Six Thinking Hats

Six Thinking Hats                                                             

Looking at a Decision from All Points of View

"Six Thinking Hats" is a powerful technique that helps you look at important decisions from a number of different perspectives. It helps you make better decisions by pushing you to move outside your habitual ways of thinking. As such, it helps you understand the full complexity of a decision, and spot issues and opportunities which you might otherwise not notice.

Many successful people think from a very rational, positive viewpoint, and this is part of the reason that they are successful. Often, though, they may fail to look at problems from emotional, intuitive, creative or negative viewpoints. This can mean that they underestimate resistance to change, don't make creative leaps, and fail to make essential contingency plans.

Similarly, pessimists may be excessively defensive, and people used to a very logical approach to problem solving may fail to engage their creativity or listen to their intuition.

If you look at a problem using the Six Thinking Hats technique, then you'll use all of these approaches to develop your best solution. Your decisions and plans will mix ambition, skill in execution, sensitivity, creativity and good contingency planning.

How to Use the Tool:

To use Six Thinking Hats to improve the quality of your decision-making, look at the decision "wearing" each of the thinking hats in turn.

Each "Thinking Hat" is a different style of thinking. These are explained below:

• White Hat:
  With this thinking hat, you focus on the data available. Look at the information you have, and see what you can learn from it. Look for gaps in your knowledge, and either try to fill them or take account of them.
  
  This is where you analyze past trends, and try to extrapolate from historical data.
• Red Hat:
  Wearing the red hat, you look at the decision using intuition, gut reaction, and emotion. Also try to think how other people will react emotionally, and try to understand the intuitive responses of people who do not fully know your reasoning.
• Black Hat:
  When using black hat thinking, look at things pessimistically, cautiously and defensively. Try to see why ideas and approaches might not work. This is important because it highlights the weak points in a plan or course of action. It allows you to eliminate them, alter your approach, or prepare contingency plans to counter problems that arise. 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, leaving them under-prepared for difficulties.

• Yellow Hat:
  The yellow hat helps you to think positively. It is the optimistic viewpoint that helps you to see all the benefits of the decision and the value in it, and spot the opportunities that arise from it. Yellow Hat thinking helps you to keep going when everything looks gloomy and difficult.

• Green Hat:
  The Green Hat stands for creativity. This is where you 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 tools can help you here.
• Blue Hat:
  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, and so on.

You can use Six Thinking Hats in meetings or on your own. In meetings it has the benefit of defusing the disagreements that can happen when people with different thinking styles discuss the same problem.

A similar approach is to look at problems from the point of view of different professionals (e.g. doctors, architects, sales directors) or different customers.

Example of Real Situation in My Daily Life:

During tea break, I and my classmates went for a drink. We were discussing on how to improve and enhance my car performance so that I could drive faster and safer without worrying if I happen to go for a trip during my semester break. After discussing, we came up with an idea to change the sports rim. It has been found that changing the sport rims will actually makes the wheel grip better and make it much easier to balance the wheel as well as keep the wheel balanced and they offer the ability to really get better fuel consumption economy. At the moment, my sports rims are of low quality and changing them seems like a good idea. However, to change the sport rims are not easy because we have to make sure the sport rims suitable for the car. In addition the other dilemma I am facing is that, I like to change the new sport rim even though I knew that it would have waste my money and I’m worry if the new sport rims doesn’t suit my car. Now, I have to choose either one, new sport rims or I can save money and buy something else that I really need. So, I and my friends have decided to use the six thinking hat techniques to come up with the best possible solution for me.

Looking at the problem with the White Hat, They analyze the data they hold. They examine the trend on the existing sports rim and should I change the sport rims with the current information available. Is like I need extra cash for the new sport rims to improve and enhance the performance of the car. Furthermore, they offer the ability to really get better fuel consumption economy and show steady economic growth for at least the saving period.

With Red Hat thinking, some of them think the idea to change the sport rims could be quite ugly. While it would be highly cost-effective to change the sport rim, they worry that if the sport rims is not suitable for my car.

When they think with the Black Hat, they worry that mechanics or the work shop may be wrong. The sport rim may be not suitable for the car because they have so many types of sport rims such as alloy, Plastic Sport Rims, and Manmade Materials in which case the car maybe will use more fuel than expected. If the car is not attractive, then they thought that you will waste your money by changing to another sport rims.

With the Yellow Hat, If the process of changing the sport rims are correct and follow the procedure, then you can stands to make a great deal of money by saving cost at the fuels. If you are lucky, if the design of the rims match or suit your car and it look more attractive.

With Green Hat thinking they consider whether I should change the design of the car too because to match the sport rim doesn’t fit or suit the car. Perhaps they could insert the fuel injection incase if the weight of sport rims are too heavy for the car and the engine can’t support weight. Alternatively, maybe they should invest and save more money for future current state and with your saving you actually can change the body kit too. In addition, it will look more attractive and I will not get bored later on with the same design. People never had enough of what they have.

The Blue Hat, they talk about our agenda such as should I change the sport rim. The answer is I should because, even though I spend a lot for my sport rim but in the future I can save up a lot of money from my spending on fuel and I can drive safely and fast without worry. Furthermore, they have been used make a plan and ideas between the different thinking styles. They may have needed to keep other members of the team from switching styles, or from criticizing other peoples' points.

Key points:

Six Thinking Hats is a good technique for looking at the effects of a decision from a number of different points of view.

It allows necessary emotion and skepticism to be brought into what would otherwise be purely rational decisions. It opens up the opportunity for creativity within Decision Making. It also helps, for example, persistently pessimistic people to be positive and creative.

Plans developed using the '6 Thinking Hats' technique are sounder and more resilient than would otherwise be the case. This technique may also help you to avoid public relations mistakes, and spot good reasons not to follow a course of action, before you have committed to it.

AHMAD MUHAMAD                                                                                                                                          1091106324