Get the most out of different thinking styles
de Bono's 'thinking hats'
Have you heard of Edward de Bono’s 6 ‘thinking hats’ each with an associated colour? The ‘hats’ are a simple way of identifying and applying different ways of thinking about a problem. Each person has a few styles of thinking that usually dominate. Personally I tend to wear a combination of white, green and yellow.
Thinking styles are connected to successfully collaborating across disciplines, functions or organisations. Since we are all using different thinking styles at different times, it can be a source of conflict. In a facilitated session we have the chance to consciously adopt the same thinking style at the same time in the same way. This approach encourages parallel thinking instead of ‘adversarial’ thinking.
First, the hats.
De Bono proposed 6 coloured hats to represent different thinking styles. Below is an overview of the thinking styles.
White hat: data, neutral, objective, fact based.
The White Hat calls for information known or needed. Adopting this thinking style will help you gather, explore and check the information, but also collate the expertise of others. This can be useful before using the other hats to process the information.
“What do I know?”
“What do I need to find out?”
“How will I get the information I need?”
Red hat: emotions, instinct, intuition, feelings.
The Red Hat signifies feelings, emotions, hunches and intuition. This thinking style will help you express your pure emotions, feelings and reactions, both positive and negative (likes / dislikes and loves / hates). You won’t need to justify, offer any reasoning or apology for the way you feel – it allows to share free from judgement.
Green hat: Creative, New Ideas, Possibilities, Alternatives, Hypothesis.
Putting on the Green Hat helps direct you to express new alternatives, concepts and perceptions not yet explored, without evaluating them. It engourages provocation and investigation, without criticising pre-existing ideas. It presents solutions to black hat problems.
Yellow hat: Optimistic, Benefits, Value, Positive.
Adopting the Yellow Hat thinking style helps you look for the good. It suggests identifying the advantages and positives, and probing for value and benefit. Important in times of difficulty, this thinking style serves as the counterpoint to the black hat thinking, reminding us of the “good things”.
Black hat: Critical, Judgment, Evaluation.
Wearing the Black Hat is adopting the role of devil's advocate. It asks you to spot the disadvantages, downsides, weaknesses and potential risks, bringing a necessary sense of realism. It’s a “reality check” that offsets the optimism of the yellow hat. But caution, this thinking style can be a problem if overused.
Blue hat: Process, Resources, Manage, Overview, Big Picture.
The Blue Hat thinking style focuses on designing and managing the thinking process. This style might ask: “What thinking is needed?” This style helps organise the thinking and planning for action. It's the control mechanism that helps the team focus.
Hat Benefits
If you tend to wear a black hat, you may be skeptical of the usefulness of these thinking styles, but most of us will recognise that there are some advantages to this approach. Consider how the thinking styles might bring these benefits:
Inclusiveness: cycling through all the hats ensures that everyone’s thinking style gets some attention, which can encourage wider participation.
Balancing: sometimes you’ll have people in your meeting with strong personalities who may, in normal circumstances, dominate with their thinking style. By consciously addressing a range of thinking styles, you create balancing perspectives. You might also uncover certain ‘thinking style’ strengths and weaknesses in your team that you can address through teamwork.
Innovation: adopting different thinking styles can bring out new and unusual angles, either for individuals or for a group.
Clarification: the hats make it possible to clearly identify a wide range of concerns and help people see interconnected perspectives.
How you can use the 6 hats
You can use the 6 hat approach in a variety of different ways. If a group has never used the approach before, you’ll need to allow time for them to learn about the hats, identify their own style(s), and practice adopting other hats. Use a warm-up that lets people try it in a low risk way.
Once the team knows the method, you can use it for:
Problem understanding: At the outset, use it to scan the idea landscape of a given problem area
Idea generation: Once you’ve defined a challenge, use it to spark ideas, by having individuals cycle through all the hats to look for ideas
Retrospective: when you’re looking back and evaluating a project or process, what do the different thinking styles help you see?
Strategy: in cases where you need to align a team in developing a strategy, the hats may help people overcome conflicts and get to the point where everyone can live with the proposed solution, because all thinking styles/perspective have been heard and considered.
Deciding: when you need to decide which directions to go in, constructive controversy asks people to debate from different thinking styles; the process of creating arguments, rather than just ideas, can get people to reconsider positions and test decisions.
If you’re in a team that’s trained up on the 6 hat approach, you can use it quickly and regularly to get a lot of perspectives on the table when you’re facing a challenge or opportunity.
Colour and Culture
It’s worth noting that some colours may have cultural implications. If you’re in a location that puts certain connotations to colours, you can change the hat colours as needed. It’s then helpful if you stick with that colour scheme when you use the tool in future.
Let me know in the comments, what are your ‘go to’ hats?