Six Thinking Hats
by Edward de Bono
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Book Reviews of Six Thinking Hats
Book Review: Improved Parallel-Thinking Process for Evaluating Issues
Summary: 5 Stars
Seldom do I find a legitimate improvement on existing thinking processes, but there certainly is one in Six Thinking Hats. De Bono reports that this process reduces time spent in meetings by 20 to 90 percent, based on experiences reported to him since the book was first published. It also seems that many people feel that the evaluations that emerge are more useful ones, as well. De Bono himself makes this statement: "The Six Thinking Hats method may well be the most important change in human thinking for the past twenty-three hundred years." You'll have to decide for yourself, if the book lives up to that claim.
De Bono diagnoses the fundamental problem of decision-making as being muddled thinking. Groups are simply not well equipped to deal with a wide range of data and perspectives simultaneously. The meeting often bogs down into conflicts of personalities and over focus on inimportant points. By creating a simpler way to think about issues, de Bono claims to eliminate many of these problems.
The process is not one that I have used, but it makes sense to me as an improvement over less structured evaluation methods. It can be used by an individual or a group working together. The amount of structure you use can be high, or you can be more ad hoc.
People learn best when they are playing, and the six hat approach clearly encourages a spirit of play. By giving each person a role (and each person eventually playing all of the roles), the method reduces the amount of personality-based conflict, encourages more participation, and gives validation to many different ways to present the question at hand. This should make each person feel more affirmed and invested in the process. Also, since the route is focused on getting lots out on the table, it also suspends judgment longer so that more ideas can emerge. As such, it is closer to the Japanese method of making evaluations than the American one (as de Bono points out).
Here is the color scheme. Blue is the process coordinator (like the conductor of an orchestra) and starts and leads off the meeting (plus helps keep it on process) -- except sometimes it is better to have red finish just after blue summarizes at the end.
Red goes second, and represents emotions and feelings to present both positive and negative emotional reactions, as well as more subtle things like intuition.
It seems to be more free form from there. Let's go to yellow next, which is speculative and positive -- the optimistic side of the case. This view is to open up the possibilities.
Naturally, that has to be balanced by looking at the downside, which is black (cautious and careful). This hat is normally worn the most in evaluations, and can easily be overdone. The idea is not to be negative, but to search out the risks.
White plays an important, but neutral, role -- pointing out the facts that are known or are likely to be true. Care in characterizing what is known is important.
Green is the wild card -- finding alternatives. This color connects very well with de Bono's original claim to fame, as someone who has good ideas for stimulating individual creativity. By giving each person a role in being creative in a meeting, he extends that focus in a useful way
De Bono makes two interesting comments about how all this leads to decisions: "In the end, all decisions are really red hat." But we should assume that it is a more informed set of emotions and feelings than would exist otherwise. "Decisions seem to make themselves." Knowing how painful decisions are in many circumstances, if that were the only benefit, that would be enough to make this book essential.
My suggestion is that you give this process a trial run with something unimportant before unleashing it on a big issue. Otherwise, you might be stalled by lack of understanding about how the process works. Keep practicing until you are satisfied that it is working well.
Good luck with overcoming your stalled thinking about making decisions and the issues that face you and your organization!
Donald Mitchell
Coauthor of The Irresistible Growth Enterprise (available in August 2000) and The 2,000 Percent Solution
(donmitch@fastforward400.com)
Book Review: You can keep your hat on (but try a different one sometimes)
Summary: 4 Stars
Edward de Bono does not suffer from a small ego. The first sentence of the preface to his book is: "The Six Thinking Hats method may well be the most important change in human thinking for the past twenty-three hundred years." Digest this and two more pages of obnoxious self-advertisement that follows. Then put the book down. After an hour continue to read the rest of the book. It is worth while.Essentially, "Six Thinking Hats" is about improving communication and decision-making in groups. De Bono's style is accessible, succinct, well-structured and easy to follow. It is not with a certain justification that he claims that "his work is in use equally in board-rooms of some of the world's largest corporations and with four-year-olds in school." Well, where is the difference, anyway?
What de Bono wants to achieve is to structure thinking and make it more effective. "Thinking often proceeds as drift and waffle and reaction to what turns up from moment to moment. [...] Suggestions, judgements, criticism, information and plain emotions are all mixed together in a sort of thinking stew," he writes. The six "thinking hats" are different ways of looking at an issue that has to be decided: under the white hat one presents the facts, under the red hat one says how one feels about the issue, under the black hat one looks at the negative effects of the decision, under the yellow hat one looks at the positive effects of the decision, under the green hat one thinks of alternatives, and under the blue hat one clarifies which kind of thinking is going on. Overall, thinking becomes clearer when the different parts that go into it are brought into the open.
The idea of the "hat" has the advantage that it allows people to play with a new perspective. People who argue by criticism, for example, can remain mostly critical. But by putting on the red hat they can voice their emotions, or by putting on the yellow hat they can think about positive effects. Western thinking tends strongly to focus on "black hat thinking," says de Bono: "At a Western-style meeting the participants sit there with their points of view and in many cases the conclusion they wish to see agreed upon. The meeting then consists of arguing through these different points of view to see which survives the criticism and which attracts the most adherents." De Bono wants to get away from this judgmental, confrontational style towards a more open, positive, creative and playful way of discussing.
De Bono's model tries to make discussions more rational. It acknowledges the importance of emotions in decision-making, and tries to separate them from the facts and from the positive or negative implications of the decision: "once the emotions are made visible, then a thinker is more free of them". But making the discussion more transparent and structured is not enough. De Bono's model needs a "facilitator", a person who puts a "blue hat" on, someone who organizes the discussion and leads it.
In the world of business, discussions are very often about power. The "six thinking hats" model requires a very enlightened, open-minded "powerful" person to work, or very assertive, courageous "less powerful" persons.
What are the problems with power? A person in power can abuse his "blue hat" position, for example. Or the culture of the company can be built on "black hat" critical thinking, where "yellow hat" positive thinkers tend to become scapegoats when things go wrong. "Red hat" revelations of the emotions behind one's point of view or "green hat" creative ideas are not forthcoming when power games are being played. People in power can abuse any of the six thinking hats. Here the book could profit from some ideas about how to deal with the abuse of power in communication. But having said that, I want to stress that it was stimulating to read this book, and I found it very interesting to analyse my own thinking under the "hat" categories of de Bono.
Book Review: Pass the Idea
Summary: 5 Stars
I presume to suggest that you read this book before you read de Bono's Six Action Shoes and strongly urge you to read both. As he explains in Chapter 6, "The first value of the six thinking hats is that of defined role-playing....[the second] is that of attention directing....[the third] is that of convenience....[and the fourth] is the possible basis in brain chemistry" which de Bono outlines in the previous chapter. What about the hats? The conceit is brilliant. Each hat is of a different color: white, red, black, yellow, green, and blue. De Bono assigns to each a quite specific combination of qualities and characteristics. Since childhood, my favorite color has always been green. Here is what de Bono says about it: "Green is grass, vegetation, and abundant., fertile growth. The green hat indicates creativity and new ideas." De Bono also briefly characterizes the other colors and then devotes an entire chapter to discussing each of them in depth.
According to the subtitle, de Bono provides "an essential approach to business management." That is true. He helps his reader to increase various reasoning skills through carefully defined and structured role-playing, and, by directing and then focusing attention where it is needed most. How? By understanding and then developing entirely different perspectives which the various hats represent: White (neutral and objective), Red (powerful emotions), Black (gloomy and negative), Yellow (sunny and positive), Green (fertile and creative), and Blue (logical and in control). You get the idea. De Bono urges his reader to SEE all of the hats while associating with each its own defining qualities and characteristics.
Here's an exercise (inspired by Bono ideas) which will work very well with those who have been required to read Six Thinking Hats prior to getting together to brainstorm. Buy several of those delightful Dr. Seuss hats (at least one of each of the six different colors, more if needed) and keep the hats out of sight until everyone is seated. Review the agenda. Review what de Bono says about what each color represents. Then distribute the Dr. Seuss hats, making certain that someone is wearing a hat of each color. Proceed with the discussion, chaired by a person wearing a Blue or White hat. It is imperative that whoever wears a Black hat, for example, be consistently negative and argumentative whereas whoever wears a Yellow must be consistently positive and supportive. After about 15-20 minutes, have each person change to a different colored hat. Resume discussion. Thanks to de Bono and (yes) to Dr. Seuss, you can expect to have an especially enjoyable as well as productive session.
In addition to de Bono's Six Action Shoes, there are other excellent books also worthy of your consideration. They include those written by Guy Claxton, Michael Michalko, Joey Reiman, and Roger von Oech.
Book Review: De Bono will make you THINK
Summary: 4 Stars
Every so often you read a book that is so obvious that you are amazed you did not see it before. For me, this is such a book. Yes, I could argue about the slow nature of the book, about the style or choice of phrase. However, the very simple idea (singular) at the core hit me like a billiard ball between the eyes at three paces.
De Bono takes the idea of thinking, and breaks it down into six different aspects, and proposes that all should be allowed at appropriate times in a meeting. The key is not that (say) raw emotion can be expressed unjustified, but that where necessary such feelings are not only encouraged, but that it is an everybody thing. Participants are allowed to express a simple yes / no to an idea with no further comments. This, by the way, is `red hat thinking'.
Each aspect of thinking is given a colour, so participants will wear the SAME hat at the same time, to view topics from a similar perspective. There is no compelling reason to have physical hats, but presumably this may help initially. Examining each proposal in a critical way is allowed, but not all the way through any discussion - only at `blackhat' time.
This is a short, easy-read book. It would be possible to give a summary here of the six hats, and their meanings - however, it is better to let de Bono do that. Chapters are small and bite-sized, with an introduction and summary to each coloured hat. You do not need to read the book in one sitting, but it is probably advisable to tackle the 170 pages within 2 or 3 days.
The author has written a number of other books on `thinking', and these are referred to in the text of the volume. For me, the references were about right - neither too many (a sales pitch) or too few (not giving readers the opportunity to get further information). What did irritate me was the summary chapters for each hat, where the majority of sentences seemed to begin with e.g. "Blue hat thinking .....".
At the end de Bone gives a possible framework for using the principles within a meeting. This is helpful, and adds to the comments and examples throughout the text. The overall feel is that this is a book about thinking that is based in reality.
My final thoughts concern interminable meetings I have attended, and national flags. Use of the core idea of this thin volume would have saved man-months of my time, sometimes concluding that a meeting was not necessary. The national flag theme? Take a South African flag into meetings with you. This will remind you of the thinking hats, for the colours are the same.
Buy it, learn it, practice it, and do it.
Peter Morgan, Bath, UK (morganp@supanet.com)
Book Review: Six Thinking Hats
Summary: 5 Stars
The author of Six Thinking Hats, Edward De Bono gives people of all ages a new form of thinking. Actually he did not invent this way of thinking; it has been around for centuries, but people have got used to the Western way of thinking. Lawyers, debaters, and school essays use the Western way of thinking, in which ideas are defended instead of being explored. The concept of Six Thinking Hats lets us express our ideas and thoughts about a subject in 6 different ways, and most importantly, at different time intervals. Normally, when we think about a subject, we combine all of our thoughts into one response, which can confuse our judgment when it comes to a decision. To correct this problem, the six thinking hats let us separate our thinking and then combine all ideas toward the end. This concept is called parallel thinking because all 6 thinking hats work side by side, but they all combine towards one common goal in the end.
Thinking Guru Edward De Bono does a tremendous job of explaining the six thinking hats in way that everyone from all ages can read. At times it can get annoying to read a book that looks like it was written for a child, but you learn to appreciate the examples and descriptions of each hat. The easy readability of the book is also a great hook for business partners and managers to learn the new method of thinking without spending weeks reading a book. Six Thinking Hats can be read in a weekend and its method can be applied right away.
The Six Thinking Hats can also be looked as an Industrial Engineering approach to thinking, because it makes thinking more efficient. Instead of wasting hours trying to get people to bring their ideas to the table, the Six Thinking Hats method cuts the time in half, thus saving time for other important issues to deal with. In addition to saving time, the new approach to thinking utilizes the potential of people by letting them express their full thoughts and feelings towards a subject and allowing everyone to have their say in the subject.
Overall, Edward De Bono writes a book that shows Americans and the world that thinking is also a science that can be improved, which is what Six Thinking Hats is able to accomplish.