drinks brand commissioned a sculptor to reinterpret their bottle shape, not for packaging, but to rethink the product’s emotional impact in physical form.

The best partnerships are not between those who speak the same language but those who are willing to learn each other’s dialects. It requires humility, and a shared sense that neither linear nor lateral thinking is enough on its own. The imagination needs structure to flourish, and structure needs imagination to evolve.

We live in a moment when industries are collapsing and reinventing faster than we can rename them. The arts need to stop sneering at strategy, and business needs to stop fearing beauty, subtlety and metaphor. The truth is, creative minds can revitalise tired systems, and commercial minds can protect and scale brilliant ideas.

It can work. I’ve seen it work. I’ve worked with hedge funds who now start their board meetings with a poem, not because it is quaint, but because it reorients thinking. I’ve worked with artists who now understand how to protect their IP and build sustainable revenue without selling their souls. What it takes is courage, mutual curiosity, and a willingness to get lost in translation before finding fluency.
So yes, the arts and commerce can marry, but only if both parties understand the terms. Until then, I remain The Boardroom Bard, happily wandering between the gallery and the boardroom, lost in metaphor, found in balance, reminding each side that they’re not as different as they think.

Sarah Tucker is a writer and the Boardroom Bard (https://www.theboardroombard.com), known for using poetry to challenge corporate thinking and foster creativity in business. She is the author of Love Laterally, (aurora metro) the authorised biography of Edward de Bono, the pioneer of lateral thinking and creative problem-solving.