Introduction

Six Thinking Hats is an important and powerful technique used to look at decisions from a number of important perspectives. This forces you to move outside your habitual thinking style, and helps you to get a more rounded view of a situation. This tool was created by Edward de Bono.

Motivation

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 public resistance to plans, fail to make creative leaps, and do not make essential contingency plans.

Similarly, pessimists may be excessively defensive. Emotional people may fail to look at decisions calmly and rationally.

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, public
sensitivity, creativity and good contingency planning.

You can use Six Thinking Hats in meetings or on your own. In meetings, it has the benefit
of blocking the confrontations that happen when people with different thinking styles
discuss the same problem.

Technique

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 analyse past trends, and try to extrapolate from historical data.

Red Hat

“Wearing” the red hat, you look at problems using intuition, gut reaction, and
emotion. Also try to think how other people will react emotionally. Try to understand
the responses of people who do not fully know your reasoning.

Black Hat

Using black hat thinking, look at all the bad points of the decision. Look at it
cautiously and defensively. Try to see why it might not work. This is important
because it highlights the weak points in a plan. It allows you to eliminate them, alter
them, or prepare contingency plans to counter them. 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 successful people get so used to thinking positively that often they cannot see problems in advance. This leaves them underprepared or 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. Yellow Hat thinking
helps you to keep going when everything looks gloomy and difficult.

Green Hat

The Green Hat stands for creativity. This is where you can develop creative
solutions to a problem. It is a freewheeling way of thinking, in which there is little
criticism of ideas. A whole range of creativity tools (see Module 1) can help you
here.

Blue Hat

The Blue Hat stands for process control. This is the hat worn by people chairing
meetings. When running into difficulties because ideas are running dry, they may
direct activity into Green Hat thinking. When contingency plans are needed, they will
ask for Black Hat thinking, etc.

A variant of this technique is to look at problems from the point of view of different professionals (e.g. doctors, architects, sales directors, etc.) 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.

1. 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, there will be a severe shortage of
   office space. Current government projections show steady economic growth for at least
   the construction period.
2. 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.
3. When they think with the Black Hat, they worry that government projections may be
   wrong. The economy may be about to enter a “cyclical down-turn”, 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.
4. 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.
5. 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.
6. 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.

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.

Previous volumes of the series

1. Introduction
2. Reversal
3. Appreciation
4. Drill Down
5. SWOT Analysis
6. Risk Analysis