Six Thinking Hats

Creator
Edward de Bono
First question how effective thinking
makes a business perform………..
Thinking performance drives business performance. Most mistakes in
business are mistakes in thinking. Decisions are poorly thought
through. Risk factors are overlooked. Faulty information is
taken as fact. Ideas are killed far too early. Benefits aren’t built
into solutions — customers have no idea why they should
embrace your new efforts. Changes backfire.

If any of this describes the condition at your company we can help

you improve the thinking performance of your employees. The end
result for your company:

• Increases in bottom-line profit.

 • Increases in top-line growth.
• More time to develop meaningful customer relationships.
• More time to work on what’s important to develop the
business.
• A happier and more motivated workforce

Coloured hats are used as metaphors for each state.

Switching to a state is symbolized by the act of
putting on a coloured hat, either literally or
metaphorically. These metaphors allow for more
complete and elaborate segregation of the states
than the preconceptions inherent in people's current
language. All of these thinking hats help for thinking
deeper The six thinking hats indicate problems and
solutions about an idea or a product you might come
up with. Furthermore, Dr de Bono asserts that these
states are associated with distinct chemical states of
the brain — however, no details or evidence of this
are presented.
•

Who Needs Six Thinking Hats?

Anyone who wants to think clearly, objectively, and creatively will benefit from Six
Thinking Hats training.

• HR Professionals • Team Leaders & Members

• Project Managers • Trainers & Consultants
• Meeting Facilitators • Sales & Marketing Professionals
• Engineers • Advertising & PR Professionals

• New Product Developers • Patent Attorneys

How Might You Use The Six Thinking Hats?

Six Thinking Hats is a simple, effective technique your team may use in a variety of
applications.

• Facilitation of meetings
• Preparing for discussions
• Continuous process improvement
• New products / new designs
• Conflict resolution
• Decision making and problem
solving
• Customer focus groups / interviews
• Leadership development
• Presentations
• Virtual meetings
• Individual thinking

Six Thinking Hats Training Course Objectives and Outcomes

Six Thinking Hats training participants will show evidence of the

following:

A marked tendency to identify themselves as thinkers

Confidence that they have the ability to cope with and improve
their environments

Competencies enabling them to solve problems including the

ability to:

• - identify a problem
• - propose alternative solutions
• - predict the consequences of each alternative
• - assess the usefulness of each set of consequences
• - select the best alternative
• - implement it
• - evaluate it

Competencies enabling them to identify and pursue

opportunities including the ability to:

• - develop a habit of perceiving events and situations as

opportunities
• - identify the benefits/desired outcomes of pursuing each
opportunity
 • - identify the risks/dangers of pursuing each opportunity
• - design ways to minimize risks and dangers
• - select opportunities based on weighing the benefits against
remaining risks
• - design plans for pursuing a selected opportunity
• - assess and reevaluate plans in progress

Competencies enabling them to think cooperatively including the

ability to:

• - understand and take on the facilitator role in a group

meeting
• - identify and articulate other people's points of view
• - devise an agenda and demonstrate the necessary discipline
to follow it provide for equal participation among group
members

Six Thinking Hats

• The White Hat

•
White Hat thinking focuses on data, facts, information known or
needed. The White Hat is the information hat. This covers
facts, figures, information needs and gaps. People can ask
for more information or data to help analyze the proposal.
• The Black Hat
•
Black Hat thinking focuses on difficulties, potential
problems. Why something may not work. The Black Hat is
the pessimism hat. This is the hat of judgment and
caution. Everyone has to find fault with the idea. Even if
 it was your idea and you are very proud of it you have
to point out some drawbacks and disadvantages
• The Red Hat
•
Red Hat thinking focuses on feelings, hunches, gut instinct,
and intuition. The Red Hat represents emotions. This
covers intuition, feelings and emotions. People have to
say how this proposal makes them feel emotionally:
scared, threatened, excited, energized, etc. It is
important to get the feelings expressed, as they can be
hidden reasons why people would oppose or support a
proposal
• The Green Hat
•
Green Hat thinking focuses on creativity: possibilities,
alternatives, solutions, new ideas. The Green Hat is the hat of
growth and possibilities. This is the hat of creativity,
alternatives, proposals, what is interesting, provocations and
changes. Everyone has to suggest ways in which the idea
could be adapted or improved to make it work better.
• The Yellow Hat
•
Yellow Hat thinking focuses on values and benefits. Why
something may work. The Yellow Hat is the hat of optimism.
This is the logical positive: why something will work and why
it will offer benefits. Everyone in turn has to say what is
good about the proposal. Even if you think the idea stinks
you have to find some good points and redeeming qualities
about it.
• The Blue Hat
•
Blue Hat thinking focuses on manage the thinking process, focus,
next steps, action plans. The Blue Hat is the process hat.
This is the overview or process control hat. It looks not at
the subject itself but at the 'thinking' about the subject. It is
used to check if the process is working well. When you wear
it, you discuss whether you are using the method in the
most effective way.

Dr. Edward de Bono is the world's leading authority on conceptual

thinking as the driver of organizational innovation, strategic
leadership, individual creativity, and problem solving. Since 1970
his exclusive tools and methods have brought astonishing results to
organizations large and small worldwide and to individuals from a
wide range of cultures, educational backgrounds, occupations, and
age groups. Dr. de Bono delivers the advanced training solutions
so needed for success in these challenging times.

The de Bono Hats system (also known as "Six Hats" or "Six

Thinking Hats") is a thinking tool for group discussion and
individual thinking.

That r…………….

1. Save time by providing a framework to:

• Participate in productive “thinking together meetings” that

are focused on delivering necessary results.
• Clear up confusion on rapidly changing challenges and
complex issues.
• Minimize personality conflicts.
• Become better focused and to the point in discussions.
• Separate out: facts from emotions; the positive from the
negative; critical thinking from creative thinking.
• Help individuals focus on what is important rather what is
irrelevant.
• Put quiet employees on an equal playing field with those who
are more talkative or monopolize meetings.
• Sidestep egos which get in the way of performance.

2. Improve performance by providing a framework to:

• Make better decisions based on thorough and clear thinking.

• Be better prepared to implement change.
• Create communication plans that are clear and concise.
• See all sides of a situation to avoid being blindsided.
• Sort through wide ranges of data, quickly, to work with just
the necessary information. Avoid getting bogged down in
unnecessary detail.
• Solve problems that are high priority rather than problems
that are easy to solve and of little consequence.
• Design action plans that are supported by the group and can
be implemented.
• Complete documentation of decisions and actions for future
reference.
• Think through business challenges more thoroughly.

3. Increase creative and innovative performance by providing

a framework to:

• Break the idea killer habit that shuts down the creative
process.
• Generate powerful new ideas that are outside of the
mainstream.
• Follow a practigfcal process for idea evaluation.
 • Consider a broader range of possible solutions and selecting
the one that best meets the business need.
• Select opportunities to pursue based on balancing value
against risk.
• Develop action plans to minimize risk.
• Sell well thought out ideas to management and clients with
more confidence.
• Look for innovative solutions more regularly — “out-think”
the competition.

Some brief idea abt Parallel thinking

In ordinary, unstructured thinking this process is
unfocussed; the thinker leaps from critical thinking to
neutrality to optimism and so on without structure or
strategy. The Six Thinking Hats process attempts to
introduce parallel thinking.
Many individuals are used to this and develop their
own habits unconsciously. Sometimes these are
effective, other times not. What is certain is that
when thinking in a group these individual strategies
will not tend to converge. As a result, discussion will
tend not to converge. Due to the power of the ego
and the identified predilection to black hat thinking in
the majority of western culture, this can lead to very
destructive meetings. Even with good courtesy and
clear shared objectives in any collaborative thinking
activity there is a natural tendency for "spaghetti
thinking" where one person is thinking about the
benefits while another considers the facts and so on.
The hats allow this to be avoided so that everyone
together considers the problems, or the benefits, or
the facts, reducing distractions and supporting cross
pollination of thought. This is achieved because
everyone will put on one hat, e.g., the white hat,
together, then they will all put on the next hat
together. In this way all present think in the same
way at the same time. The only exception being the
facilitator who will tend to keep the blue hat on all
the time to make sure things progress effectively.
The blue hat tends to be the outward-looking,
leader/trail blazing hat that attracts the leaders of all
groups.