Introduction - background and underlying theory
Dr Edward de Bono is held as a leading international authority on creative thinking and teaching of thinking skills to others. He has written numerous books and worked with schools, corporations ,and governments. He has taught his teaching skills to four year old's and to major corporative managers. Dr de Bono comes from a medicine and psychology background. From this medicine background came his inspiration and knowledge that enabled him to teach the thinking skills but reconstruct the thinking methods. Edward De Bono believed that "a discussion should be a genuine attempt to explore a subject rather than a battle between competing egos" (nd).
Dr de Bono wrote the book 'Six Thinking Hats' which was a huge success and used by schools and the private sector worldwide. The wide spread use of the 'Six Thinking Hats' by teachers of differing background and qualifications is due to its simplicity and robustness of the materials.
Dr de Bono emphasis in his book 'Six thinking hats', it is a very important fact that the hats are not descriptions of the what has happened or the problem but are used as the direction to take to come to an agreement or understanding of a situation. The theory of parallel thinking which is different from the argumentative thinking where we tend to use argument to show different points of view. When someone states a view we often respond with a different point of view. With the parallel way of thinking people are thinking from the same point of view all at the same time. There is no argument at every stage of a discussion. Therefore the topic is discussed fully and then a decision made. Parallel thinking takes away the confusion that can happen when we look at a situation. As Dr. de Bono states in his book ‘Six Thinking Hats’, we try to think of to many aspects at once, facts, feelings, idea’s, these all make it difficult to see any aspect in full and appreciate it. The six hats allows for this thinking to be done thoroughly. "Instead of doing everything at once, we separate out the different aspects of thinking by doing this way we can pay full attention to each aspect in turn" (Edward De Bono nd).
Dr de Bono wrote the book 'Six Thinking Hats' which was a huge success and used by schools and the private sector worldwide. The wide spread use of the 'Six Thinking Hats' by teachers of differing background and qualifications is due to its simplicity and robustness of the materials.
Dr de Bono emphasis in his book 'Six thinking hats', it is a very important fact that the hats are not descriptions of the what has happened or the problem but are used as the direction to take to come to an agreement or understanding of a situation. The theory of parallel thinking which is different from the argumentative thinking where we tend to use argument to show different points of view. When someone states a view we often respond with a different point of view. With the parallel way of thinking people are thinking from the same point of view all at the same time. There is no argument at every stage of a discussion. Therefore the topic is discussed fully and then a decision made. Parallel thinking takes away the confusion that can happen when we look at a situation. As Dr. de Bono states in his book ‘Six Thinking Hats’, we try to think of to many aspects at once, facts, feelings, idea’s, these all make it difficult to see any aspect in full and appreciate it. The six hats allows for this thinking to be done thoroughly. "Instead of doing everything at once, we separate out the different aspects of thinking by doing this way we can pay full attention to each aspect in turn" (Edward De Bono nd).
Description - the key features of the approach
“The main difficulty of thinking is confusion. We try to do too much at once. Emotions, information, logic, hope and creativity all crowd in on us. It is like juggling with too many balls" (De Bono,1999, P.xi). The key feature of the six thinking hats is to differentiate the different types of thinking. By putting on any one of these hats it effectively enables the thinker to define a certain type of thinking. The hats give a direction of thinking (De Bono,1999). The six thinking hats give more purposeful thinking in which deeper thinking arises. It is also an effective tool to use for finding a solution to a problem. De Bono’s hats provides learners with a scaffold for their thinking.
The six thinking hats are a great tool to use in team or collaboration situations. The thinking hats enable parallel thinking which capitalises on "the intelligence, experience and knowledge of all the members of the group" (De Bono,1999,P.9) when using De Bono's six thinking hats in the parallel thinking process.
The six thinking hats are a great tool to use in team or collaboration situations. The thinking hats enable parallel thinking which capitalises on "the intelligence, experience and knowledge of all the members of the group" (De Bono,1999,P.9) when using De Bono's six thinking hats in the parallel thinking process.
The Six Thinking Hats
White Hat - The Facts
"White is neutral and objective. The white hat is concerned with objective facts and figures" (De Bono, 1999,p.13).
Typical Questions
What information do we have here?
What information is missing?
What information would we like to have?
How are we going to get the information?
"White is neutral and objective. The white hat is concerned with objective facts and figures" (De Bono, 1999,p.13).
Typical Questions
What information do we have here?
What information is missing?
What information would we like to have?
How are we going to get the information?
Red Hat - Feelings, intuition and emotions
"Red suggests anger (seeing red), rage and emotions. The red hat gives the emotional view" (De Bono,1999, p.13).
Typical Questions
What is your gut-feeling?
How do I feel about this right now?
How does it make me feel?
"Red suggests anger (seeing red), rage and emotions. The red hat gives the emotional view" (De Bono,1999, p.13).
Typical Questions
What is your gut-feeling?
How do I feel about this right now?
How does it make me feel?
Blue Hat - meta-cognition
"Blue is cool, and it is also the colour of the sky, which is above everything else. The blue hat is concerned with control, the organisation of the thinking process, and use of the other hats" (De Bono, 1999, p.14)
Typical Questions
What is our focus?
What thinking is needed?
What have we done so far?
What do we need to do next?
"Blue is cool, and it is also the colour of the sky, which is above everything else. The blue hat is concerned with control, the organisation of the thinking process, and use of the other hats" (De Bono, 1999, p.14)
Typical Questions
What is our focus?
What thinking is needed?
What have we done so far?
What do we need to do next?
Green Hat - Creativity and new ideas
"The green hat is the energy hat. Think of vegetation. Think of growth. Think of new leaves and branches. The green hat is the creative hat" (De Bono,1999,p115).
Typical Questions
Are there any other ideas here?
Are there any additional alternatives?
Could we do this in a different way?
Could there be another explanation?
"The green hat is the energy hat. Think of vegetation. Think of growth. Think of new leaves and branches. The green hat is the creative hat" (De Bono,1999,p115).
Typical Questions
Are there any other ideas here?
Are there any additional alternatives?
Could we do this in a different way?
Could there be another explanation?
Yellow Hat - positive points
"Yellow is sunny and positive. The yellow hat is optimistic and covers hope and positive thinking" (De Bono,1999, p.13).
Typical Questions
What are the benefits of this option?
Why is this proposal preferable?
What are the positive assets of this design?
How can we make this work
"Yellow is sunny and positive. The yellow hat is optimistic and covers hope and positive thinking" (De Bono,1999, p.13).
Typical Questions
What are the benefits of this option?
Why is this proposal preferable?
What are the positive assets of this design?
How can we make this work
Black Hat - judgement, caution and evaluation
"Black is somber and serious. The black hat is cautious and careful. It points out the weaknesses in an idea" (De Bono,1999,p.13).
Typical Questions
What could be the possible problems?
What could some of the difficulties be?
What are the points for caution?
What are the weaknesses?
What are the risks?
"Black is somber and serious. The black hat is cautious and careful. It points out the weaknesses in an idea" (De Bono,1999,p.13).
Typical Questions
What could be the possible problems?
What could some of the difficulties be?
What are the points for caution?
What are the weaknesses?
What are the risks?