The facilitator then needs to move the group on to a different hat to open up the discussion. Taking on the Blue Hat, the facilitator can then oversee the process, and keep the discussion moving through the hat sequence at the agreed intervals.ĦTH is a great tool for recognising when a group of people have fallen into 1-hat thinking and the discussion is going nowhere. A pre-set sequence for the hats can be agreed at the start, depending on the type of discussion. FacilitationĦTH is very useful as a facilitation tool, setting a structure for the discussion. Here are some examples of how we’ve used it with our clients. How can I use this tool?ĦTH can be used to help progress discussions, achieve consensus and drive innovation.
The Six Thinking Hats explained The White Hat – facts & informationĭe Bono encouraged different sequences of hats, called a pre-set sequence, to enable different types of discussions: so one set for innovation, one set for risk analysis, one set to promote discussion.
#Problem child hat full#
And you get a full and open discussion with everyone working together. By requiring everyone to use the same hat – way of thinking – at the same time, 6TH both ensures everyone has the opportunity to air their views and that every angle of the issue is properly explored. (And in the world of business ‘critical’ thinking is highly regarded, whereas in the arts ‘creative’ thinking is more often praised.) So when there are two or more people with different preferences involved in a discussion it can, not surprisingly, be very hard to get consensus as each person is convinced theirs is the most accurate point of view. Of course, many people have a preference for certain types of thinking. Importantly De Bono emphasised that 6TH was about modes of behaviour and not individual personalities. By moving through the different ways of thinking collectively a more rounded approach is taken to appraising an idea, and new avenues of discussion are often uncovered. Each coloured hat represents a particular type of thinking, each with its own ‘rules’ about that type of thinking.ĦTH requires everyone taking part in a discussion or in the decision-making to ‘put on’ the same hat at the same time and only use that hat at that time. What are the principles?ĭe Bono chose six hats to cover the different approaches to thinking he’d identified, and he gave them different colour to allow easy association and visualisation. So how do we bring fractious discussions to a conclusion acceptable to all, or open up new ways of thinking? De Bono’s answer was to devise a framework for focused, systematic thinking – the Six Thinking Hats. This latter is especially challenging when what’s actually needed is some focused creative thinking to drive meaningful and innovative changes to what the team does or how they do it. And there are times when teams get stuck in a rut, simply recycling the same ideas or variations on the same theme. This encourages people to switch and think in different ways rather than to stay stuck in one mode.ĭeBono developed the technique having noticed that when critical or contentious decisions need to be made, teams can find themselves in deadlock, unable to make a decision and move forward.
align their thinking – so using parallel thinking rather than confused or conflicted.make better decisions about which ideas to progress.It’s a useful technique for helping groups: His work is now widely used in education and business. Six Thinking Hats (6TH) was developed by internationally respected consultant Edward de Bono.