Six Thinking Hats

EDWARD DE BONO

Reviewed by Todd

Imagine your company is facing a big problem. And I mean a your-biggest-client-has-left-for-your-competitor kind of problem.

The president calls a meeting to figure out what happened and each attendee enters the conference room with something different on his or her mind. The folks from research arrive with binders of pie charts detailing how well the campaign is (rather, was) going. The creative team has half a dozen ideas for how to improve the messaging. The account manager is wondering if he’ll still be employed when the meeting is over. And the office manager walks in shaking her head, remembering how she told everyone that taking on this client was a bad idea.

The discussion becomes an argument about whose perspective has more merit. Each member’s verbal commitment to his position makes considering other options difficult; however, considering a wide range of thought is the key to moving through these organizational impasses.

To move just such a discussion forward, Edward De Bono, in Six Thinking Hats, delineates six clear directions, or hats, that represent a particular line of human thought. To each hat he assigns a color. The metaphor of a hat is effective here because it implies that the kind of thinking one is doing can be donned, changed, or removed according to a situation. Let me use De Bono’s descriptions to quickly introduce each hat:

White is neutral and objective. The white hat is concerned with objective facts and figures.

Red suggests anger (seeing red), rage, and emotions. The red hat gives the emotional view.

Black is somber and serious. The black hat is cautious and careful. It points out the weaknesses in an idea.

Yellow is sunny and positive. The yellow hat is optimistic and covers hope and positive thinking.

Green is grass, vegetation, and abundant, fertile growth. The green hat indicates creativity and new ideas.

Blue is cool, and it is also the color of the sky, which is above everything else. The blue hat is concerned with control, the organization of the thinking process, and the use of other hats.

In the scenario described here, each meeting attendee is coming at the problem wearing a different hat . . . without being aware of it. Six Hats thinking allows participants to focus their energy in a specific direction by getting everyone to “wear” one hat at a time. During a meeting, the hats can also be used in the order that is most appropriate to the discussion. For example, the president may start with a red hat to gather the feelings his employees have about the loss of this client. He may follow with a white hat to then gather the facts about the client’s defection. An intriguing conclusion to the meeting would be to have the group use some yellow-hat thinking to consider the upside of the newly available resources.

A variety of practical benefits arise from the Six Thinking Hats approach. Discussions take less time because the group focuses on a particular line of thought at a given moment. Whether fear or fact, a hat exists for those thoughts to be shared. Arguments do not dominate the meeting. Individuals who tend toward a certain line of thought are given freedom to think more broadly under other hats. The language of colored hats itself removes ego and allows the exploration of a topic in a natural and objective manner.

“The biggest enemy of thinking is complexity, for that leads to confusion.”

De Bono’s writing style is worthy of note. He frequently references thoughts the reader would expect to hear from a group during Six Hats thinking. A black-hat statement might sound like “I see a danger that the competition will match our lower prices,” or a red-hat confession might be “I have the feeling that he will back down when it comes to the crunch.” This conversational treatment makes the material easier to internalize and apply. Even when you introduce this form of thinking to a group for the first time, the process seems familiar and you can easily anticipate questions and concerns with the group.

De Bono is serious about thinking, as his many more academic books indicate, but Six Thinking Hats is the most accessible and easily applicable. Businesspeople spend a lot of time in conversation—often confrontational conversation—and this method is an effective way to organize your meetings so that they actually initiate progress. TS

Six Thinking Hats, Back Bay Books, Paperback Revised and Updated 1999, ISBN 9780316178310

WHERE TO NEXT? Here for a company that uses brainstorming Here for brainstorming your marketing Here for becoming a better brainstormer | EVEN MORE: Lateral Thinking by Edward De Bono; Tactics by Edward De Bono; Teach Yourself to Think by Edward De Bono