Leading Meetings with the 6 Thinking Hats

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Leading Meetings with the 6Thinking Hats

• Professor Jackie McCoy

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6 Thinking Hats

• Inadequacies of Current Thinking
• Positions people as adversaries
• Not enough creativity
• Lacks constructive energy

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Adversarial Thinking Parallel Thinking
A
B
C
A
C
B
A
B
C
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The Inadequacy of Argument

• Today in business, as in elsewhere there
• is a huge need to be constructive and
• creative. There is a need to solve
• problems and to open up opportunities.
• There is a need to design new possibilities,
• not just to argue between two existing
• possibilities. de Bono

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Benefits

• Deliberate thinking in a particular direction
• A switch in thinking from one mode to another
• Exploration of a subject more thoroughly
• A specific time and space for creative thinking

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Why hats?

• Traditional link between thinking hats
• Hats can be put on taken off easily
• A hat can indicate a role

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White Hat

• Focuses on
• Facts Figures
• Data
• Information Available
• Information Missing
• Information Needed

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White Hat

• Facts are often embedded in an argument.
• White hat thinking is neutral.
• Your own opinion is never permissible under the
  white hat
• No interpretations or ideas
• The true facts

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White Hat Thinking

• 18 of defects were caused by human error
• The cost has increased by 15
• The project is 10 days ahead of schedule
• Do we know what are the main causes for increased
  absenteeism?

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Red Hat Thinking

• Focuses on
• Emotional views
• Gut feelings
• Hunches
• Intuition

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Red Hat Thinking

• Permission to express feelings Intuition
• A license to make your emotional view known
• No need to explain or justify your feelings
• The decision making hat

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Red Hat Thinking

• Normally emotions lurk in the background
• Often disguised as logic or facts
• Mistrusted because we cannot see what we
  are dealing with.
• BUT
• In the end all decisions are based on emotion
• Intuition gut-feel have an important value.
• Emotions are valuable provided they are labeled

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Red Hat Thinking

• My red hat feeling is that its a bad idea.
• I really feel shes right for the job.
• This design is awful it will never catch on.
• I dont think lowering the price will work.
• I have a soft spot for Jim I know he is a con
  man, and he certainly conned
  us. But he did it with style I like him.
• My gut feel tells me that this is the best
  choice.

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Yellow Hat Thinking

• Focuses on
• Logical Positive
• Values
• Benefits
• Hope Optimism

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Yellow Hat Thinking

• Every cloud has a silver lining
• Every problem is an opportunity
• These may be true but they require
• deliberate thinking effort as people are
• more naturally inclined to use the black
• hat.

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Yellow Hat Thinking

• Must have a logical basisnot intuition or
• feelings.
• What are the advantages?
• Who might benefit?
• How might the idea be made more attractive?
• How might the idea be made feasible?
• Is the concept behind the idea good?

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Yellow Hat Thinking
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Yellow Hat Thinking

• Flexitime would be attractive to those
• with kids
• This new packaging would allow us to
• get more product onto the shelves.
• There is a promotional value here
• everyone will know our name because
• of the TV serial that uses our product.

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Black Hat Thinking

• Focuses on
• Caution
• Dangers
• Logical Negative
• Pitfalls

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Black Hat Thinking

• What are the disadvantages?
• Does the idea fit?
• In what ways might it be unacceptable?
• What are the potential problems?
• What could go wrong?

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Black Hat Thinking

• Black Hat Thinking comes more naturally to us
• than Yellow Hat Thinking.
• It prevents us from making errors.
• It helps us to improve ideas by pointing out the
• flaws.
• It is logical factual, not based on gut
• feelings.

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Black Hat Thinking

• Should always be used if an idea seems very
  attractive
• Should always be used when action is going to be
  taken
• Actually limits negativity by giving it its own
  time place
• Positive in moderation, negative if overdone.

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Green Hat Thinking

• Focuses on
• Alternatives
• New Ideas
• Creativity
• Lateral Thinking

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Green Hat Thinking

• Time and space for deliberate creative effort.
• We need some more alternatives, put on your
• green hats.
• Were not getting anywhere Lets try the green
• hat.
• Creativity can be learned improved with
• practice.

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Green Hat Thinking

• Based on the belief that there is always more
• than one answer.
• Used for putting forward ideas.
• Used for possibilities - even remote ones.
• Does not need a logical basis
• Forward thinking concerned with what might be.

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Green Hat Thinking

• Maybe we could make the box a different
• colour.
• How about totally ignoring the competition?
• What if we reduce the size and marginally
• increase the price?
• How about delivering only once a week?

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Blue Hat Thinking

• Focuses on
• Thinking about Thinking
• Use of Other Hats
• Process Control

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Blue Hat Thinking

• Not for thinking about the topic BUT thinking
• about the thinking.
• Which of the hats will we use?
• In what sequence?
• How much time on each?
• Is each hat being used correctly?
• Used to lay out the Thinking Agenda.

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Blue Hat Thinking

• Blue hat is generally worn by whoever is running
  the meeting.
• Can be used by yourself to control your own
  thinking.
• Focus and refocus the discussion to prevent
  waffle drift.
• Blue Hat Thinker - The Conductor

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Blue Hat Thinking

• We dont have very much information, some
• white hat thinking is needed first.
• Thats a black hat comment were supposed
• to be using Yellow hat at the moment.
• I suggest that we clear the air at this stage.
• Put on your red hat and tell us what you
• really think about it.

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Planning The Thinking Agenda
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Problem Solving
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Benefits of Parallel Thinking

• Works - immediate results
• Simple to learn
• You can use it by yourself
• Modifies behaviour without attacking it
• Empowers
• Improves quality of thinking
• Encourages co-operation