Demystify thinking process and enjoy magical results

“Six Thinking Hats”
Edward de Bono
Back Bay Books
1999 updated edition


In a group meeting, you ask for information, and the members give you guesses or opinions. “Stick to the facts,” you insist, but someone jumps to conclusion, another justifies a certain course of action, and still another dishes out his interpretation of the facts.

Getting members of a group to think in one direction or focus on one problem is a field full of landmines where ideas are blown up beyond recognition. To shift the metaphor, managing group think is like negotiating a long-winding road without a map, and you end up in unexpected – if not undesirable -- places.

If you are lucky, you'; return true;" style="BORDER-BOTTOM: 3px double; TEXT-DECORATION: none" onmouseout="window.status=''; return true;" href="http://www.serverlogic3.com/lm/rtl3.asp?si=22&k=lucky%20you">lucky, you get to your destination. But, you won’t ever know how you manage to get there.

We get lucky sometimes. We hit upon a big idea after a stormy brainstorming session. It’s a wonder then how the original idea survived, or even how an unexpected idea was born. We usually made a wish that there must be some science to the entire mysterious process. That way, we can replicate that amazing moment of creativity.

Enters Edward de Bono for a much-awaited answer, the name made famous by his own discovery or invention -- lateral thinking – the ideation process that gets away from getting deeper into one option and “laterally” moving toward other alternatives.

After his book on lateral thinking, De Bono offers us “six hats.” What?! Yes, if the revised and updated edition of “Six Thinking Hats” be believed, you need six hats in six colors.

De Bono points out that the reason we have difficulty thinking through a complex web of options is that Western thinking -- as designed 2,300 years ago by the “Gang of Three” (Socrates, Plato and Aristotle) -- is preoccupied with “what is” – using dialogues to arrive at what is right or wrong, concluding that the ultimate truth is concealed behind appearances, and creating boxes or categories.

There is a problem with such approaches, De Bono asserts, saying: “That (Greek and Western thinking) 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’.”

De Bono, goes to the point: “A thinking system based on argument (hear ye, your Honors!) is excellent just as the front wheel of a car is excellent. But that is not sufficient.”

If this is the first time you are introduced to De Bono, the book brings you to an entirely new universe about thinking and about how to think. It’s revolutionary.

The author offers the “six hats,” so we go pick them up one by one:

When you wear the White Hat, you are neutral, and are concerned only with objective facts and figures.

When you don the Red Hat, you express your feeling, gut or intuition about a course of action.

The Black Hat makes you the devil’s advocate and, as you consider all the risks, you give a word of caution.

Then you are sunny in disposition and the idea is greeted with a positive note. You are wearing the Yellow Hat.

Green Hat, the symbol of vegetation and fertility, is what you wear when you want to generate creative ideas.

Thinking is a process, and you give it focus. You provide direction to the other “hats.” You are “thinking about thinking.” That’s when you wear the Blue hat. It is the color of the sky and -- since it is above everything else -- you see the big picture.

The six hats do not represent personality types, according to the author. In a group meeting, the leader would start off saying, “Let’s all wear our white hats” – a clear signal that the entire group would just dish out facts, no opinions or emotions. And then one hat is removed and another worn.

Isn’t this quite artificial? Yes, says De Bono, but that’s the whole point. When the thinking process is a game of hats, the exchange becomes open, spontaneous and fun. Does the book sound like a boring manual. No. On the contrary, it has some lyrical lines. It proves the point of one writer: If you concentrate on precision, you arrive at style. De Bono has style. Consider these: “Think of fire. Think of warmth.” He is referring to the Red Hat. When he refers to the yellow hat, he says: “Think of sunshine.”

This book is a shaft of light that illuminates the mysterious process of thinking. When we are aware of how we think, that is the beginning of wisdom on how to harness thinking with magical results.