Thinking hats that can help solve your problems

Edward de Bono is widely regarded as the leading authority in the direct teaching of thinking as a skill. He developed the original concept of lateral thinking and has devised the Six Hats method “which may well be the most important change in human thinking for the past twenty-three hundred years”.
This novel way of thinking is now used in the boardrooms of some of the world’s largest corporations and with four-year-olds in school. A researcher from a top IBM laboratory recounts that the Six Hats method has reduced meeting times to one quarter of what they were. Statoil in Norway had a problem with an oil rig costing about $100,000 a day, but thanks to the use of the Six Hats method, a solution was found in twelve minutes and the expenditure was reduced to nil.
The Six Hats method is a new way of thinking which allows a thinker to do one thing at a time. We tend to do too many things at once and as a result, our thoughts are mixed up with emotions and facts. It feels as if we are juggling with too many balls! To simplify and optimize the act of thinking, de Bono has introduced the concept of colored hats whereby each color, white, red, black, yellow, green and blue, defines a certain type of thinking.
De Bono has come up with an alternative to the traditional Western way of thinking based on dialectic and argument.
“In traditional thinking, if two people disagree, there is an argument in which each tries to prove the other party wrong. In parallel thinking, both views, no matter how contradictory, are put down in parallel … The essence of parallel thinking is that at any moment everyone is looking in the same direction.”
The Six Hats method helps us do only one thing at a time. De Bono deconstructs the act of thinking in order to optimize the result.
White Hat is concerned with objective facts and figures. When you wear the white hat, you can neither take into consideration your intuition, feelings, impressions nor your judgment based on experience. White hat thinking is all about being as objective as possible in the presentation of information.
Using the red hat gives you the opportunity to express feelings, emotions and intuition without any explanations. Red hat thinking is in fact the opposite of white hat thinking which is objective and devoid of any emotions.
There are three points at which emotion can affect thinking. First, one has to take into account the existence of fear, anger and suspicion. Secondly, you might have some issues with someone and that will influence your judgment negatively and thirdly when you give your point of view, your decision can be triggered by your feelings.
The red hat legitimizes the role of feelings in the thinking process.
The Black Hat despite its color is the most important hat: it prevents us from doing things that are illegal, dangerous and unprofitable. Black hat thinking highlights what does not fit our policy, our strategy, our ethics, and our values. In other words, we focus on the risks, dangers and potential problems of a suggestion.
The yellow hat is all about positive thinking and effectiveness. It is an attitude that moves ahead of a situation with positive hope always looking for benefits and values. Yellow hat thinking is constructive and it is concerned with making things happen.
The green thinking hat is concerned with new ideas and new ways of looking at things. It is about escaping from old ideas in order to find better ones. Green hat thinking is about change or in other words it is about creative thinking.
” …the idiom of movement replaces that of judgment. The thinker seeks to move forward from an idea in order to reach a new idea.”
The blue hat thinker can be likened to the conductor of the orchestra. He sets the tone of the thinking session, defines the problems and shapes the questions. Blue hat thinking is responsible for summaries, overviews and conclusions. These can take place during the course of the thinking, and also at the end.
“One of the most striking things about the use of the Six Hats method is that decisions seem to make themselves. When you come to the final blue hat, the decision is often obvious to everyone present. This seems hard to believe in theory, but happens very often in practice.”
The author believes that when thinking is clear and simple, it becomes more enjoyable and more effective. This reminds of Nicolas Boileau, the French writer who wrote: “What is conceived well is expressed clearly and the words to say it come easily.”
The six thinking hats simplify the act of thinking by allowing a thinker to concentrate on one aspect of thinking at a time. In other words a thinker or several thinkers solve a problem by looking at it from different angles. A question is examined from different approaches therefore several discussions take place and are based successively on emotions, logic, information, hope, creativity and the final session summarizes all the different points of views. At that point, a solution to the problem or an answer to the question will be obvious and justifies itself to all the participants.
“The week following a short write-up of the method in the Financial Times, I had a letter from a man who had been house hunting with his wife. They could not decide whether or not to buy a large house in the country. The man finally suggested they use the Hats, which he had read about briefly in the newspaper. He wrote to tell me that within ten minutes they had their decision which satisfied both of them,” concludes Edward de Bono.
The Six Hats method is clearly explained and it is easy to follow so you have every reason to try it and nothing to lose.