USING THE HATS

We all use each of the Six Thinking Hats daily, but

individuals tend to have default hats they use
more often.
TRADITIONAL THINKING

1. Describe your current style of thinking. Which two hats do you feel most comfortable
using?
Hat 1 :
Hat 2 :
2. What are your thinking strengths?

Which two hats dominate the thinking in your

team/organization?
3. What are your thinking weaknesses? Hat 1 :
Hat 2 :

4. How is it working for you? What impact does this have on your teams
effectiveness?

5. Where do you do your best thinking?

EXPERIENCE THE HATS

Red Hat
How do you currently manage your feelings?
Blue Hat
What is happening in your meeting now? (i.e., no
How are emotions dealt with on your team?
outcomes, low participation, run overtime, argumentative,
no agenda, unfocused).
How do you feel about
Flex time at work
Legalized marijuana
Describe a typical meeting:
Bungee jumping as team exercise
Mandatory retirement at age 55
Eliminating all titles in the workplace
Which of your meeting would benefit from the use of the
Banning smoking everywhere
Six Thinking hats framework?
Cloning humans

White Hat
Yellow Hat
Staying in the white hat mode, think about (a topic). What
do we know? Find the benefit of this topic:
EDSA road widening project until 2016

What do we need to know?

Black Hat
Where are we going to get the information we need? Find the downside, both existing and potential.

What O.P.V.s (other peoples views) should we consider?

Green Hat
Generate ideas. Find the possibilities, even if they are
Who are these people and what are their views?
remote. Permits provocative ideas to be suggested.

What is holding your team back from being creative?

 DE BONOS SIX THINKING HATS LEADER ROLES

Define and clarify the thinking focus

Plan the sequence and timing of each step
Ask for changes in thinking if needed
Handle requests from the group for changes
in thinking
Form periodic and final summaries

PARTICIPANT ROLES

Follow the lead of the facilitator

Stick to the hat in current use
Try to work within the planned time limits
Contribute honestly and fully under each
hat

REMEMBER!

Start and end each session with the blue hat

There is no single correct six hats sequence
Have a brief discussion with the group about
the sequence to use and make a note of
the sequence to use and then use it
Choose only the hats you need; you dont
have to use all six
Each hat can be used any number of times.

IDEA GENERATION
Focus statement: Generate new ideas about Whats working well with the process?

Share background information What are the weaknesses in the process?

Generate ideas Generate ideas to overcome the weaknesses in the

process
Converge on ideas using specificity or priority Choose most appropriate ideas
Set up and manage the evaluation process. Evaluate
one idea at a time. Decide on next steps

What are the benefits of this idea?

STRATEGIC PLANNING
What are the weaknesses or risks of this idea? Focus Statement : Scan the current situation
Generate ideas to overcome the black hat What are our strengths?
Summarize the evaluated ideas What are our weaknesses?
Select ideas to move forward What are the trends that have impact on our business?
What do we need to do next, by when? Plan next (Environmental, competitive, social, political,
steps technological)
Develop future goals and strategies
PROBLEM SOLVING
Develop a bold goal and strategies for the future
Focus statement: Solve a problem
Develop a plan for action
What could be causing the problem?

Generate ideas to solve the problem PERFORMANCE REVIEW

Choose the best ideas Focus Statement : Conduct a performance review

Share how we feel about how things are going in a
What are the benefits of each idea? word or two
What are the weaknesses of each idea? Review job description, roles and responsibilities

Overcoming the weaknesses Whats working well?

What do we need to do, by when?
PROCESS IMPROVEMENT
Focus Statement : How to improve a particular process
Review the current process
What are others peoples views on the process?
What are the challenges, weaknesses, and concerns
in the performance?
Generate ideas to overcome the weaknesses and
create new ideas to improve performance
In one word, how do we feel about moving forward?
Agree on the next steps to support growth and
performance. Who needs to take these actions and
by when?