CONFERENCES
Convergence 99
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Integrating Six Thinking Hats®
and Lateral Thinking™ Tools
Lynda Curtin,
The Opportunity Thinker
What is Six Hats Thinking?
The key to flexing our mental muscle is to be able to tap into the unique brain power of every team member, customer and supplier together in a quick and constructive manner. Yet this often doesn't happen. Egos get in the way. Meetings become frustrating. Nothing gets accomplished. Tasks take too long. Conversation revolves around why something won't work. Ideas are killed before the team even knows if there is value.
You see, much of our thinking is done in a confused way. We often try to do too much at once. Emotions, information, logic, hope and creativity are all mixed in. It's like juggling too many balls. So we start to use only one type of thinking for almost every situation. Usually critical or negative thinking. But that is like a golfer using only one club. A driver may be the appropriate tool for teeing off, but it is not a very effective tool on the putting green.
For years we have been using the metaphor, "Putting on my thinking cap..." or " I feel like I am wearing three hats right now." We are comfortable with this thinking hat metaphor that Dr. Edward de Bono leveraged to invent, The Six Thinking Hats tool kit. These six imaginary hats are each a different color, representing six different modes of thinking. When we put on one of the hats we think together, exclusively in that mode of thinking. We only wear one hat at a time.
INGREDIENTS FOR THINKING
WHITE HAT THINKING
Identifying and communicating all of the relevant data and facts, and to gather the necessary missing data for any project, problem, decision, concern or opportunity in order to arrive at a sound conclusion.
YELLOW HAT THINKING
Identifying and finding the value, feasibility and benefits in ideas, proposals, suggestions or potential solutions. A mind shift from the idea killer habit of knocking ideas down as soon as they are tabled.
BLACK HAT THINKING
Identifying all of the logical reasons why something might not work. To use this valuable information to design a project plan that will eliminate the faults before taking action to ensure a higher rate of success.
GREEN HAT THINKING
Creative thinking - generating ideas, possibilities and alternatives. Expanding your options; the world of the possible. Generating ideas that will overcome the difficulties pointed out in black hat thinking. Designing your way into the future.
RED HAT THINKING
Communicating your hunches, gut instincts or feelings about a subject without justifying them. It also enables the mind to move beyond initial re-actions and get down to the productive business of exploring a subject much more thoroughly from many different angles.
BLUE HAT THINKING Thinking about your thinking before doing your thinking. Managing the thinking process. Creating thinking plans that will cover the appropriate thinking bases in order to achieve your desired end result.
IDEATION TIPS
Spend time word-smithing and generating multiple blue hat creative focus statements. Choose a number of different focus statements to work with. Have a plan. Make it visible. Be flexible.
Use top-of-the-head as the first green hat idea generating technique to give the brain a chance to empty out existing ideas. Use red hat thinking to help set the priority you will follow to evaluate ideas.
Plan ideation sessions when everyone is fresh and energized - mornings work well. Off-site when practical.
Invite a good cross section of people representing different areas of responsibility.
Work in small groups and regularly re-assort the groups to inject new thinking energy among members.
Spend some time explaining the idea about to be evaluated. Be sure to capture this information. It will be very helpful for later development work.
Apply yellow hat thinking then black hat thinking to ideas as you evaluate them.
Listen for laughter. A good signal in the creative process.
Ideation facilitation takes time to plan. It is most helpful if the person leading the facilitation is dedicated to just the facilitation and is not a key member of the group whose thinking is critical to a successful outcome.
The easiest way to facilitate a group session is to decide on a common process and language to use. This helps to ensure that everyone knows what process step is being worked on, why and what comes next. Participation is also easier to monitor.
The Six Hats process has a great side benefit in that it helps people improve how they participate in the ideation process. Clear expectations for thinking performance are laid out. The mind knows what to do and gets busy thinking.
It's Simply, A Practical Tool Six Thinking Hats is a foundation tool kit for creative and innovative thinking recognizing the process requires a blend of idea generating, evaluation, design and project implementation. The key is taking charge of thinking energy, directing it in one direction at a time, putting thinking plans together to ensure the proper thinking bases are covered. The power of a common language speeds up the process and taps into the individual uniqueness that each person brings to the table; a necessary ingredient for innovation.
Creativity is fun. It is mentally stimulating. It is a skill that can be learned and directed at will. Those who understand this and set out to develop a workable level of creative skill will "out-think" their competition and boost their bottom-line profit.
To book Lynda Curtin, contact Andrea Woodward at (805) 563-1438 or e-mail staff@thinksmart.com.
Convergence 99 Attendees can check out an article by Lynda Curtin by Clicking Here.