De-spaghetti-ise your Thinking: Dr Edward de Bono’s Six Thinking Hats®
How do you usually generate new ideas at work? What does conflict look like and sound like in the different areas of your workplace? How effective are the meetings you head along to during an average week?
Our experience over the years, across different organisations, in all sectors, in different areas of New Zealand, is that most people have a favourite way of ‘doing business’. Despite being offered different ways of thinking, we will often default to old habits. People often get stuck – whether it’s brain dumping quarterly thoughts, pet loves and peeves (verbally or on some platform); avoiding healthy conflict or challenging conversations; or feeling trapped in the usual formulaic process of meetings (like the predictable cadence of a TEDTalk).
How can we do this differently? How could we explore different thinking so we can become more productive and stay energised?
A fun, effective and friendly approach you can experience to reprogramme old habits and open up the potential for other ways of working is the one-day Edward de Bono’s Six Thinking Hats® workshop. Dr de Bono (1933-2021) developed the Thinking Hats in 1985 and it has continued to be used throughout many corners of the planet, with a recent refresh in 2022.
The way we often think is, interestingly, quite mixed up! If you imagine a bowl of spaghetti with different strands of that spaghetti representing different modes of thinking, we generally have a lot going on when we express our views. In a standard conflab we can bring:
- emotion (think red) +
- the facts we know (think white, a blank A4 page or screen) +
- the benefits we might see in an idea (think yellow) +
- our concerns at the risks we might see in an idea (think dark judge’s robes) +
- far out alternatives and possibilities (think green) +
- we often want to contain our thinking time with some sort of structure and focus (think blue).
Mix these strands of different coloured spaghetti and you have a pretty messy and possibly colourful bowl. Or perhaps it has blended together into a brown muck!
What would happen if we took the time to de-spaghetti-ise our thinking, especially in group situations?
For example, let’s say there is a strong debate at work about if we should use the Te Reo version of our business as our main logo, with the English version as a smaller part of our logo with a third sign-language version as a slightly smaller part.
Wow, this is going to take some time! Or perhaps not, if we think differently about it.
Using the Six Thinking Hats, here is an approach to explore this idea:
- Stop, check in with the team
What’s our focus? How long shall we spend on this? How shall we structure our thinking? This is known as the Conductor’s Hat – the Blue Hat. It sets the focus and the agenda, summarises and concludes, ensures the rules are observed. Yep, this is like the chair of a meeting. The focus could be as wide as, “How can we communicate our brand more clearly with our customers using Te Reo Māori?” - List all the information we know about the topic
Next, we could agree to list in a really computer-like way, all of the information we know about the topic of logos, languages, brand, what we need to know, and other people’s views. This is the Factual Hat – the White Hat. - Check how people feel about the topic
We might then want to do a check in with everyone to ask them, in less than three words, to express how they feel about this topic, our focus. To keep this short, sweet and to give permission for feelings, or emotion, we would be clear there is no need to explain why someone feels the way they do. Stopping the stories and giving permission for people to express how they really feel can be super helpful to keep a team focused. This is the Hat for the Heart – the Red Hat. - Work together on the benefits of an idea
The team could then all work together on exploring the benefits, the feasibility, the optimistic view of using Te Reo Māori. Even those who don’t like the idea or feel challenged by the idea (often shared when everyone was ‘wearing’ the Red Hat) are required to move their thinking into this mode, the Optimist’s Hat. It’s Yellow Hat thinking time. - Think in parallel about the risks or challenges
After a good 10 minutes, it can now be a good opportunity to then all together put on a new thinking hat (we call this ‘thinking in parallel’). The team might look at the risks, the challenges of this idea, giving reasons for potential problems. Even those already sold on the idea should expand their mind to the possibility of this not actually being able to work. Welcome team to the Judge’s Hat – the Black Hat. This can often produce a lot of energy! - Explore different positive and playful ideas
The sixth hat (but never the final hat) is a chance for everyone to explore different ideas that might be bubbling away inside them or outside in the world. Perhaps we could use numbers instead, perhaps sign language symbols, maybe we could use all three official languages of New Zealand.
Because it is exploring positive and playful ideas (usually we would say, imagine there is unlimited resources – unlimited money, people, technology, etc). There might be a completely new language that is invented, a crazy hybrid that floats off the screen or ‘paper’ in 3D that you can smell or scratch and it will turn around saying the logo in Te Reo, then English, then sign it … The Creative Hat – The Green Hat can be a lot of fun. It is a “yes, and …” process everyone is involved in. No idea is talked down, it is all included. - Return to blue - the final hat
The final hat summarises where you have arrived, even if it is with further questions to explore at a later time. We have returned to the Blue Hat – the Conductor’s Hat.
Like all new learning experiences, this different way of thinking, takes time and practice. That’s why we follow up the workshop with 10 weekly tips and encourage 90-minute refreshers with teams three to four times a year.
After this learning experience, you can structure your thinking on certain tasks in a new, less spaghetti-like way, from performance reviews to system improvement, wider problem-solving, self-reflection, or strategic thinking.
It’s fun and accessible for all learners; it’s taught at some schools here in New Zealand, and many in Australia and elsewhere in the world).
Thanks Dr de Bono! Thinking of ya.
Authored by Greg Kirk, our Six Thinking Hats specialist.
If you’d like Greg to work with your team using a Thinking Hats approach, contact Nicky on 021 133 1201 or info@odi.org.nz.