THE SIX HATS APPROACH

DESIGNED BY EDWARD de BONO

IN 1985
You can put on or take off a hat easily and
deliberately.
Hats have an association with thinking Put
on your thinking cap
Hats are used to indicate roles Wearing my
police hat / my parent hat and so on.
There is no need for physical hats to be there.
The hats are, nevertheless, metaphorical.
In traditional argument each side prepares a
case and then seeks to defend that case & to
attack the other case. Actual exploration of the
subject is limited.
Parallel thinking replaces the battle of
argument with a joint exploration of the
subject as all parties think in parallel at any
moment.
. THE DIRECTION OF THINKING IS
INDICATED BY SIX COLOURED HATS,
EACH OF WHICH INDICATES A MODE OF
THINKING.

AT ANY MOMENT EVERYONE IS WEARING
THE SAME COLOUR OF HAT.

THAT IS WHAT IS MEANT BY
PARALLEL THINKING
White suggests paper & computer print-outs.
It indicates a focus on information.

What do we have?
What do we need to know?
How are we going to get the information we need?
This helps in proper understanding of the requirements
basic & fundamental.
Red is fire & warm, emotions & feelings.
It gives full permission for the expression of
feelings, emotions and intuition without any
need to give the reasons behind the feelings.

. This facilitates the outgo of all the emotions of
everyone so that neutral / balanced mind is set in
to enable receipt of factual inputs .
Black is the basis of critical / judgement
thinking.
It is for caution and the focus is on faults,
weaknesses, what might go wrong and why
something does not fit.

Generally, maximum participation takes place due
to higher percentage of experience being shared.

Yellow is positive & value sensitive.
It focuses on values, benefits and how
something can be done.

Under the yellow hat, major and never seen before
insights can happen.
Green is growth & energy - the productive,
generative and creative hat.
It sets aside time, space and expectation for
creative effort. Under green hat everyone is
expected to make such an effort.

The Green hat is an invitation to creativity.
Think blue sky and overview. It is like the
conductor of the orchestra. The role of the blue
hat is to organize the other hats and to do with
process control.
It is to do with organization of thinking. This
means setting up the focus and also putting
together the outcome.
At the end the blue hat sums up the summary &
conclusion and the design.
.The hats can be used as single hat to request a specific
type of thinking. This allows a rapid change in
thinking.
.The hats can also be used as a pre-set sequence to
explore a subject. The sequence will vary with the
type of thinking needed.
.The hats make sure that everyone is using his or her
thinking fully to explore the subject. If you want to
show off you now do this by out-performing others
on each hat.
1. The hats provide an alternative to argument.
2. The hats allow joint exploration of a subject.
3. The hats require each individual fully to
explore a subject rather than just to make and
defend a case.
4. The hats provide a quick method of switching
thinking.
5. The hats provide a means to request a
particular type of thinking.

6. The hats replace the ego and aggression of
argument with the challenge to thoroughly
explore a subject.
7. The hats get the best out of the people.
8. Meeting times can be reduced to one fifth or
even less, using the hats.
9. The hats are easy to learn and to use.
10. The hats are in use with four year olds and
with senior executives.

IT IS NO LONGER
NECESSARY TO USE
ARGUMENT SIMPLY
BECAUSE THERE IS NO
OTHER METHOD OF
DISCUSSION.