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Six Thinking Hats
Looking at a Decision from All Points of View
'Six Thinking Hats' is a powerful technique
that helps you look at important decisions from a number of
different perspectives. It helps you make better decisions by
pushing you to move outside your habitual ways of thinking.
As such, it helps you understand the full complexity of the
decision, and spot issues and opportunities to which you might
otherwise be blind.
Many successful people think from a very
rational, positive viewpoint. This is part of the reason that
they are successful. Often, though, they may fail to look at
a problem from an emotional, intuitive, creative or negative
viewpoint. This can mean that they underestimate resistance
to change, fail to make creative leaps, and do not make essential
contingency plans.
Similarly, pessimists may be
excessively defensive, and people used to a very logical approach to problem solving may fail to engage their creativity or listen to their intuition.
If you look at a problem with the 'Six Thinking Hats' technique,
then you will solve it using all approaches. Your decisions
and plans will mix ambition, skill in execution, sensitivity,
creativity and good contingency planning.
This tool was created by Edward de Bono in his book 6
Thinking Hats.
How to Use the Tool:
To use Six Thinking Hats to improve the quality of your decision-making, look at the decision 'wearing' each of the thinking hats in turn.
Each 'Thinking Hat' is a different style of thinking. These
are explained below:
-
White Hat:
With this thinking hat, you focus on the data available.
Look at the information you have, and see what you can learn
from it. Look for gaps in your knowledge, and either try
to fill them or take account of them.
This is where you analyze past trends, and try to extrapolate
from historical data.
-
Red Hat:
'Wearing' the red hat, you look at the decision using intuition,
gut reaction, and emotion. Also try to think how other people
will react emotionally, and try to understand the intuitive responses
of people who do not fully know your reasoning.
- Black Hat:
When using black hat thinking, look at things pessimistically, cautiously and defensively. Try to see
why ideas and approaches might not work. This is important because it highlights
the weak points in a plan or course of action. It allows you to eliminate them,
alter your approach, or prepare contingency plans to counter problems that arise.
Black Hat thinking helps to make your plans 'tougher' and
more resilient. It can also help you to spot fatal flaws
and risks before you embark on a course of action. Black
Hat thinking is one of the real benefits of this technique,
as many successful people get so used to thinking positively
that often they cannot see problems in advance, leaving
them under-prepared for difficulties.
- Yellow Hat:
The yellow hat helps you to think positively. It is the optimistic
viewpoint that helps you to see all the benefits of the decision
and the value in it, and spot the opportunities that arise from it. Yellow Hat thinking helps you to keep
going when everything looks gloomy and difficult.
You can use Six Thinking Hats in meetings or
on your own. In meetings it has the benefit of defusing the
disagreements that can happen when people with different thinking
styles discuss the same problem.
A variant of this technique is to look at problems from the
point of view of different professionals (e.g. doctors, architects,
sales directors) or different customers.
Example:
The directors of a property company are looking at whether
they should construct a new office building. The economy is
doing well, and the amount of vacant office space is reducing
sharply. As part of their decision they decide to use the 6
Thinking Hats technique during a planning meeting.
Looking at the problem with the White Hat,
they analyze the data they have. They examine the trend in vacant
office space, which shows a sharp reduction. They anticipate
that by the time the office block would be completed, that there
will be a severe shortage of office space. Current government
projections show steady economic growth for at least the construction
period.
With Red Hat thinking, some
of the directors think the proposed building looks quite ugly.
While it would be highly cost-effective, they worry that people
would not like to work in it.
When they think with the Black Hat,
they worry that government projections may be wrong. The economy
may be about to enter a 'cyclical downturn', in which case the
office building may be empty for a long time.
If the building is not attractive, then companies
will choose to work in another better-looking building at the
same rent.
With the Yellow Hat, however,
if the economy holds up and their projections are correct, the
company stands to make a great deal of money.
If they are lucky, maybe they could sell the
building before the next downturn, or rent to tenants on long-term
leases that will last through any recession.
With Green Hat thinking they consider whether
they should change the design to make the building more pleasant.
Perhaps they could build prestige offices that people would
want to rent in any economic climate. Alternatively, maybe they
should invest the money in the short term to buy up property
at a low cost when a recession comes.
The Blue Hat has been used by the meeting's
Chair to move between the different thinking styles. He or she
may have needed to keep other members of the team from switching
styles, or from criticizing other peoples' points.
It is well worth reading Edward de Bono's book 6
Thinking Hats for more information on this technique.
Key points:
Six Thinking Hats is a good technique for looking at the effects
of a decision from a number of different points of view.
It allows necessary emotion and skepticism to be brought into
what would otherwise be purely rational decisions. It opens
up the opportunity for creativity within Decision Making. The
technique also helps, for example, persistently pessimistic
people to be positive and creative.
Plans developed using the '6 Thinking Hats' technique will
be sounder and more resilient than would otherwise be the case.
It may also help you to avoid public relations mistakes, and
spot good reasons not to follow a course of action, before you
have committed to it.
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CATWOE - Understanding
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The Ladder of Inference
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Blindspot Analysis - Avoiding common "fatal flaws"
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