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How Well You THINK is critical to tackle the problems that we confront in our daily lives.
Edward de Bono’s Six Thinking Hat technique will help you think better and take control of every situation in life or business. This is a practical and simple tool created for focussed thinking, better communication and greater creativity.
When you are challenged with a problem, you tend to think only through your own perspective. When a complicated situation arises in your business, tackling the challenge using your habitual way of thinking can harm the overall growth of the business. Looking at a situation from a number of different critical perspectives, will broaden thinking and help improve the decision making. When decisions are to be made in a group, the individual strategies will not tend to converge. In a collaborative thinking activity even when the objectives are crystal clear, participants tend to think in different directions. Six Thinking Hats process helps to avoid this confusion and makes everyone in the group look in the same direction.
Six Thinking Hats technique trigger your minds into action and force you to think creatively considering different viewpoints. Six colors of the hats are for six types of thinking. Each hat identifies a type of thinking. Hats are actually directions of thinking and help the group use parallel thinking by “putting on” and “taking off” a hat as required making everyone think in the same way at the same time. This hat systems can be used for problem solving, strategic planning and running meetings. The switching between thinking styles helps broaden your mind and forces each of the participants in the group to adopt to a particular thinking style as represented by the hat. The hats and colours are explained:
WHITE HAT: neutral and objective, concerned with facts and figures
RED HAT: the emotional view
BLACK HAT: careful and cautious
YELLOW HAT: sunny and positive thoughts
GREEN HAT: associated creativity, and new ideas
BLUE HAT: cool, related to control and organization of thinking
At a meeting, when the 6 Thinking hats technique is used, the sessions can be started using the Blue hat. The Blue hats plays the role of a facilitator or group leader- focus on the points to be discussed and defines the problem. Looking at the problem with the White hat, the group analyze the data and examine the facts and figures . With Red hat thinking, they put forward their feelings about the problem. When they think with the Black hat, the weak points, risks and fatal flaws get highlighted . With the Yellow hat however, group provides an optimistic view to the problem. They discuss on the benefits and value the discussion can bring about. Wearing the Green hat the group proceeds to develop creative or alternative solutions to the problem. The Blue hat can be used by the meeting facilitator to switch styles as required. This deliberate role playing with hats supports cross-pollination/ diversity of thoughts and provides a common language and direction to thinking. People start using more of their brains and focus on one thing at a time. This approach helps create, evaluate and implement actions plans and reduce confrontations making people think better.
Six Thinking Hats is an effective thinking technique which results in productive discussions with solid outcomes in less time also providing alternative and creative solutions to all problems discussed. This unique and positive approach has been adopted by business officials, professionals, educators and government leaders around the world with great success.