THE SIX THINKING HATS

SIX IMAGINARY THINKING HATS Only one is used at a time. When that hat is used then everyone in the group wears the same hats. This means that everyone is now thinking in parallel in the same direction. Everyone is thinking about the subject-matter and not about what the last person said

THE COLOURS OF HAT WHITE HAT RED HAT BLACK HAT YELLOW HAT GREEN HAT BLUE HAT

THE WHITE HAT Analogy: a white paper Indicates an exclusive focus on information Question in mind: - what information is available - What information is needed - What information is missing - How are we going to get the information we need.

THE RED HAT Analogy: fire and warm Indicate or allows the free expression of feeling, intuition, hunches and emotion without apology and without explanation There must never be any attempt to justify or give the basis for the feelings Intuition may be based on a great experience of the field and may be very valuable

THE BLACK HAT Analogy: thinks of judge robes which are usually black Indicates cautions and stop us doing things which are dangerous, damaging and unworkable It is for risk assessment It is for critical thinking and questions: why something does not fit our policy, our strategy, our resource etc

CONT…BLACK HAT It is a most useful hat but unfortunately is very easy to overuse Ex: food is good for you but overeating is bad for the health ( it is not the fault of the food but of its overuse) Then, the black hat is very useful and the fault lies only in its overuse Socrates said: it was enough to be negative and the truth would eventually emerge

THE YELLOW HAT Analogy: thinks of sunshine and optimism Indicate the logical positive hat The thinker seeks out the values and benefits The thinker looks to see how the ideas can be made workable and put into practice It is much harder than the black hat and requires much more effort

CONT…YELLOW HAT Ex: in order to avoid danger and mistakes we are naturally cautious and the thinker need more effort because the brain is naturally tuned to point out what is wrong and what is not as it should be. Yellow hat thinker will see values and benefits which had been noticed before Without the yellow hat, creativity is almost impossible because we would never see the benefits of an emerging ideas.

THE GREEN HAT Analogy: thinks of vegetation, growth, energy, branches, shoots etc Indicates the creative hat The thinker put forward alternatives, seek out new ideas, modify and change suggested ideas, generate possibilities; and use provocation and movement to produce new ideas

CONT…GREEN HAT It is an action hat It opens up possibilities It is productive and generative At the green-hat stage; things are only ‘possibilities’; they have to be developed and checked out later

THE BLUE HAT Analogy: thinks of blue as sky and overview Indicates the control hat It concerned with the management of the thinking process Ex: the conductor of the orchestra manages the orchestra and gets the best out of the musicians

CONT…BLUE HAT The blue hat: - is looking at the thinking process itself - Concerned with defining the problem and what is being thought about - Concerned with outcomes, conclusion, summaries and what happens next - Set up the sequence of other hats to be used and ensure that the rules of the Six Hat framework are adhered to. - Is the organizer of the thinking process

THE SIX ACTION SHOES

SHOES = ACTION Navy Formal Shoes = Formal action Grey Sneakers = Research action Brown Brogues = practical action Orange Gumboots = emergency action Pink Slippers = caring/loving action Purple Riding shoes = autocratic action

HAT > SHOES WHITE HAT RED HAT BLACK HAT YELLOW HAT GREEN HAT BLUE HAT factsfeelingnegativepositivecreativeLeader ship routineconcerndangerpracticalideapower NAVY FORMAL SHOES PINK SLIPPER ORANGE GUMBOO TS BROWN BROGUE S GREY SNEAKER S PURPLE RIDING SHOES