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One of the great tools that you can use, and that's a lot of fun, is actually Edward De
Bono's "Thinking Hats". Edward's written all kinds of books and they're all about thinking.
And he's considered an expert.
When I was in Europe they had him on a seminar where all world leaders where going to. So,
he's an extraordinary guy.
These thinking hats have the asset of being very easy to understand and to apply. So,
what Edward says the way our minds work, I know when ever you're thinking about a problem
I go and yes but there's this and there's that, he says our minds are like a map with
these squiggles and lines in blue and grey. Unless you have a legend it's really hard
to see where the walking path is or where the railroad track is. So, he's given us a
legend to our minds.
Basically the legend for him is six thinking hats. I'll give you each one of them and explain
how they can be used, and you can start thinking which hat do I wear? And which hats do my
team members wear, and does my staff wear? And when have developed this plan do we actually
use the six hats?
So, here it goes.
The first hat is white. So, no color, it's basically neutral, objective. It's just like
a computer. It's the data, history and facts. Period. And so, when you want to wear that
hat you have to look 'OK. What's the source of those facts? Do we have all the facts we
need? Are there any gaps?' So, first hat white hat.
The second hat, that's really useful to wear and people wear very naturally, you can probably
identify them right away, is the black hat. And the black hat always looks at the dark
side. It's pessimistic, it looks at the dangers; 'Yeah but if can't do it because'. It looks
at the dangers, risks, the pitfalls, what's missing. So, the black hat is a critical hat
to wear. And sometimes you want your controller be able to put that hat on for sure. So, white
hat data. Black hat risks and dangers.
The third hat, imagine this bright colorful red hat has nothing to do with facts, nothing
to do with numbers. People in companies actually often have a hard time wearing them. And what
it is that red hat, it's like a valentine card, how to do you feel about it? What's
your gut feel, what's your intuition?
Sometimes all the numbers are there. Everything looks OK but you don't feel right about it.
So, that gives you, wearing that hat gives you the right to put all the other hats aside
and just focus on that.
That's your first three hats. Now, there's three more hats. The next had would be a bright,
strong yellow construction hat. So, the construction hat is about that, is making the thing happen.
So, you're looking at all the potential of that. You're looking at all the strengths
that it has. You're looking at what opportunities that would open up for you.
So, the yellow hat, is when I like to wear, and wear it naturally when 'Oh wow, what if
we did it this way, did it that way. We could do this'. And so, that hat is often a hat
that gets people pushed into action.
So, we've talked about white hat, information. Black hat, risks. Red hat, your feelings,
gut feels, emotions of your clients, your stake holders, your employees, yours personally.
And now the yellow hat. We have two more.
The green hat is what we call, and everyone is pretty well familiar with is, thinking
outside the box. So, it's as if you've have a seed and that seed just breaks open. So
you just have this good plan and everything is laid out. And now you say pull back and
play with it. 'What if we didn't have the 10,000 dollars to do our marketing plan what
could we do?' 'How could we do this differently and engage these people as well?' It's lateral
thinking. It's divergent thinking. And so that means when you have something that's
a possibility and you want to go for it you say 'let's stop here and let's make sure we
have at least 30 ways that we can make this happen.' So they have to be crazy, they have
to be wild, but sometimes in that wild and crazy that's where you get innovation. So,
the green hat is a lot of fun and you got to take the time to put it on.
And finally, in the hats, you have the blue hat. What the blue hat does, the blue hat
is like the sky, sort of takes the whole picture. So, what you do is look 'did we wear each
of these hats? did we get all that information? did we focus on that? and whats the summary
and whats the direction that this can take? whats the conclusion of this?'
So the blue hat is often the orchestra leader. It often needs to be worn by the leader to
make sure that we pull all this together and move it forward.
So, De Bono's Hats are a lot of fun. And if you look around the room I bet you you could
pick a couple of the black hat people just like that.
Probably a few of the yellow hat people. And maybe some of the people that get on your
nerves that have this red hat. But also you say wow, we need all these hats to succeed.
So, Have fun with it.