Do you facilitate meetings? If you do, then you might be interested to find out how you can best perform your role as a meeting facilitator. I am pretty sure you have seen a lot, and maybe have grown tired already, of bad meetings. You know, meetings that end mostly as a waste of time.

In his book, Death by Meeting, renowned author Patrick Lencioni, refers to bad meetings as one of "the most painful yet underestimated problem of modern business: bad meetings"

So, how can you make meetings more exciting, productive, and enriching? Why don't you check out the Six Thinking Hats? Nope, it has nothing to do with magic, but if used wisely, the tool can do wonders in making your meetings, well, magical in a sense.

What is Six Thinking Hats

Developed by Edward de Bono, Six Thinking Hats® is a creative thinking tool for group discussion and individual thinking. It is a simple, effective thinking tool that enables individuals and teams to look at options and decisions from multiple perspectives. It focuses the thinking process to move away from the habitual ways of linear thinking.

This thinking process involves separating thinking into six clear functions and roles. Each thinking role is identified with a colored symbolic "thinking hat." By mentally wearing and switching "hats," the team can easily focus or redirect their thoughts and energies, the conversation, or the meeting.

Why Six Thinking Hats

Our human brains operate along multiple directions at the same time. However, what usually happens, especially when making quick decisions, is that people try to think linear and their thoughts become fixated to certain patterns, arguments, or solutions. People jump prematurely to half-baked conclusions, ideas are shot down before any in-depth exploration, and there is a tendency to conform and converge along decisions which are not really well-thought out. Consequently, leaps of imagination and creative thinking are stifled.

As De Bono said to illustrate the concept of Lateral Thinking, "you cannot dig a hole in a different place by digging the same hole deeper" According to him, trying harder in the same direction may not be as useful as changing direction. Effort in the same direction (approach) will not necessarily succeed.”

The Six Thinking Hats is also an excellent tool to promote what De Bono calls ‘parallel thinking’ where both sides and all parties are thinking in parallel in the same direction. There is co-operative and co-ordinated thinking as opposed to divisive and adversarial thinking. The direction itself can be changed to give a full scan of the situation. But at every moment each thinker is thinking in parallel with all the other thinkers. For example, when exploring options, the participants can all think about the pros then go to the cons. The group can then make a better decision based on the parallel thoughts that have been laid out in the open

According to one advocate of The Six Thinking Hats approach, “the difference between poor and effective teams lies not so much in their collective mental equipment but in how well they use their abilities to think together. The Six Thinking Hats technique helps actualize the thinking potential of teams.” (Serrat,2009)

How to Use the Tool:

The use of Six Thinking Hats is highly applicable during team meetings, though it can also be used for individual reflection. When used during meetings, the tool has the benefit of blocking the confrontations which usually happen when people with different thinking styles or perspectives discuss the same problem. It also prevents group conformity, or group think, which involves a tendency of others to just go with the flow and conform to what seems obvious, rationale or to who sounds logical and persuasive.

White Hat: Objective facts and Figures 

With this thinking hat, the team Focuses on data, facts, and information that may be available to help them decide. They look at the information they have, and see what they can learn from it. They can look for gaps in knowledge, and either try to fill them or take account of them. This is where a team can analyze past results and trends, and try to form logic conclusions.

Red Hat: Emotions and Feelings

'Wearing' the red hat, the team looks at issues and problems using intuition, gut feel reaction, and emotion. They try to consider how other people will react emotionally. They also try to understand the reactions and responses of people who do not fully know their reasoning.

Black Hat: Cautious and Careful

Using black hat thinking, the team looks at all the weak points of the decision. They need to look at it cautiously and defensively. They try to see why an option might not work. This is important because it highlights the weak points in an option or of a plan. It allows you to eliminate them, alter them, or prepare contingency plans to counter them. Black Hat thinking helps to make your plans 'tougher' and more resilient. It can also help you to spot fatal flaws and risks before you embark on a course of action. Black Hat thinking is one of the real benefits of this technique, as many successful people get so used to thinking positively that often they cannot see problems in advance. This leaves them under-prepared for difficulties.

Yellow Hat: Hope, Positive and Speculative

The yellow hat helps the team to think positively. It is the optimistic viewpoint that helps the team to see all the benefits of the decision and the value in it. Yellow Hat thinking helps the team to keep going when everything looks gloomy and difficult.

Green Hat: Creativity

The Green Hat stands for creativity. This is where the team can develop creative solutions to a problem. It is a freewheeling way of thinking, in which there is little criticism of ideas. A whole range of creativity tools can help the team here.

Blue Hat: Control and Organization of Thinking

The Blue Hat stands for process control. This is the hat worn by people chairing meetings. When running into difficulties because ideas are running dry, they may direct activity into Green Hat thinking. When contingency plans are needed, they will ask for Black Hat thinking, etc.

Guide Questions When Using Each Thinking Hat

WHITE HAT

• What information is available?
• What information do we need?
• What information is missing?
• How are we going to get the missing information?
• What are the facts about … ?
• What do we need or want to know about …?
• Where might we go to find out about …?

RED HAT

• How do you feel about this option/idea…?
• What are your feelings now?
• Did your feelings change? How?
• Which way do you like best based on your feelings?
• What prejudices are present?
• What is your hunch about...
• What is your gut feeling about …?
• What does your intuition tell you?

GREEN HAT

• What if ... ?
• What are the others ways to do this?
• What are the alternatives?
• How would you solve the problem?
• What new ideas can we think of?
• What other possibilities are there?
• Can we: Substitute, Combine, Adapt, Modify, Put to Other Uses, Eliminate, Reverse

BLUE HAT

• Why? Tell us how you got your answer.
• What happened?
• Can you explain your reason…?
• Summarize. What is your conclusion?
• What's next? Action plan? What is the main idea?
• What are the big ideas?
• What was the problem; how was the problem solved?
• Can we look at this from another perspective?

YELLOW HAT

• What are the benefits of …?
• What is good about …?
• What is a positive outcome of…?
• What is the value of...?
• Can this be made to work? What makes you think so?
• What did you like about… ?

BLACK HAT 

• What are the possible drawbacks of this idea or option?
• What risks are we facing?
• What potential problems do we see here?
• What are the chances that this option or solution would fail?

5. When To Use the Six Thinking Hats

• Problem solving 
• Strategic planning
• Running meetings
• Much more

6. Some Guidelines When Using Six Thinking Hats

     
    DOs

• Provides direction, not description
• Set out to think in a certain direction
• Use any hat, as often as needed
• Time under each hat: generally, short
• Requires discipline from each person

    
    DON'Ts

• Use any hat, as often as needed
• “Let’s have some black hat thinking…”
• Use the hats to categorize people ("You're a black thinker")
• Attempt to use all the hats all the time (Note: The hats can be used in whole or in part, depending on the issue at hand).
• Use the tool as a constructive form of showing off
• Show off by being a better thinker
• Not destructive right vs. wrong argument
• Try to use a fixed sequence. Sequence can be preset or evolving

7. General Steps in Using the Six Thinking Hats

Although the thinking hats can be used in whole or in part, the following framework can serve as a general guide for both facilitators and participants, especially when deciding on a specific course of action or a solution or decision. You can modify the procedure depending on the situation.

Here is the link to the graphical description of the general steps in using the Six Thinking Hats

8. References / Links

• http://www.edwdebono.com/
• http://blog.iqmatrix.com/mind-map/edward-de-bono-6-thinking-hats-mind-map