An Essential Approach to Business Management

Edward De Bono’s Perspective

Edward De BonoLinks to an external site.is one of the pioneers of Brain Training. In 1967, he invented the world famous Lateral Thinking Technique. De Bono is a proponent of the direct teaching of thinking as a skill. He has dedicated his life to helping people worldwide improve their thinking abilities and creativity skills. His courses have been used by top corporations, governments and world leaders. That said, they are also highly accessible, having been used by schoolchildren. De Bono believes his techniques help people of all thinking levels to make smarter decisions in less time.

Introduction

Six Thinking HatsLinks to an external site.provides six approaches that can be used interchangeably as a critical thinking tool. Imagine you were an explorer and found yourself on an island. Naturally, you would like to find out what is happening on that island. The most common approach would be to observe and take notes of every prominent feature. The issue with this approach is that it neglects many less prominent details that are still important. The Six Thinking Hats approach helps you look at every critical detail one bit at a time. These six thinking hats have different colors and each color functions differently.

The Premise

Six Thinking Hats’ premise is that doing everything simultaneously would only create confusion. Basically, Six Thinking Hats gives you a frame of reference. This reference provides three clear uses.

1. You can use it as a tool for group discussion and individual thinking. That means you can use it to help you to optimize them.
2. It helps a group think together more effectively. Imagine you have six people in your group. There would be six different ways of thinking. Crucially, if the group adopts six thinking hats, they can focus on one thing at a time.
3. It offers a way to plan thinking processes in a detailed and cohesive way. With six thinking hats, you know exactly what you’re going to do for each step of the process. So, you cover all the required areas. The result is thought processes and work that are more cohesive.

Advantages of Six Thinking Hats

Before delving into the specifics of each thinking hat, De Bono provides five strong reasons why you should adopt the six thinking hats. The five advantages that De Bono provides are:

1. They encourage parallel thinking. Parallel thinking means that all your group members are thinking in the same direction. The longer you work in this way, the more influential your team will become.
2. They encourage full-spectrum thinking. Full-spectrum thinking means that you cover all possibilities.
3. They separate ego from performance. Whenever you do a group discussion, you are engaging in social aspects. It is a social event because you’re not working by yourself; you’re working with people. Sometimes people believe that they own their ideas. This ownership leads to people feeling threatened when “their” idea is challenged. Crucially, the six thinking hats will help you separate your ego from performance. So, people criticizing an idea is no longer about you and becomes a vital part of solving a problem together.
4. They allow the team to obtain fuller input from more people. When you work in a group, there will be different personalities. The six thinking hats can help you obtain input or information from each person and personality.
5. They encourage performance rather than ego defense. Once you realize the group performance is more important than individual performance, you can be more encouraging to others. You can also become more open.

So, now you should have an understanding of the benefits of the six thinking hats.

Explanation of The Six Thinking Hats

The six thinking hats each have unique features that complement each other but are clearly distinct. The picture below displays this point and the following outlines will also make this clear.

The Blue Thinking Hat Is About the Process

Out of the Six Thinking Hats, the blue thinking hat is the only one that focuses on the process. Focusing on the process means that this does not consider the subject. This hat starts by asking the group how they are going to discuss the subject. So, this hat does not look at the subject itself but the thinking behind the subject. In technical terms, the blue hat is more concerned with meta-cognition. Meta-cognition is a specialist term for thinking about how we should think. Meta-cognition also considers what type of thinking is needed and organizes this thinking. This thinking hat considers the premise first, then plans out the process of thinking and subsequent actions. This makes the blue thinking hat in charge of decision-making.

The White Thinking Hat Seeks Facts

“Real life, however, is very different from school sums. There is usually more than one answer. Some answers are much better than others: they cost less, are more reliable or are more easy to implement. There is no reason at all for supposing that the first answer has to be the best one.”
– EDWARD DE BONO

The white thinking hat is all about the facts. Common questions asked by those wearing the white thinking hat are

• What materials do we have?
• What information do we have?
• What further information do we need?
• How are we going to get them?

This thinking hat is focused on information. So, they collect this data and information to guide the team’s decision-making and efficiency. The white hat is neutral and objective. That means they should not be passing judgment while wearing this hat. Instead, white hats are merely collecting.

The author offers an example to help you remember the information-oriented nature of white hats. He explains that paper is generally white and we use paper to write information. So, white hats write facts on white papers.

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