Put your hat on and get ready to problem solve with your team?
The Six Thinking Hat technique is used in companies around the world to facilitate decision making and getting people to have good brainstorming conversations.
Before you start you need to educate your team on the 6 hats and background. You can do this by:
Group Exercise
Pick a problem to solve with the team/ group.
Allocate a hat to each person; the point isn’t to put people to the natural hat but make people outside of their comfort zone and ensure it creates good conversation.
Teams can use these hats in any order during a discussion, but typically progress from blue, to white, to green, to yellow, to red, and finally to black.
This order organizes the discussion:
Blue: Start with the approach and process
White: Review the facts
Green: Generate new ideas without judgement
Yellow: Focus on the benefits
Red: Consider emotional responses to any ideas
Black: Apply critical thinking after the benefits have been explored to test the viability of the new ideas
Any hat could make a reappearance in the discussion. For example, after facts (white) are laid out, more process (blue) may be applied, or after pros (yellow) and cons (black) are discussed, new ideas (green) may surface.
Using these hats takes some practice. Remember that this approach is not intended to "feel natural" at first. It is intended to help individuals focus on problem solving. Practice, however, can help the team flow through the hats more easily, and gives everyone in the organization a shorthand to focus on the analysis rather than their complicated thoughts and responses to the process.
Tips
Here are a few tips for running a “Six Hats” meeting:
Empower a moderator (a designated blue hat) who has read de Bono’s book beforehand to set an agenda and facilitate the meeting.
Use six physical hats of different colours (or labelled with the different roles) to remind participants of the different thinking categories and signal what category is the current focus.
Ensure that participants all have a way to record ideas, either for brainstorming, or to save for when the conversation moves to the appropriate hat.
For more practical examples of how this works please follow us on LinkedIn and YouTube for some Whiteark bites that provide some practical examples.
Need more information on the hats?
Watch the videos below where Jo Hands and James Ciuffetelli unpack each of DeBono’s hats in less than 5 minutes…
Whiteark is aligned with the White Hat.
Let us explain more….
We’re a team of doers led by Jo Hands and James Ciuffetelli. We don’t believe in unnecessary layers; and between us we have over 50 years of collective experience, expertise and global connections. Delicately weaving these together, we engage with you directly, with a single-minded focus on the task at hand. Collaborating at a senior level to propel organisations forward, we intricately map out and execute your next move, ensuring you’re prepared, protected and prosperous.
We’re nimble; we will assemble the best team for your problem, guaranteeing you have the skillset and people you need - no more, no less. Using data (de Bono’s White Hat) we load up your arsenal with the information needed to define and craft your next move; your strategy. Then together we’ll use this knowledge to carve out a unique set of priorities and objectives, bringing the entire team into the fold so they’re aligned towards the same targets and goal.
