(continued...)
Practical Lateral Thinking Techniques
The first difficulty is to get time and space for creative
thinking. There are those who think that creativity is only
for special brainstorming sessions. There are those who
believe that creativity is not for them but for artists,
designers and inventors. This is a dangerous and limiting
attitude. Just as the ability to use the reverse shift is
part of every driver's driving ability, the ability to use
creative thinking should be part of every thinker's thinking
skill. Creative thinking is definitely not limited to special
people or special occasions. The logic of perception demands
the ability to think creatively so anyone who has to do
any thinking must develop this ability.
In order to make creative thinking part of ordinary thinking,
I developed the Six Thinking Hats system. There are six
metaphorical hats. The thinker can put one on or take one
off to indicate the type of thinking that is being used.
This putting on and taking off is essential. The hats must
never be used to categorize individuals, even though their
behavior may seem to invite this.
White Hat: This covers facts, figures, information, asking
questions, and defining information needs and gaps. "I think
we need some white hat thinking at this point..." means
"Let's drop the arguments and proposals and look at the
data base."
Red Hat: This covers intuition, feelings and emotions.
The red hat allows the thinker to put forward an intuition
without any need to justify it. "Putting on my red hat,
I think this is a terrible proposal." Usually feelings and
intuition can only be introduced into a discussion if they
are supported by logic. Usually the feeling is genuine but
the logic is spurious. The red hat gives full permission
to a thinker to put forward his or her feelings on the subject
at that moment.
Black Hat: This is the hat of judgment and caution. It
is a most valuable hat and the one we need to use most of
the time. The black hat is used to point out why a suggestion
does not fit the facts, the available experience, the system
in use, or the policy that is being followed. The black
hat must always be logical.
Yellow Hat: This hat finds reasons why something will work
and why it will offer benefits. It can be used in looking
forward to the results of some proposed action. It can also
be used to find something of value in what has already happened.
Green Hat: This is the hat of creativity, alternatives,
proposals, what is interesting, provocations, and changes.
Blue Hat: This is the overview or process control hat.
It looks not at the subject itself but at the thinking about
the subject. "Putting on my blue hat, I feel we should do
some more green hat thinking at this point." In technical
terms, the blue hat is concerned with meta-cognition.
An individual can ask another individual to put on or
take off a particular color of hat. For example, if someone
is being very negative about an idea, the other person might
say: "That is great black hat thinking, now let's try some
yellow hat thinking." In this way a switch is made immediately
and without offense.
An individual can express his or her thoughts under the
protection of one or the other hats. For example, someone
might say: "Wearing my red hat, I think that idea is exciting.
I cannot tell you exactly why, but I have that feeling about
it." Someone else might preface a negative input by declaring
that some black hat thinking is needed.
An individual can ask a whole group to adopt a hat for
a limited period of time. For example, at a meeting someone
might suggest: "What we need here is three minutes of green
hat thinking."
I am not suggesting that in every moment in thinking there
is a need to wear one of the hats. The hats provide an opportunity
to switch thinking. In the course of an ordinary discussion
someone might say: "Let's have three minutes of black hat
thinking here." At the end of the three minutes, the discussion
would resume as before.
Sometimes it is possible to put together a formal sequence
of hats in order to think productively about some matter.
The actual order of the sequence will vary with the situation.
For example, with a new matter, the sequence might be: white
(to get information); green (for ideas and proposals); yellow
followed by black on each alternative (to evaluate the alternatives);
red (to assess feelings at this point); followed by blue
(to decide what thinking to do next). On the other hand,
in discussing a well known proposal, the sequence might
run: red, yellow, black, green (to overcome the negative
points), white, and then blue.
The Six Hats System is not directly a creative technique,
but it makes time and space for creativity. Many people
ask me how they can introduce creativity at a particular
level if the whole corporate culture does not encourage
creativity. The Six Thinking Hats system is a specific way
of doing this. Once creativity is there as an expectation
and a demand, people will notice that they are not very
good at it-and may try to get better.
