The Six Thinking Hats: What They Are And How To Use Them

More often than not, when you’re working in a group, there’ll be a moment when people start to butt heads. Someone will think their way or working is right, someone else will think they’re wrong, and all productivity comes to a halt. So what can you do to be more productive, focused, and mindfully involved, without any drama?

Wear hats of course!

In this sense, not literally…but you can use a powerful tool, known as the Six Thinking Hats - an approach created by physician, psychologist and philosopher, Edward de Bono - to separate people in groups into different functions and roles when it comes to investigating an issue. Each role is represented by a coloured, symbolic, ‘thinking hat’ which helps you think constructively together and implement change easily - no more arguments! 

The hats come in different colours and are designed to help you move outside habitual ways of thinking, try different approaches and think about how to move forward. 

The White Hat

This hat is also known as The Functional Hat and represents information gathering. Think about the knowledge and insights that you've collected already – but also the information you're missing, and where you can go to get it.

The Yellow Hat

This hat is also known as The Optimist Hat and looks at issues in the most positive light possible. Think about how you can accentuate the benefits and the added value that could come from your ideas.

The Black Hat

This hat is also known as The Judge’s Hat and is about being cautious and assessing risks. Think about employing critical judgement and explain exactly why you have concerns. But be careful - the black hat is also one of the most powerful hats and can often be overused. So make sure that you and your team can justify any critical or cautionary comments, so that this way of thinking doesn't dominate your decision making.

The Red Hat

This hat is also known as The Hat For The Heart and represents feelings, hunches, and intuitions. When you're engaged in this type of thinking, you can express your feelings without having to justify them logically.

The Green Hat

This hat is also known as The Creative Hat and represents creative thinking. When you're wearing this hat, you can explore a range of ideas and possible ways forward. Think about all possibilities, alternatives and new concepts and perceptions. 

The Blue Hat

This hat is also known as The Conductor’s Hat and is used to manage the thinking and decision making process. It’s the control mechanism that ensures all the hats are in working order - you set an agenda, ask for summaries, and reach conclusions.

By giving everyone in your team a hat, you’ll be able to maximise productive working and minimise any conflicts. When the hats work together, it means you can consider issues, problems, and ways to solve them in a systematic way, rather than just yelling things out over the top of each other. It also gives you an opportunity to step away from your default thinking position - maybe you’re naturally a white hat person, but need to start thinking in a green hat way - and see things from another perspective. This also leads to greater listening skills, as it encourages everyone to practice listening, questioning, and answering. Pretty good, right? What hat do you think you could benefit from wearing and why? Try it out in your next team activity and see how productive you can be!