Bulldozer00's Blog

In his short and pithy “Six Thinking Hats” book, Edward De Bono describes his structured, but diverse, problem solving method for groups of people who are wrestling with an issue. The picture below summarizes Edward’s six thinking hat colors and the modes of thinking that they represent.

Armed with an understanding of the six thinking hats method, the idea is that a group led by a blue hat facilitator could collectively switch colors and express aligned thinking to explore all aspects of an issue/problem/decision under discussion. The good thing about Mr. De Bono’s method is that it is down-to-earth; it’s easily and quickly learned. It’s not anchored in the latest management jargon du jour and you don’t have to attend a 40 hour elitist university MBA course to absorb the subject matter.

The figure below models a typical six thinking hats use case. The group gathering is framed by “blue hat” thinking book ends. At the start of the discussion, the blue hat wearer (usually the meeting instigator) frames and bounds the gathering with answers to the “why we are here” and “what we’re trying to do” questions. Next, under the fluid direction of the blue hat wearing dude, the group iterates on the issue by collectively switching modes of thinking when deemed necessary. Finally, the blue hat director ends the gathering with the answer to the “what we accomplished here” question – which may or may not be nothing. Simple and doable, no?

By applying the six hats thinking method, the hope is that the mold will be broken on the same-old, same-old, rudderless, alpha-dominated, black-hat-only, egofestive modus of operandi that takes place everywhere in command and control hierarchies across the land:

So, what do you think? Substance or snake oil? If substance, would you try to promote the six thinking hats method in your org? If you think the method has potential but you won’t step up to champion it………. why not?