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and risks before you embark on a course of action.
Black Hat thinking is one of the real benefts of this
technique, as many successful people get so used
to thinking positively that often they cannot see
problems in advance, leaving them under-prepared
for difculties.
Yellow Hat
The yellow hat helps you to think positively. It is
the optimistic viewpoint that helps you to see all
the benefts of the decision and the value in it, and
spot the opportunities that arise from it. Yellow Hat
thinking helps you to keep going when everything
looks gloomy and difcult.
Green Hat
The Green Hat stands for creativity. This is where you
can develop creative solutions to a problem. It is a
freewheeling way of thinking, in which there is little
criticism of ideas.
Blue Hat
The Blue Hat stands for process control. This is the hat
worn by people chairing meetings. When running
into difculties because ideas are running dry, they
may direct activity into Green Hat thinking. When
contingency plans are needed, they will ask for Black
Hat thinking, and so on.
You can use Six Thinking Hats in meetings or on your
own. In meetings, it has the beneft of defusing the
disagreements that can happen when people with
diferent thinking styles discuss the same problem.
A similar approach is to look at problems from the
point of view of diferent professionals (e.g. doctors,
architects, sales directors) or diferent customers.
Example
The directors of a property company are looking at
whether they should construct a new ofce building.
The economy is doing well, and the amount of vacant
ofce space is reducing sharply. As part of their
decision, they decide to use the ‘Six Thinking Hats’
technique during a planning meeting.
Looking at the problem with the White Hat, they
analyze the data they have. They examine the trend in
vacant ofce space, which shows a sharp reduction.
They anticipate that by the time the ofce block
would be completed, that there will be a severe
shortage of ofce space. Current government
projections show steady economic growth for at least
the construction period.
With Red Hat thinking, some of the directors think the
proposed building looks quite ugly. While it would be
highly cost-efective, they worry that people would
not like to work in it.
When they think with the Black Hat, they worry that
government projections may be wrong. The economy
may be about to enter a ‘cyclical downturn’, in which
case the ofce building may be empty for a long time.
If the building is not attractive, then companies will
choose to work in another better-looking building at
the same rent.
With the Yellow Hat, however, if the economy holds
up and their projections are correct, the company
stands to make a great deal of money. If they are
lucky, maybe they could sell the building before the
next downturn, or rent to tenants on long-term leases
that will last through any recession.
With Green Hat thinking, they consider whether they
should change the design to make the building more
pleasant. Perhaps they could build prestige ofces
that people would want to rent in any economic
climate. Alternatively, maybe they should invest the
money in the short term to buy up property at a low
cost when a recession comes.
The Blue Hat has been used by the meeting’s Chair
to move between the diferent thinking styles. He or
she may have needed to keep other members of the
team from switching styles, or from criticizing other
peoples’ points.
Key points
Six Thinking Hats is a good technique for looking at
the efects of a decision from a number of diferent
points of view.
It allows necessary emotion and scepticism to
be brought into what would otherwise be purely
rational decisions. It opens up the opportunity for
creativity within decision-making. It also helps,
for example, persistently pessimistic people to be
positive and creative.
Plans developed using the ‘Six Thinking Hats’
techniques are sounder and more resilient than
would otherwise be the case. This technique may
also help you to avoid public relations mistakes, and
spot good reasons not to follow a course of action,
before you have committed to it.