The Six Hats of Thinking - dave’s thoughts on the material created by deBono.

The Why…

There are many ways to think. The most standard mode of thinking (because it is quite useful and possibly the easiest to teach) is the Socratic approach to thought currently taught in our schools today. This is the style of thinking informally described as "set them up, then knock them down"(think bowling pins). An idea is presented and then it is attacked from many different angles. An ideas validity depends on its ability to stand up under this intense scrutiny. This is the primary form of thinking that is exhibited in modern society (science, law).

The downside of this mode of thinking is that it is not very good at eliciting creative thoughts from group discussions. In this mode of thinking, people are generally taking adversarial positions early (grabbing onto a position and defending the idea against the onslaught of another), playing devils advocate (to try and elicit a different way of thinking) or taking the discussion ‘personal’ in order to win their argument (think of false argument strategies such as ad hominem attacks as an example of this). This does not lead to creative thought or the open sharing and development of ideas and it relies too much on the strength of the presenter (who, like a lawyer, must make a case for the idea). If the presenter is weak, an important idea can die.

The what…

DeBono’s Six Hats of thinking describes a style of thinking that incorporates this adversarial thinking style (which we are so good at) as well as five other modes of thinking to create a more complete way of exchanging ideas.

The key idea for "six hats" is that communication in this style is modal in nature.

That is to say that with every piece of information that we are sharing, we tell the others in the group what the intent of the information is (we are telling them our current point of view).

We are telling them implicitly if we have agreed to choose a mode and share ideas in that communication context(this is picking a hat and everyone agrees that for the next period of time we will talk in this mode). A moderator can determine by time or some other agreeded upon measure when to change modes. While examining ideas as a group, we can also tell each other explicitly that we are using a particular mode ("from my red hat perspective, I just hate this idea").

Here’s the Six Thinking Hats:

* White Hat - the facts and figures /raw data - as objective as possible, conflicting info OK.
* Red Hat - the emotional view/feelings  - feelings are important (gut impressions)
* Black Hat - the \"devil's advocate\"  - Socratic style thought
* Yellow Hat - the positive side  - anti-black hat, looking for why something might work
* Green Hat - the creative side -  generating new ideas
* Blue Hat - the organizing view  - drawing conclusions, setting action

This modal way of thinking can be applied to a variety of thinking tools with great results(mindmaps, pro/con lists, brainstorming sessions, even to standard logical analysis (by helping to decide what your ‘a priori’ knowledge will be - what do you know about what you know ).

The How…

There are many ways to implement this style of thinking.

In a small group setting, I would propose when we have a topic presented we follow these hats in this order for five minutes per hat. Then a quick summary to refine the thinking followed by a second round of five minutes each (which gives participants a chance to voice new ideas that have come to them in the past 25 minutes under a particular mode. Followed by a summary and an action plan (if any is deemed necessary).

* White Hat
      o What are the facts and figures?
      o What are the other sources of data we can tap into? 

* Red Hat
      o What's your gut reaction?  How do you feel about this? 

* Black Hat
      o Why can't we do this?  What prevents us?  What's the downside? 

* Yellow Hat
      o How can we do this? 

* Green Hat
      o What are additional opportunities? 

* Blue Hat
      o How should we think about this? (what are the metaphors or mental models)