The following contains excerpts from the book, Six Thinking Hats (Edward De Bono).
At our music school in Midland, Texas we believe that music is more than sound, it is relationships. In Leadership, Management, and overall Creativity, relationships matter.
“In this book I am concerned with the mapmaking type of thinking in which the terrain is first explored and noted. Then the possible routes are observed and finally a choice or route is made. In practice, one of the most striking things about the use of the Six Hats method is that decisions seem to make themselves. When you come to the final blue hat, the decision is often obvious to everyone present…After all, when we make decisions on our own, we go through more or less the same process (pros, cons, feeling, facts). The Six Hats method does all that very thoroughly. So what was hitherto carried out in an individual’s mind is now done systematically and in the open.”
The author clarifies the processes we all go through to make decisions, revealing the different aspects. So, in that sense, I am aware of these dynamics. The way he presents the material, however, is unique and fresh.
In our Western culture, we have seen an attempt to sideline the arts in favor of STEM (or linear) thinking. It is our goal at our music school in Midland, Texas to reclaim the educational value of music that is so vital to a wholistic education.
“Western thinking is concerned with ‘what is,’ which is determined by analysis, judgement and argument. That is a fine and useful system. But there is another whole aspect of thinking that is concerned with ‘what can be,’ which involves constructive thinking, creative thinking, and ‘designing a way forward.’ In traditional thinking, if two people disagree, there is an argument in which each tries to prove the other party wrong. In parallel thinking, both views, no matter how contradictory, are put down in parallel…With parallel thinking, every thinker at every moment is looking in the same direction. The thoughts are laid out in parallel. You do not respond to what the last person has said. You simply add another idea in parallel. In the end, the subject is fully explored quickly…The Six Hats method provides neutral and objective exploration of a subject – argument does not.”
At our music school in Midland, Texas we teach students how to think laterally. Music is a wonderful discipline to develop non-linear though-processes.
“Six hats, six colors…White Hat is neutral and objective. The white hat is concerned with objective facts and figures. Red Hat suggests anger (seeing red), rage and emotions. The red hat gives the emotional view. Black Hat is somber and serious. The black hat is cautious and careful. It points out the weaknesses in an idea. Yellow Hat is sunny and positive. The yellow hat is optimistic and covers hope and positive thinking. Green Hat is grass, vegetation, and abundant, fertile growth. The green hat indicates creativity and new ideas. Blue Hat is cool, and it is also the color of the sky, which is above everything else. The blue hat is concerned with control, the organization of the thinking process, and the use of the other hats.”
“There are two basic ways to use the hats. The hats can be used singly to request a type of thinking. Or, the hats can be used in a sequence to explore a subject or solve a problem…Members of the group must stay with the hat that is indicated at that moment…A blue hat should always be used both at the beginning and at the end of the session – like two bookends.”
One of the most important life-skills in all learning styles is learning to listen attentively. At our music school in Midland, Texas we help students to develop this empathetic skill.
White Hat. “The white hat is about information…What information do we have? What information do we need? What information is missing? What questions do we need to ask? How are we going to get the information we need? White hat thinking becomes a discipline which encourages the thinker to separate quite clearly in his or her own mind what is fact and what is extrapolation or interpretation…Japanese meetings are not consensus meetings…The purpose of the meeting is to listen…each participant in turn puts on the white hat and then proceeds to give his piece of neutral information. Gradually the map gets more complete. The map gets richer and more detailed. When the map is finished the route becomes obvious to everyone…The Western notion is that ideas should be hammered into shape by argument. The Japanese notion is that ideas emerge as seedlings and are then nurtured and allowed to grow into shape…So we need some mechanism that will allow us to override our argument habits. The white hat role does precisely this…In practice there is a two-tier system of information. The first tier contains checked and proven facts – first-class facts. The second tier contains facts that are believed to be true but have not yet been fully checked – second-class facts.”
Red Hat. “Using the red hat gives you an opportunity to express feelings, emotions and intuition without any need to explain or justify them…There are three points at which emotion can affect thinking. There may be a strong background emotion as fear, anger, hatred, suspicion, jealousy or love. This background limits and colors all perception…In the second instance the emotion is triggered by the initial perception…You perceive (perhaps falsely) that someone is saying something out of self-interest…The third point…is after a map of the situation has been put together…Every decision has a value base. We react emotionally to values. Our reaction to the value of freedom is emotional (especially if we have been deprived of freedom)…It is not the logical part of thinking that changes emotions but the perceptual part. If we see something differently than we did before, our emotions may alter with the altered perception…Emotions are often used to establish bargaining positions…I refer to the emotional value that is ascribed to certain matters. The principle of variable value is at the base of negotiation…We are brought up to apologize for emotions and feelings because they are not the stuff of logical thinking…The red hat gives a thinker the liberty to be more of a poet with his or her feelings.”
Another amazing value that comes from studying music at our music school in Midland, Texas is the capacity to connect emotionally to one’s self, the music, as well as those who are listening.
Black Hat. “The black hat is the basis of Western civilization because the black hat is the basis of critical thinking…Black hat thinking is always logical…Black hat thinking is not balanced…the brain is sensitized to seek out possible danger, problems, and obstacles. The focus is on why something may not work or may not be the right thing to do…points out the weaknesses in an idea so that those weaknesses can be put right…Because the Six Hats method is very different from argument, the rules of argument do not apply. It is no longer a matter of arguing from one point to another but of filling the field with possibilities…Logical deduction insists on certainty. The Six Hats method deals with possibilities and likelihood. In the real world it is very difficult to be certain. Action has to be taken on ‘likelihood.’ A very important function of the black hat is risk assessment…In academic thinking it is enough to describe, to analyze and to offer explanations. In the real world there is the action element – which I sometimes call operacy. ‘What will happen if we take this action?’ The black hat is very much about ‘fit.’ Does this suggestion fit our past experiences? Does this suggestion fit our ethics and values? Does this suggestion fit our resources? Black hat thinking is not argument and must not be allowed to degenerate into argument. The purpose of black hat thinking is to put the caution points on the map.
At our music school in Midland, Texas we value problem-solving as well as optimism in our approach to teaching our students.
Yellow Hat. “Think of optimism. Under the yellow hat a thinker deliberately sets out to find whatever benefit there may be in a suggestion…We need to develop ‘value sensitivity.’ That means being as sensitive to value as we already are sensitive to danger. That is a habit that has to be developed…The yellow hat should be logically based…not based on fantasy…Being positive is a choice…Positive thinking has to be a mixture of curiosity, pleasure, greed and the desire to ‘make things happen.’ It is not just a matter of making a positive assessment of something that turns up. It is a deliberate search for the positive…There may be very powerful positive points that are not at all obvious at first sight. That is how entrepreneurs work. They see the value that those around them have not yet spotted. Value and benefit are by no means always obvious…History is full of impractical visions and dreams which inspired the effort that eventually made those dreams a reality. If we restrict our yellow hat thinking to what is sound and well known, there is going to be little progress. The key point is to look at the action that follows the optimism…The yellow hat thinker should do his or her best to find as much support as possible for the proffered optimism. This effort should be conscientious and thorough. But yellow hat thinking need not be restricted to those points that can be fully justified….The emphasis of yellow hat thinking is on exploration and positive speculation…Constructive thinking fits under the yellow hat because all constructive thinking is positive in attitude…Creativity is concerned with change, innovation, invention, new ideas and new alternatives. A person can be an excellent yellow hat thinker and never have a new idea. The effective application of old ideas is a proper exercise of yellow hat thinking. The ideas do not have to be new and there does not even have to be an intention to find new ideas. Yellow hat thinking is concerned with the positive attitude of getting the job done. Effectiveness rather than novelty is what yellow hat thinking is all about…Yellow hat thinking may be concerned with taking an idea that is used elsewhere and putting it to work. Yellow hat thinking may be concerned with generating alternative approaches to a problem. Yellow hat thinking may even define opportunities. But yellow hat thinking is not concerned with changing concepts or perceptions. That is the business of green hat thinking.”
Green Hat. “The green hat is the energy hat. Think of growth…Under the green hat we put forward new ideas…Possibilities play a much bigger role in thinking than most people believe. Without possibilities you cannot make progress…Those who believe that progress arises from the analysis of information and steps of logical deduction are totally wrong. Without the framework of possibilities we cannot even see the information in new ways…you deliberately put on the green hat, and this means that you are setting aside time for deliberate creative thinking…Creativity involves provocation, exploration and risk taking. Creativity involves ‘thought experiments.’ You cannot tell in advance how the experiment is going to turn out. But you want to be able to carry out the experiment…You cannot order yourself (or others) to have a new idea, but you can order yourself (or others) to spend time trying to have a new idea…Just as logical thinking is based on the behavior of symbolic language (a particular universe), so lateral thinking is based on the behavior of patterning systems (also a particular universe)…With green hat thinking…we replace judgement with movement…With movement we use an idea for its forward effect. We use an idea to see where it will get us. We use an idea to see what it will lead to. In effect we use an idea to move forward…Sometimes we take an idea and use it as a stepping stone and end up with an idea that is quite different…It may also be a matter of taking a vague idea and then shaping it into something concrete and practical. All these are aspects of movement. The key thing to remember is that we move forward with an idea or from an idea…We can sit around and wait for provocations, or we can set out to produce them deliberately…Many years ago I invented the word po as a symbolic indicator of an idea that was being put forward as a provocation and for its movement value. If you like, the letters stand for provocative operation…The search for alternatives implies a creative attitude: the acceptance that there are different approaches…By all means challenge the framework form time to time and change levels. But also be prepared to generate alternatives within the specified level. Creativity gets a very bad name when creative people always make a point of solving a different problem from the one they have been given. The dilemma remains a real one: when to work within the given framework and when to break out of it…One of the weakest aspects of creativity is the ‘harvesting’ of ideas…Note that constraints are brought in as shapers and not as a rejection screen…Part of the creative process is to shape the idea so that it better fits the need profile of those who are going to have to ‘buy’ the idea…So ideas need to be designed to fit the needs of the buyer (within the organization)…The search for alternatives is a fundamental aspect of green hat thinking. There is a need to go beyond the known and the obvious and the satisfactory. The green hat thinker uses the creative pause to consider, at any point, whether there might be alternative ideas…to generate new concepts and perceptions.
Blue Hat. “The blue hat is for thinking about thinking. The blue hat is like the conductor of the orchestra…The blue hat is like the ringmaster of a circus. The blue hat is for the management of thinking. The blue hat is for the organization of thinking. The blue hat is for process control…It is under the initial blue hat that the agenda or sequence of use of the other hats is laid out…The blue hat also announces a change of hats…Wearing the blue hat we are no longer thinking about the subject; instead, we are thinking about the thinking needed to explore that subject…Blue suggests detachment and being cool and in control…Thinking on one’s own has much more need of a blue hat structure. If we are going to adopt the mapmaking type of thinking, we need to have structure. A blue hat structure might provide a plan of what is to happen at every moment…Blue hat thinking can be used to organize other aspects of thinking such as the assessment of priorities or the listing of constraints…The difference between a good thinker and a poor thinker often lies in the ability to focus…Asking a question is the simplest way of focusing thinking. It is very often said that asking the right question may be the most important part of thinking…Questions are divided into two types. There is a fishing question, which is exploratory…There is a shooting question, which is used to check out a point and which has a direct yes or no answer…It is also the role of the blue hat thinker to set specific thinking tasks…He is the choreographer who designs the steps, but he is also the critic who watches what is happening. The blue hat thinker is not driving the car along the road, but he is watching the driver. He is also noting the route that is being taken. The blue hat thinker can make comments on what he or she observes…From time to time the blue hat thinker gives an overview of what has been happening and what has been achieved…It is the task of the blue hat thinker to pull into shape what may seem to have been a chaotic discussion…to make the final summary and prepare the report…One of the major tasks of blue hat control will be to break up arguments…A powerful way of treating opposing ideas is to suppose that each one is correct under certain circumstances…Both sides can then be seen to be right. The next step is to see which of the two sets of circumstances most closely resembles the actual state of affairs.”
“The biggest enemy of thinking is complexity, for that leads to confusion. When thinking is clear and simple, it becomes more enjoyable and more effective…The first purpose is to simplify thinking by allowing a thinker to deal with one thing at a time…The second main purpose of the Six Thinking Hats concept is to allow a switch in thinking…By turning it into role-playing or even a game, the concept of the hats makes it possible to request certain types of thinking…The concept works best when it has become a sort of common language.”