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How to use De Bono’s “Six Thinking Hats” to make better decisions
My last article addressed how to brainstorm like a pro. It contained three simple steps to follow if you are hosting a session to generate ideas for a business challenge that you might be facing.
Those 3 steps are:
- Before you begin your session
- Idea generation, and
- Idea selection
Following a number of comments and messages that I received in response to the piece, it is clear that the idea generation part is straightforward. It’s the last step, idea selection, where people need additional help to decide which of the ideas to move from being words on a flip chart and into reality.
The process that I found particularly effective is to use De Bono’s Six Thinking Hats. This is a powerful technique for decision making from different perspectives.
The six hats represent six modes of thinking and should be considered as “directions to think” rather than labels for thinking. That is, the hats are used proactively rather than reactively.
Using this method promotes fuller input from more people. Everyone is able to contribute to the exploration without denting egos as they are just using whatever hat is in use at the time. The expectation is that everyone should…
