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Edward Charles Francis Publius de Bono was born on May 19, 1933. He studied at the University of Malta, where he received a medical degree. During World War II, he studied at St. Edward's College.
He also attended Christ Church College, where he majored in psychology and physiology. During his studies, he won two canoe racing awards and played polo for the University of Oxford.
He studied and received his PhD from Trinity College and then continued his studies and received a Doctor of Divinity and a Doctor of Laws from the Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology and the University of Dundee, respectively.
Career
For a short time he worked as a junior researcher at the University of Oxford, and then became a lecturer. In 1961 he left Oxford University and moved to the University of London. Two years later, he moved to the position of Deputy Director of Research at the University of Cambridge.
In 1967, he published his first book, The Use of Out-of-the-Box Thinking, which is considered one of his best works, as it proposes the concept of "out-of-the-box (lateral) thinking". In 1968, de Bono presents the book The Birth of a New Idea, as well as a publication entitled The Five-Day Course in Thinking.
1971 was a very productive year for Edward de Bono - he created a good foundation for future work, based on his ideology, wrote the books "Technology Today", "Practical Thinking" and "Thinking Outside the Box for Management".
From 1972 to 1976, he wrote numerous publications, including Children Solve Problems, Po: A Device for Successful Thinking, Learning to Think, and Great Thinkers: Thirty Minds That Shaped Our Civilization. At the same time, he founded the Foundation for Cognitive Research.
In the 1980s, he also wrote the following books: The Atlas of Managerial Thinking, The De Bono Course in Thinking, Tactics: The Art and Science of Success, and the well-known book The Six Thinking Hats. In the book "Six Thinking Hats" it was about different colors of hats that reflected the process of thinking in the human brain. This book became a hit in the UK. And according to his book "De Bono's Course in Thinking", a series was filmed, which was shown by the BBC channel.
In 1990, de Bono was invited to preside over a meeting of Nobel laureates from around the world, which was held in Korea.
In 1995, he created a documentary about the future called 2040: Possibilities from Edward de Bono, which aimed to prepare the reader for the future of cryogenic freezers.
In 1996, the Center for New Thinking was founded on the basis of the de Bono Institute. In the same year, he presented his new book called "The Textbook of Wisdom".
In 1997, he was invited as a speaker at an environmental conference in Beijing.
In 1998, he presented his new book entitled How to Be More Interesting.
At the beginning of the new millennium, despite his travels around the world and reports to various leading world corporations, Edward de Bono also wrote several new books. He was convinced that the improvement of human nature would eventually come from the improvement of language. The book he wrote, entitled "Edward de Bono's Code Book," just touched on this topic.
Main works
He invented and proposed the idea of "non-standard (lateral) thinking" in 1967. This approach allows people to solve problems by using a creative, albeit secondary, approach. Now this methodology is used in many companies around the world, because it has proven its effectiveness in problems with finding and finding a problem, solving a problem and stimulating motivation. That is why de Bono is known as the father of "outside the box".
In 1985, he wrote the book The Six Thinking Hats. This book is considered one of his most significant works, as it introduces the reader to effective ways of group discussion and individual thinking. The book also deals quite strongly with the ideas of "parallel thinking" and "critical thinking". This book also introduces the concept of the "six thinking hats" that Speedo Researchers used to create swimwear, which made de Bono's idea extremely popular.
Awards and achievements
In 1992, he was the first person to receive the European Kapira Prize for Excellence.
In 1994, he was awarded the Prize of the Thinking Pioneer at the International Conference on Thinking, held at MIT (Boston, USA).
In January 1995, Dr. de Bono was awarded the National Order of Merit by the President of Malta.
In 2005 he was nominated for the Nobel Prize in Economics.
Personal life and legacy
In 1971 he married Josephine Hall-White. The couple had two sons.
In 1996, the European Creative Arts Association polled its members across Europe, trying to find out who influenced them the most. The name of Dr. de Bono was mentioned more often than other names.
The International Astronomical Union, for its contribution to the development of mankind, named the planet after the writer, consultant and inventor Edward de Bono.
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The books of Edward de Bono, one of the most famous researchers of the mechanisms of creativity, are quite widely represented on the Russian market. The author has developed a method that teaches effective thinking. De Bono proposes to formalize and structure the process of thinking, which, in the author's opinion, will contribute to a better discussion of problems and subsequent decision-making. Six hats - six different ways of thinking. When we “put on” a hat of a certain color, we focus our attention on only one of the ways of thinking.
Edward de Bono. Six Hats of Thinking. - Minsk: Potpourri, 2006. - 208 p.
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The ability to think is the basis of human activity. Regardless of whether this ability is well or poorly developed in each of us, we all regularly experience dissatisfaction with the results we have achieved in this area.
The main difficulty associated with the process of thinking lies in overcoming the disorderly, spontaneous flow of our thoughts. We try to cover with our thoughts at the same time a lot, if not all, - we try to “embrace the immensity”. Every minute doubts and worries, logical constructions and creative ideas, plans for the future and memories of the past are crowded in our minds. It is as difficult for us to navigate in this whirlwind of jumping thoughts as it is for a circus performer to juggle with multi-colored balls and hoops flashing before his eyes. But you can learn both.
Assimilation of the simple idea that I bring to your attention will allow you to put things in order in the "pantry of your thoughts", help you "put them on the shelves" and provide you with the opportunity to do everything in a measured, timely manner and in strict order. This is the only way to separate logic from emotions, desired from reality, fantasies of “pure water” from “bare” facts and real plans for the future. The ability to choose the right approach to business is the idea I propose of six thinking hats.
1. The magic of reincarnation. In the pose of a thinker and think more conveniently
Imagine the figure of Rodin's The Thinker, known to all of us. Take this posture, physically or mentally, and you will become a thinker. Why? Because by playing the thinker, you become one. At the right time, your inner feelings will "catch up" with your actions. In other words: "tuning the body" will entail "tuning the spirit." This book outlines the different roles you can play.
2. Trying on a Hat: A Very Intentional Action
I want to focus your attention on intentional thinking. This is the main purpose of the thinking hat. It must be worn on purpose. We do not need to be specifically aware of the sequence of foot shifts during a walk or to regulate the rhythm of our breathing. This is background, automatic thinking. But there is another type of thinking that is much more intentional and focused. Background thinking is required in order to cope with the daily routine, copying the usual thought patterns. Intentional thinking allows you to do much better and more than just copying patterns.
It is not so easy to send ourselves a signal that we want to get out of the routine and move from a stereotyped, copying type of thinking to an intentional one. The thinking hat idiom can be such a clear and clear signal to yourself and others.
When you drive a car, you have to choose the road, follow the given direction and watch the movement of other traffic. This is reactive thinking. So, everyday thinking is very similar to driving a car: you read road signs and make decisions. But you don't make maps.
Mapping type of thinking requires a certain detachment. Ordinary - no. The reactive type of thinking works only if there is something to react to. That is why the concept of critical thinking as its most perfect form is very dangerous. There is a foolish superstition, based on a misunderstanding of the ideas of the great Greek philosophers, that thinking is based on dialogue and dialectical struggle. This mistake did the West a lot of harm. The Western habit of arguing and dialectic is vicious because it leaves aside everything innovative and creative. Critical thinking responds well to everything that is offered to it, but it can offer nothing on its own.
To cover the realm of action thinking, I coined a special term - "effectiveness". This is the ability to act - and the type of thinking that corresponds to it. The word "effectiveness" should remind you of the ability to write and count. I am quite sure that effectiveness should be as important an element of education as these two skills.
Color separation occurs when printing a color card. First, one color is applied to the paper. Then a second is printed over the first color, then a third, and so on, until finally a full-color card appears. The six thinking hats in this book correspond to the different colors used when printing a map. This is the way I propose to use to intentionally direct your attention. Thus, it is not only a matter of wearing a hat, but also what color of hat we choose.
3. Intention and its implementation
If you behave like a thinker (for example, put on a thinking hat), then you will certainly become one. Your thinking will follow your action. The game will become reality. Please note: Intention alone is not enough. You must act, behave accordingly.
Every student in Venezuela is required by law to spend two hours a week developing their mental abilities. In schools there is a special subject - "Thinking". It is studied by schoolchildren, teachers, and parents. The thinking skills that students acquire in the learning process are very important. But much more important is the idea of developing thinking skills.
Using the six thinking hats described in this book is one way to increase the intention to be a thinker. If you consciously frown, intending to think, you will not make a decision until you stop frown, and this decision will be much better than a spontaneous reaction. The Six Thinking Hats are a very powerful way to move from intention to execution.
4. Role play: vacation for the "ego"
The more intentional and artificial the role, the more it is valued. This is the secret to the success of American soap operas. One general role of thinking is divided into six different characteristic roles, represented by hats of different colors. Each time you choose which of the six hats to wear. You put on a hat of a certain color and play the role that matches it. You are looking at yourself playing this role. You try to play it the best you can. Your "ego" is protected by this role. It, as a director, monitors the good performance of the role.
5. Melancholy and other vibes
Perhaps the Greeks were right when they believed in the dependence of their moods on various bodily fluids. Many people have noticed that the thoughts that come to their minds in a state of depression are very different from those that they might have if they were in a more joyful frame of mind.
Perhaps over time, the six different thinking hats will take on the status of a conditioned signal that activates a certain chemical mechanism in the brain, which, in turn, will affect our thinking. If we consider the brain as an active information system, we will see that its functioning is significantly different from the work of passive information systems used in computer technology. In an active system, information is organized according to the principle of patterns, and does not lie passively on the surface, waiting for some external processor to organize it.
Let's say there is a pallet with sand. A steel ball thrown at him remains where he fell. If a ball is thrown over any square of the grid, it remains directly under that square. It is a passive information system. The ball stays where it was placed.
The other pan contains a soft rubber bag filled with viscous oil. The first ball thrown to the surface gradually sinks to the bottom, bending the surface of the rubber bag under it. Now that the ball has come to rest, the surface has a contour - something like a hollow, at the bottom of which the first ball rests. The second ball rolls down the slope and stops next to the first ball. The second ball is active. It does not stay where it is placed, but follows the slope created by the first ball. All subsequent balls will roll towards the first one. A cluster is formed. Thus, we have a simple active surface that allows incoming information (balls) to be organized into a cluster.
It is the activity of neural networks that allows incoming information to be organized into patterns. It is the formation and use of such patterns that gives rise to perception. If the brain were not capable of organizing incoming information into patterns, then even something as simple as crossing a road would be next to impossible. Our brains are wired to “brilliantly” avoid all creativity. It is designed to create templates and use them unchanged in the future at any opportunity. But self-organizing systems have one huge drawback: they are limited by the sequence of past experience (history of events).
The susceptibility and sensitivity of the nervous system change under the influence of substances circulating in the body. Changing the concentration and composition of these substances leads to the use of a new template. In a sense, we have a separate brain for each initial set of substances. This suggests that emotions significantly affect our ability to think, and are not something superfluous that interferes with thinking.
People who have a hard time making decisions can guess that each of the brain chemistry makes a decision that is right for it. So both choices are correct, but for different brains. Hence the indecision.
In a state of panic or anger, people tend to behave primitively. Perhaps this is because in the brain such special chemical conditions occur so rarely that it does not have the opportunity to acquire complex response patterns. If this is true, then there is a very good reason for training people in such emotional conditions (as they always did in the army).
6. The value of the six thinking hats
First value The six hats of thinking is that they give you the opportunity to play certain roles. Basically, thinking is limited by the defensive ego, which is responsible for most of the practical errors of thinking. Hats allow us to think and talk about things that we might not otherwise think or say without gender being a threat to our ego. A clown costume gives a person the full right to act like a clown.
Second value method is to control attention. When thinking needs to go beyond just reacting, we need a way to shift our attention from one aspect to another. The six thinking hats are a way of focusing on six different aspects of the subject matter.
Third value- convenience. The symbolism of six different thinking hats allows you to ask someone (and yourself too) to “turn the arrows”. You can ask someone to show disagreement or stop being disagreeable. You can ask someone to be creative. Or retell your purely emotional reaction.
Fourth value six thinking hats - their possible connection with the chemical processes in the brain.
Fifth value is to determine the rules of the game. It is easy for people to learn them. Explaining the rules of the game is one of the most effective ways to teach children - that's why they learn the computer so easily. The six thinking hats set certain rules for the "thinking game". The essence of this game lies in its mapping, and not in the usual process of proof.
7. Six hats - six colors
White color is neutral and objective. The white hat is objective facts and figures.
Red suggests anger (eyes turn red), passion and emotion. The red hat gives emotional vision.
Black color is gloomy and deniers. The black hat justifies the negative aspects - why something is not feasible.
Yellow is a sunny and positive color. The yellow hat implies optimism and is associated with hope and positive thinking.
Green is the color of growing grass. The green hat signifies creativity and new ideas.
Blue is cold; besides, it is the color of the sky, which is above everything. The blue hat is responsible for organizing and controlling the thought process, as well as for the use of the other hats.
In addition, it is convenient to group hats into three pairs:
- white and red;
- black and yellow;
- green and blue.
8. White hat: facts and figures
Computers do not yet have emotions (although we may have to make them emotional if we want to teach them to think intelligently). We expect the computer to respond to our requests with only facts and figures. We don't expect the computer to argue with us, using facts and figures to justify its arguments. Facts and figures too often become part of the argument. Facts are more often given for a purpose than reported as they are. Facts and figures given in the framework of the argument can never be considered objectively. Thus, we really need someone who can change the course of the conversation by saying, "Just the facts, please - no arguments."
Unfortunately, in the framework of Western thinking, based on the dispute, they prefer to draw the conclusion first and only then the facts that support it. The cartographic type of thinking I have put forward is based on the fact that one should first draw up a map and only then choose the path. This means that we first need to have facts and quantitative data. Thus, white hat thinking is a convenient way to highlight a neutral and objective consideration of facts and figures.
White hat thinking becomes a practice that helps to separate facts clearly enough from their extrapolation or interpretation. It is easy to imagine that politicians might have considerable difficulty with this kind of thinking. 🙂
9. Thinking in a white hat: whose fact is this?
Much of what can pass for fact is mere commentary based on strong faith or personal conviction. Life must go on. It is impossible to test everything with the rigor of a scientific experiment. So in practice, we get something like a two-phase system: facts based on faith (beliefs) and verified facts.
The main rule of thinking in a white hat can be formulated as follows: you should not say anything with more certainty than it deserves.
Ultimately, it's all about attitude. When a person puts on a white hat, he makes neutral, "component" statements. They are laid out on the table. There is no question of using them to promote a certain point of view. As soon as the statement seems to be used for just this, the suspicion arises that the thinker has abused the role of the white hat.
10. White Hat Thinking: A Japanese Approach
The Japanese have never adopted the Western habit of arguing. The most likely explanation is that Japanese culture was not influenced by the Greek style of thinking, which was later improved by medieval monks in order to prove the fallacy of heretical views. It seems unusual to us that the Japanese do not argue. It seems unusual to the Japanese that we cherish the idea of an argument.
Participants in Western-style meetings come with their own points of view. The Japanese come to meetings without preconceived ideas; the purpose of the meeting is to listen; information is presented in a white hat manner, slowly organizing into an idea; it happens in front of the participants.
The Western point of view is that the form of an idea should be forged in disputes. The Japanese point of view is that ideas are born, like the germ of a crystal, and then grow, acquiring a certain form.
We cannot change the culture. So we need some mechanism to overcome our habit of arguing. That is the purpose of the white hat. When this role is played by all participants in the meeting, its essence boils down to the following: "Let's all pretend to be Japanese at the Japanese meeting."
11. White Hat Thinking: Facts, Truth, and Philosophers
Truth and facts are not as closely related as most people might think. Truth refers to the verbal game system known as philosophy. Facts are related to verifiable experience.
The idioms "in general and in general" and "in general" are quite acceptable. To give these rather vague idioms some concreteness is the task of statistics. It is not always possible to collect data, so we often have to use a two-phase system (judgment / verified fact).
The purpose of white hat thinking is to be practical. Thinking in a white hat not implies nothing absolute. This is the direction in which we are trying to become better.
12. White hat thinking: who wears the hat?
You may ask someone to wear a white hat, you may be asked to do the same, or you may decide to wear one yourself. White hat thinking excludes important things like suspicion, intuition, experiential judgment, and opinion. Of course, for this purpose, there is a white hat as a way to request information in its purest form.
13. White Hat Thinking: Summing Up
Imagine a computer giving out facts and data that is asked of it. The computer is dispassionate and objective. It does not offer the user any interpretations or opinions. When a person puts on a white hat, he should become like a computer.
In practice, there is a two-stage system of information. At the first stage there are verified and proven facts, at the second - facts taken for granted, but not yet fully verified, that is, the fact of the second level.
There is a spectrum of probability, limited by statements that are always true, on the one hand, and statements that are false in all cases, on the other. Between these two extremes, there are acceptable degrees of probability, such as "generally", "sometimes" and "occasionally".
14. Red hat: emotions and feelings
Red hat thinking is associated with emotions and feelings, as well as with the irrational aspects of thinking. The red hat is a certain channel through which you can throw it all out and make it a legitimate part of the overall map.
A person who wants to express his feelings should reach for a red hat. This hat gives the official right to express emotions, premonitions, etc. The red hat never obliges you to justify or explain your feelings. Wearing a red hat, you can play the role of an emotional thinker who reacts and feels rather than makes rational moves.
15. Red Hat Thinking: The Role of Emotions
According to the traditional view, emotions get in the way of thinking. At the same time, a good decision should end with emotions. I attach particular importance to the final stage. Emotions give meaning to the thought process and tailor it to our needs and current context.
Emotions can affect thinking in three ways. Thinking can occur against a background of strong feelings of fear, anger, hatred, suspicion, envy, or love. This background limits and distorts any perception. In the second case, emotions arise from initial sensations. You feel offended, and therefore all thoughts about your offender are colored by this feeling. You feel (perhaps wrongly) that someone is saying something for their own benefit, and therefore do not believe his words. The third moment when emotions can rise to the stage is when the map of the situation has already been drawn up. Such a card should also reflect the emotions caused by putting on a red hat. Emotions - including the desire for one's own benefit - are used when choosing a path on the map. Every decision has its own value. We emotionally respond to value. Our reaction to the value of freedom is emotional (especially if we have previously been deprived of freedom).
It should be remembered that a person, in the depths of his mind, may decide to put on the red hat of thinking. This allows you to bring your emotions to the surface in a legitimate way.
16. Red Hat Thinking: Intuition and Premonitions
The word intuition is used in two senses. The first is intuition as a sudden insight. This means that something previously understood in one way suddenly begins to be understood in another way. This may result in a creative act, a scientific discovery, or the solution of a mathematical problem. Another use of the word "intuition" implies an instantaneous grasp and understanding of a situation. It is the result of a complex judgment based on experience, a judgment that may not be classified or even verbalized.
Obviously, all successful scientists, successful entrepreneurs and successful generals have the ability to "feel" the situation. We say about an entrepreneur that he has a “smell for money”.
We can try to analyze the reasons behind the intuitive judgment, but we are unlikely to achieve complete success. If we cannot verbally articulate our reasons, should we trust judgment? It will be difficult to make a large investment based on a premonition. It is best to consider intuition as part of the map.
You can treat intuition the way someone treats advisors. If the EA has been reliable in the past, we are more likely to pay more attention to the suggested tips. If intuition has been right on many occasions, we may be more inclined to listen to it.
Intuition can also be used on the principle of "you will win in something, but you will lose in something." Intuition may not always be correct, but if it was more often right than wrong, then the overall result will be positive.
17. Red Hat Thinking: Case by Case
Red hat feelings can be expressed at any time during a meeting, discussion, or discussion. These feelings may be directed towards changing the course of the meeting itself, or simply be the subject of discussion.
The need to “put on” a red hat reduces the arguments in the discussion process. No one will put on a red hat whenever he feels like he has been treated with some slight. Once the red hat idiom has been internalized by the participants, expressing emotional points of view without this formality will seem rude to them. The red hat idiom should not be exaggerated and exalted to the point of absurdity. It is not necessary to formally use the idiom every time a feeling is expressed.
18. Red Hat Thinking: Using Emotions
Thinking can change emotions. This is not the logical part of thinking, which changes emotions, but its perceptual [sensory] part. If our vision of an issue changes, emotions can also change.
Expressed emotions can create a permanent background for thinking or discussion. There is a constant awareness of this emotional background. Decisions and plans are seen against this backdrop. From time to time it is useful to change the emotional background and see how everything will look in a new light.
Often resort to emotions to establish the subject of bargaining. The principle of variable value lies at the heart of all bargaining. For one of the parties, something may have one value, and for the other - another. These values can be expressed directly through the wearing of a red hat.
19. Red Hat Thinking: The Language of Emotions
The hardest part about wearing the red hat of thinking is to resist the temptation to justify the expressed feelings. Red hat thinking makes this optional.
20. Red Hat Thinking: Summing Up
The red hat legitimizes emotions and feelings as an important part of thinking. The red hat makes feelings visible so they can become part of the mind map and also part of the value system that chooses the path on the map. The brim hat allows you to explore the feelings of others: you can ask them to express their point of view by wearing a red hat. The red hat covers two broad types of feelings. Firstly, these are familiar, familiar emotions - from strong (fear and dislike) to almost imperceptible, such as suspicion. Secondly, these are complex judgments: premonition, intuition, taste, aesthetic feeling and other subtle types of feelings.
21. Black hat: what's wrong here?
It should be said that most people - both familiar with this technique and not - will feel most comfortable in a black hat. The reason lies in the Western emphasis on proof and criticism. It may seem surprising, but there is a whole body of opinion that the wearing of a black hat is the main function of thinking. Unfortunately, this completely excludes the creative and constructive aspects of thinking.
Black hat thinking is always logical. It is negative, but not emotional. Emotional negativity is the prerogative of the red hat (which also includes emotional positivity). Thinking in a black hat reveals the dark (black) side of things, but it is always logical blackness. In a red hat, you do not need to justify negative feelings. But with a black hat, you should always make logical arguments. In fact, one of the greatest values of the Six Thinking Hats is the clear separation of the emotionally negative from the logically negative.
The black hat represents logical negativity: why something will not work (logical positivity - why it will work - is substituted by the yellow hat). The tendency of the mind to be negative is so strong that it must have its own hat. A person should be able to be purely negative.
The specificity of the black hat frees you from the need to be fair and see both sides of the situation. When a person puts on a black hat, he can give full power to denial. By focusing on the negative, the black hat actually limits negativity. A person can be asked to take off his black hat - this will be a clear and distinct signal of switching from negative to positive.
22. Black Hat Thinking: Essence and Method
Like red hat thinking, black hat thinking can be about the subject itself (which is covered in the next section) or about the subject (thinking about it).
As I wrote in Practical Thinking, a proof is often nothing more than a lack of imagination. This applies to mathematics, law, philosophy, and most other closed systems. In practice, one of the best means of identifying a logical fallacy is to offer an alternative explanation or possibility. It should always be kept in mind that black hat thinking is never a proof process.
23. Black Hat Thinking: Future and Past Essences
We looked at the black hat method of thinking. Now let's move on to the essence. Are the facts true? Are they relevant? Facts are voiced under a white hat, and disputed under a black one. The intention of the man in the black hat is not to create as much doubt as possible, as a lawyer does in court, but to point out weaknesses in an objective way. There is a huge layer of experience that is not reflected in the data and indicators. Black hat thinking can point out where a sentence or statement contradicts such an experience. Most negative questions can be formulated in the form of such a phrase: "I see the danger in that ..."
How to resist the negative flow that gives rise to thinking in a black hat? The first way is to remember that this is more of a mapping exercise than an argumentative situation. The solution lies in noticing the flaw and acknowledging it. The second way is to acknowledge the flaw, but offer a parallel view that it is unlikely to happen. The third way is to recognize the danger and suggest a way to avoid it. The fourth way is to deny the value of danger, that is, to put on a black hat in order to evaluate the judgments of another person in a black hat. The fifth way is to offer an alternative point of view and put it next to the existing "black" view.
24. Black Hat Thinking: Indulging Negativity
Negative thinking is attractive: proving someone wrong gives instant gratification. Attacking an idea gives you an instant sense of superiority. The praising of the same idea seems to lower the praising creator of the idea lower.
25. Black Hat Thinking: Positive or Negative First?
The argument that black hat should always come first is that in this way unworkable ideas are rejected quickly and immediately, and not much time is spent thinking about them. Defining negative frames is just the usual way of thinking for most people. In many cases, this method works quickly and effectively. If competence is more important to us than achievement of goals, imposing a negative frame saves time. However, it is much easier to see defects in any new proposal than advantages. Thus, if we use the black hat at the beginning, we will most likely not accept any new offer. So, when dealing with new ideas and changes, it is better to use the yellow hat first and then the black hat.
Once an idea has been articulated, black hat thinking can go in two directions. The first task is to assess the viability of the idea. Once it has been established that an idea has a right to exist, black hat thinking seeks to improve it, pointing out the errors. The black hat doesn't care about solving the problem - it only points out the problem.
26. Black Hat Thinking: Summing Up
The black hat is used for negative assessments. The black hat also points out the reasons why something won't work, emphasizing risk and danger. The black hat is not an instrument of argument. Black hat thinking is the evaluation of an idea based on past experience, the purpose of which is to see how well it fits with what is already known.
27. Yellow hat: based on positive
A positive attitude is a choice. We can choose to take a positive view of things. We can only focus on the positive aspects of the situation. We can look for profit.
Positive thinking should be a mixture of curiosity, the pleasures of greed, and the desire to get things done. I called this irresistible desire to turn ideas into reality the main feature of successful people.
Any plan or action from under the yellow hat is designed for the future. It is in the future that they will bear fruit. We can never be as sure about the future as we are about the past, so we can only speculate. We decide to do something because it makes sense. It is our appreciation of the situation as having value that is the positive aspect.
Usually people are positive about ideas in which they see an immediate benefit for themselves. Self-interest is a solid foundation for positive thinking. But yellow hat thinking should not wait for such motivation. First put on the yellow hat, and then follow its requirements: to be optimistic, to have a positive attitude towards the subject of reflection.
Although yellow hat thinking is positive, it requires the same discipline as a white or black hat. It's not just a matter of a positive evaluation of something that catches the eye. This is a thorough search for the positive. Sometimes this search is in vain. 🙁
You might object that if the positive aspect is not obvious, it really can't be worth much. This is a wrong perception. There may be very strong positive aspects, generally invisible at first glance. That's how entrepreneurs work: they see value where others haven't seen it yet. The value and benefit is by no means always obvious.
28. Yellow Hat Thinking: Positive Spectrum
There are people whose optimism comes to stupidity. They are able to see the positive side even in the most hopeless situations. For example, some seriously expect to win a big prize in the lottery and seem to build their lives on it. At what point does optimism become stupidity, stupid hope? Should yellow hat thinking be stripped of its limits? Can the yellow hat disregard probability? Should this sort of thing be exclusively under the jurisdiction of black hat thinking?
The positive spectrum ranges between the two extremes of over-optimism and logical practicality. We have to be careful with this spectrum. History is full of impractical attitudes and dreams that inspired people to the effort that eventually made those dreams a reality. If we limit our yellow hat thinking to what sounds right and is already known, it will not make progress.
The key point is to try to evaluate the consequences of an optimistic approach. If they are nothing more than hope (like the hope of winning a prize in the lottery or the hope of a miracle that will save the business), this approach may not be appropriate. If optimism leads to movement in the chosen direction, then everything becomes more complicated. Over-optimism usually leads to failure, but not always. Those who expect to succeed succeed.
As with other thinking hats, the purpose of the yellow hat is to color an imaginary thought map. For this reason, optimistic proposals should be noticed and mapped. However, it is worth labeling such sentences with a rough estimate of probability.
29. Yellow Hat Thinking: Rationale and Logical Support
Should the man in the yellow hat give reasons for optimism? If no justification is given, a "good" attitude can likewise be placed under a red hat as a feeling, hunch, hunch. Yellow hat thinking has to go much further. The yellow hat covers positive judgments. The thinker in the yellow hat must do all he can to justify his optimism as best he can. But thinking in the yellow hat should not be limited to statements that can be fully explained. In other words, every effort should be made to justify optimism, but if such efforts are unsuccessful, the opinion can still be expressed as a guess.
30. Yellow Hat Thinking: Constructive Thinking
Constructive thinking belongs to the yellow hat because all constructive thinking is positive in its relation to the object. Suggestions are made to improve something. This might be a solution to the problem. Or an improvement on something. Or taking advantage of an opportunity. In any case, the proposal is put forward to bring about some positive change.
One aspect of yellow hat thinking involves reciprocal thinking. This is an aspect of the positive evaluation, which is the opposite of the black hat negative evaluation. The man in the yellow hat finds the positive aspects of the proposed idea, just as the man in the black hat chooses the negative aspects.
Thus, yellow hat thinking is the generation of proposals, as well as their positive evaluation. Between these two aspects there is a third - the development, or "construction" of the proposal. This is more than just evaluation of the proposal - it is further construction. The proposal has been modified, improved and strengthened. As part of the third aspect, there is a correction for the shortcomings that were noticed while wearing the yellow hat. As I said before, black hat can reveal defects, but is not responsible for correcting them.
31. Yellow Hat Thinking: Speculation
Thinking and the yellow hat goes beyond judgments and suggestions. This certain attitude is the hope for a favorable outcome, ahead of the situation. In practice, there is a big difference between an objective judgment and the intention to find positive value. It is this striving for something that I designate by the word speculation. A speculative yellow hat approach to thinking should always start with thinking only about possibilities. Speculative thinking should always start with the best possible scenario. Thus, it is possible to evaluate the maximum possible benefit from the idea. If the value of an idea is low in the best-case scenario, then the idea is not worth doing. The probability of the outcome can then be assessed. Ultimately, black hat thinking can indicate areas of doubt.
Part of the function of the yellow hat is to explore the positive equivalent of risk, which we call opportunity. The speculative aspect of yellow hat thinking is also related to insight. Any planning starts with an idea. The excitement and stimulus that the idea provides goes far beyond objective judgment. The idea sets the direction for thinking and action.
32. Thinking in a yellow hat: attitude towards creativity
Yellow hat thinking is not directly related to creativity. The creative aspect of thinking is directly related to the green hat. Creativity is about change, innovation, invention, new ideas and alternatives. A person can be a great thinker in a yellow hat, but at the same time unable to produce new ideas. Applying old ideas effectively is the realm of yellow hat thinking. Efficiency rather than novelty distinguishes yellow hat thinking. Just as the scoop hat can highlight a mistake and give the yellow hat an opportunity to correct it, the yellow hat can see an opportunity in something and let the green hat come up with an original way to use the opportunity.
33. Yellow Hat Thinking: Let's Summarize
The yellow hat is used for positive evaluation. It covers a positive spectrum, ranging from the logical and practical, on the one hand, to dreams, plans and hopes, on the other. The yellow hat mind is looking for an opportunity to give a justified optimistic view. Yellow hat thinking can be speculative and opportunity seeking, as well as dreaming and planning.
34. Green Hat: Creative and Lateral Thinking
Green is the color of fertility and growth. Wearing a green hat, a person goes beyond the old ideas to find something better. The green hat is about change. There may be more need to use the green hat than the others. Creative thinking may require provocative statements with deliberately irrational ideas. In this case, we need to somehow explain to others that we are deliberately playing the role of a jester or clown, trying to provoke the birth of new concepts. If we are not talking about provocations, but about new ideas, a green hat is needed to protect the tender shoots of the new from the cold emanating from the black hat.
The idiom of creative thinking is not easy for most people to understand. Most people like to feel safe. They like it when they are right. Creativity implies provocativeness, the ability to explore and take risks. A green hat alone cannot make people more creative. However, it can give a person the time and opportunity to concentrate so that he can show his creative potential.
From the green hat we cannot demand the end result. All we can ask of her is a contribution to our reflections. We can devote some time to generating new ideas. Despite this, a person may not come up with anything new. Only the time spent searching matters. You cannot order yourself (or others) to come up with a new idea, but you can order yourself (or others) to spend some time looking for a new idea. The green hat gives a formal opportunity to do so.
35. Green Hat Thinking: Lateral Thinking
I coined the term lateral thinking in 1967, and now even the Oxford English Dictionary indicates that the word was coined by me. The term lateral thinking should have been introduced for two reasons. The first is a very broad and somewhat vague meaning of the word creative. Lateral thinking is narrower and concerns changing concepts and perceptions; these are historically conditioned stereotypes of thinking and behavior patterns. The second reason is that lateral thinking is based directly on the behavior of information in self-organizing information systems. Lateral thinking is the rearrangement of patterns in an asymmetric pattern system.
Just as logical thinking is based on the behavior of symbolic language, lateral thinking is based on the behavior of template systems. Lateral thinking has the same basis as humor. Both depend on the asymmetric nature of perceptual patterns. This is the basis for a sudden leap or insight, after which something becomes clear.
A huge part of our thought culture has to do with "processing." To do this, we have developed excellent systems, including mathematics, statistics, data processing, language and logic. But all of them can work only on words, symbols and relations provided by perception. It is perception that reduces the complex world around us to these forms. It is in this area of perception that lateral thinking works and tries to change established patterns.
36. Green Hat Thinking: Movement Instead of Judgment
Thinking in the usual way, we use judgments. How does this idea fit in with what I already know? How does it fit in with my experience models? We reason that it is appropriate, or point out why it is not appropriate. Critical thinking and black hat thinking assess how well a sentence fits into what we already know.
We can call this the reversed idea effect. We look back on our past experiences to evaluate an idea. Just as the description must fit the object itself, we expect ideas to fit our knowledge. How else could we say that they are correct? Thinking with a green hat, we must apply another idiom: we replace judgment with "movement". Movement is not just the absence of judgment. Movement is the use of an idea for its effect of moving forward. We want to see where it takes us.
37. Green Hat Thinking: The Need for Provocation
Reports of scientific discoveries always look like the discovery procedure was logical and consistent. Sometimes that's how it is. In other cases, the step-by-step logic is just looking back in order to assess the mistakes made in the work. There was a mistake or an accident, which became a provocation that caused a new idea to appear. Antibiotics were discovered as a result of contamination of experimental dishes with penicillin mold. They say that Columbus decided to cross the Atlantic Ocean only because he made a serious mistake when calculating the distance around the world based on the data of an ancient treatise.
Nature itself creates such provocations. It can never be expected that a provocation will happen by itself, since thinking excludes it. Its role is to pull thinking out of the patterns that have developed by this time. We can sit and wait for provocations, or we can decide to create them on purpose. This is exactly what happens when the method of lateral thinking is applied. The ability to use provocations is an essential part of lateral thinking.
Many years ago I coined the word on as a symbol denoting an idea expressed as a provocation and for the sake of its driving value. You can decrypt if you want. on as a "provocative operation". By acts as a white flag of truce. If someone came up to the castle walls waving a white flag, it would be against the rules to shoot at him. Similarly, if an idea was expressed under the protection on, to shoot her with a judgment born under a black hat will prove to be a violation of the rules of the game.
…A polluting factory must be downstream from its outlet.
This provocation gave birth to a new idea that a factory built on the river bank should use water already polluted by its own activities for its own needs. Thus, the factory would be the first to experience the effects of its own environmental pollution.
As we move forward from provocation, three things can happen. We probably won't be able to make any movement at all. We can return to regular patterns. Or switch to using a new template.
There are also formal ways to create a provocation. For example, one of the easiest ways to get a provocation is a statement by contradiction. A very easy way to cause a provocation is to use a random word. To many people, it will probably seem unheard of that a random word can help solve a problem. Randomness suggests that the word is not directly related to the problem. However, from the point of view of the logic of asymmetric template systems, it is not difficult to see what effect a word chosen at random has. It becomes a new starting point. Thoughts for which a random word has served as a starting point can develop in a way that is impossible for thoughts that are directly related to the problem.
38. Green Hat Thinking: Alternatives
In a math class at school, you calculate the sum and get the answer. Then move on to the next task. It makes no sense to spend more time on the first sum, because you already got the right answer and you won’t be able to find a better one. For many people, this attitude to thinking persists in later life. They stop thinking as soon as they find a solution to a problem. They are satisfied with the first suitable answer. However, real life is very different from school tasks. Usually there is not one, but more answers. Some solutions fit better than others: they are more reliable, more realistic, or less expensive. There is no reason to believe that the first answer is better than the other possible ones.
We consider alternatives and look for other solutions, we can choose the best of them. The search for alternative solutions is really the search for the best solution. Understanding alternatives suggests that there is usually more than one way of doing things and more than one way of looking at things. Various lateral thinking techniques are aimed at finding new alternatives.
Many people believe that logical thinking reveals all possible alternatives. This is true for closed systems, but does not always work in real situations.
Every time we look for an alternative, we do so within a certain level. As a rule, we want to stay within these limits. From time to time we need to challenge the limits and move to a higher level.
…You asked me about alternative ways to load onto trucks. I want to tell you that it is much more profitable to send your products by train.
By all means challenge existing limits and change the level from time to time. But also be prepared to find an alternative solution within a certain level. Creativity gets a bad rap when creative people propose a solution to a problem other than the one they were given. The dilemma remains real: when to work within the given limits, and when to go beyond them.
39. Green Hat Thinking: Personality and Ability
I don't like the idea of creative thinking as a special gift. I prefer to think of creativity as a normal and natural part of everyone's thinking. I don't think you can change a person's personality. But I am sure that if the “logic” of a creative approach is explained to a person, then this can forever change his attitude towards creativity. No one likes to be considered "one-sided". A thinker who looks great in a black hat would like to look at least passable in a green one. The black hat expert doesn't need to feel like he has to reduce his negative attitude in order to be creative. When he is negative, he can be just as negative as before (compare this with trying to change personality). Creative thinking is usually in a weak position because it is not considered as a necessary component of thinking. Such a formality as a green hat elevates it to the rank of the same recognized part of thinking as other aspects of it.
40. Green hat thinking: what happens to ideas?
I attended a lot of creative sessions where a lot of good ideas were born. However, at the final stage, many of these ideas were ignored by the participants. We tend to pay attention only to the final, reasonable solution. Everything else we ignore. But all these cases should be noticed. It should be part of the creative process to shape an idea and fit it for some purpose so that it gets closer to satisfying two needs. The first need is the need of the situation. An attempt to formalize an idea and make it workable. This is achieved by introducing limiters, which are used as shaping pulses.
The second set of needs to be satisfied are the needs of the people who are going to act on the idea. Unfortunately, this world is not perfect. It would be nice if everyone could see in the idea the brilliance and potential that are obvious to the author of this idea. This is not always the case. Thus, part of the creative process is to frame the idea in such a way that it better suits the needs of those who need to "buy" it.
In some of my writings, I have suggested the role of concept manager. This is the one who is responsible for stimulating ideas, collecting them and looking after them. This is the person who would organize the idea generation sessions. He would put problems under the noses of those who have to solve them. This is a person who would follow ideas in the same way that a financial manager would follow finances.
The next stage is the yellow hat stage. It includes the constructive development of an idea, as well as a positive evaluation and search for co-benefits and values. What follows is black hat thinking. At any stage, a white hat can be worn to provide the data needed to evaluate an idea. The final stage is red hat thinking: do you like this idea enough to keep working with it? It may seem strange that the emotional judgment is made at the end. But this is precisely what gives hope that the emotional assessment will be based on the results of a careful study of the black and yellow hats. In the end, if there is no enthusiasm, the idea will most likely not succeed, no matter how good it may be.
41. Green Hat Thinking: Let's Summarize
The green hat is associated with creative thinking. Finding alternative solutions is a fundamental aspect of green hat thinking. There is a need to go beyond the known, the obvious, and the satisfactory. When needed to take a creative break, the green hat thinker interrupts the discussion at any point to consider whether alternative solutions currently exist. Within green hat thinking, the concept of movement is used instead of the concept of judgment. Provocation is an important part of green hat thinking and is denoted by the word on. It is used to take us beyond our usual thought patterns. Lateral thinking is a complex of attitudes, concepts and techniques (including movement, provocation and on) designed to break patterns in self-organizing asymmetric pattern systems.
42. Blue hat: mind control
Putting on the blue hat, we no longer think about the object; we begin to think about the thinking required to study this object. The blue hat does to thinking what a conductor does to an orchestra. When wearing the blue thinking hat, we tell ourselves (or others) which of the five hats to wear.
The time of argument provides a moment for a person to think. This is why many people find it easier to think in a group than alone. Thinking alone requires structuring the blue hat. If we are going to use the cartographic type of thinking, we need to have structure. Offense and defense can no longer form a structure.
43. Blue Hat Thinking: Focusing
Focusing is one of the key roles of the blue hat. Focus can be wide or narrow. Wide focus can have several specific focus objects. An important aspect of attention is that it must be voiced in a certain manner. Blue hat thinking should be used to determine the purpose of concentration. The time spent thinking about thinking is not wasted. Asking a question is the easiest way to focus thinking.
44. Blue Hat Thinking: Programming
Computers have software that guides them in every given situation. Computers cannot work without software. One of the functions of blue hat thinking is to develop software for thinking about a particular issue.
If the topic causes violent emotions, it would make sense to put the red hat first on the program. This would bring feelings to the surface and make them visible. Without a red hat, each person would try to express their emotions not directly, but through additional means, such as a black hat. As soon as emotions appear, a person will be freed from them. The next step would be to put on a white hat.
Now, with the magic of the blue hat, all available offers should be brought together into an official list. After that, proposals can be divided into categories: proposals requiring individual evaluation; proposals requiring further development; suggestions that should simply be taken into account.
Now one could combine the three approaches, using white, yellow and green hats to consider each proposal and take it to the next level. This is the phase of constructive thinking.
Now you need to put on a black hat, which currently plays the role of a sieve. The purpose of the black hat is to indicate the impossibility of implementing certain alternative options.
45. Blue Hat Thinking: Generalizations and Conclusions
The man in the blue hat is looking at the thinking hat that is currently on the stage. He is a choreographer, but also a critic who follows what is happening. The man in the blue hat does not drive the car on the road, but watches the driver. He also pays attention to the choice of route. Wearing a blue hat, we make comments about what we observe. From time to time the thinker in the blue hat will review what has been going on and what has been achieved. It is he who stands at the blackboard to make a list of alternative solutions found.
46. Blue Hat Thinking: Control and Monitoring
At any meeting, the chairman automatically acts as a blue hat. He maintains order and ensures that the agenda is followed. It is possible to give the role of the bearer of the blue hat to someone other than the chairman. Then the man in the blue hat will monitor the thinking within the limits set by the chairman. The wearer of the blue hat makes sure everyone else sticks to the rules of the game.
In practice, different hats overlap each other very often, and there is no need to be too pedantic about this. Yellow and green hats can change very quickly. White and red hats overlap due to the fact that facts are mixed with opinions about them. It is also impractical to change hats every time someone makes a remark. The important thing is that when a certain mode of thinking is established, thinkers must consciously make an effort to think in this way. One of the main tasks of control by the wearer of the blue hat will be the suppression of disputes.
47. Thinking in a blue hat: summing up
The blue hat is the hat of control. The man in the blue hat organizes thinking. He expresses ideas about the forms of thinking necessary to study the topic. The thinker in the blue hat is like the conductor of the orchestra: it is he who announces when it is necessary to put on this or that hat. The thinker in the blue hat determines the object to which thinking should be directed. The blue hat brings focus. It serves to identify problems and ask questions.
Conclusion
The greatest enemy of thinking is complexity, because it leads to confusion. When thoughts are clear and simple, it is pleasurable and more effective. The concept of the six thinking hats is very easy to understand. It is also very easy to apply. Obviously, this idiom will work if everyone in the organization is familiar with the rules of the game. For example, all those who are accustomed to meet to discuss certain issues should learn the meaning of various hats. A concept works best when it becomes something like a common language.
In 2010 Potpourri published this book under the title "Mind Control". I just read it...
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Edward de Bono's The Six Thinking Hats is a unique work by one of the brightest experts in the field of creativity. She talks about an effective way that both adults and children can use. The six hats refer to different ways of thinking: critical, optimistic, and others. The essence of the method outlined in the book is to "try on" each of the headgear and learn to think from different positions. In addition, practical advice is provided on when which thinking is effective and where it can be applied to emerge victorious from any intellectual battle.
This book instantly won an army of fans and was able to help millions of people learn to think in a new way: correctly, efficiently and creatively.
About Edward de Bono
Edward de Bono is a well-known specialist in philosophy, a man who has several doctoral degrees in medicine. He has worked at the universities of Harvard, London, Cambridge and Oxford.
Edward de Bono became most famous after he managed to prove that creativity is one of the necessary characteristics in self-organizing information systems. In his 1969 work The Principle of the Mind, he showed that the neural networks of the brain have a formative effect on the asymmetric patterns that are the basis of perception. According to professor of physics Murray Gell-Mann, this book has become decisive for decades in those areas of mathematics that are associated with the theory of chaos, nonlinear and self-organizing systems. De Bono's research provided the basis for the concept and tools.
Summary of the book "Six Thinking Hats"
The book consists of several introductory chapters, twenty-four chapters, revealing the main theme, the final part and a block of notes. Next, we will look at a few basic provisions of the method of Edward de Bono.
Introduction
blue hat
The sixth hat differs from the rest in its purpose - it is needed not to work on the content, but in order to manage the entire process of work and implementation of the idea. It is usually used at the very beginning of a method to determine upcoming actions, and then at the end to summarize and set new goals.
Four types of hat use
The use of six hats is effective, as already mentioned, in the process of any mental work, in any area and at various stages. For example, in the personal sphere, the method can help, evaluate something, find a way out of a difficult situation, and so on.
When used in groups, the technique can be considered as a variety. In addition, it can be used to resolve conflicts and, again, in planning or evaluation. It can also be used as part of a training program.
It will not be superfluous to note that the Six Thinking Hats method is used in their work by such companies as DuPont, Pepsico, IBM, British Airways and others.
Four types of application of six hats:
- Put on a hat
- Take off your hat
- change hat
- label thinking
Method Rules
In a collaborative environment, the Six Hats of Thinking method relies on having a moderator who manages the process and monitors discipline. The moderator is always under the blue hat, takes notes and summarizes the results.
The facilitator, starting the process, introduces all participants to the general principles of the method and indicates the required solution of the problem, for example: “Our competitors have offered us a partnership in the field ... What to do?”.
The process begins with all participants putting on the same hat together and evaluating the situation in turn, from an angle that matches a particular hat. The order in which the hats are put on does not really matter, but you still need to follow some kind of order.
You can, for example, try to do this:
The discussion of the topic begins with a white hat, because. all available information, figures, conditions, data, etc. are collected. Then this information is discussed in a negative way (black hat), and even if the situation has many advantages, there may still be disadvantages - they need to be found. After that, you need to find all the positive features (yellow hat).
As soon as the problem has been considered from every angle and the maximum amount of data has been collected for subsequent analysis, you need to put on a green hat. This will allow you to see new features outside of the already available offers. It is important to strengthen the positive aspects and weaken the negative ones. Each of the participants can put forward their own proposal.
Further, new ideas are subjected to another analysis - the black and yellow hats are put on again. But it is very important to give the participants the opportunity to defuse from time to time (red hat). However, this should happen infrequently and for a short time. Thus, by trying on all six hats using a different sequence, over time you will have a chance to find the most optimal sequence, which you will follow.
At the conclusion of group parallel thinking, the moderator should summarize and provide the participants with the results. It is important that he keeps all the work under control and does not allow participants to be in several hats at the same time - this is the only way to ensure that ideas and thoughts do not get confused.
The Six Thinking Hats method can be applied in a slightly different way: each of the participants can be in a different hat, in the process. But in such a situation, hats should be distributed in such a way that they do not fit the type of participants. For example, an optimist can try on a black hat, an avid critic can try on a yellow one, an unemotional person can try on a red one, an idea generator can try on a green one, etc. This allows participants to maximize their potential.
Naturally, the Six Hats of Thinking method can be used by one person to solve various problems and find answers to some questions. Then the man himself changes hats, each time thinking from a new position.
Finally
You can learn more about how Edward de Bono's technique is used, as well as study all its features without exception, by reading the wonderful book "Six Thinking Hats". Be sure that after reading it, your personal productivity will increase to the maximum.
Edward De Bono's system of thought created in the second half of the twentieth century and contains revolutionary views on structure thinking, as well as opportunities to improve its effectiveness, the development of human creativity. The system includes scientific, educational and applied aspects.
Edward De Bono famous psychologist and writer, an expert in creative thinking. De Bono was born in 1933 in Malta. The creator of the system of creative thinking studied medicine, psychology, physiology in the course of his studies and work at Oxford, Cambridge, Harvard universities, etc.
Among the most famous De Bono's works water logic", "Lateral thinking", "Teach yourself to think", "The birth of a new idea", "Serious creative thinking", "Six Thinking Hats", "I'm right - you're wrong".
In 1969 it was published key book by Edward de Bono, Mind mechanism", in which he proposed a new approach to assessing perception, based on the model self-organizing information structures. One of the world's leading physicists, Nobel laureate Murray Gell-Mann, said that this book was a decade ahead of the work on the theory of chaos, nonlinear and self-organizing systems.
Based on this approach, Edward de Bono created the concept lateral thinking and practical methods its application. Traditional thinking is associated with analysis, judgment and discussion as the leading evaluative mechanism. In a stable world, this was enough, because by identifying typical situations, it was possible to develop standard solutions for them. However, in today's fast changing world, there is a great need for new thinking - creative, constructive that allows you to create new ideas and ways of development. The techniques proposed by Edward de Bono are precisely the tools for such new thinking.
These techniques are actively used in business and have been implemented in largest international corporations - IBM, Du Pont, Prudential, AT&T, British Airways, British Coal, NTT, Ericsson, Total, Siemens. thousands schools around the world use de Bono's teaching programs (in the USA, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, Ireland, Great Britain, China, India, South Korea and other countries).
De Bono states that education is still focused on loading the student with the maximum amount of knowledge and facts, but does not teach him to think. More precisely, it teaches one-sided thinking, paying attention mainly to critical thinking. Critical thinking is necessary, but, not owning other tools, a person falls into a trap, he is not able to objectively consider all aspects of the problem, generate new ideas, and focus on the practical result of thinking.
De Bono noted the importance of the process of perception in thinking. At school, people are used to abstracting from perception - they receive tasks with ready-made input information. But life is not like that. Here the solution of the problem depends entirely on the initial perception of the problem. This observation is especially valuable in interpersonal relationships. In most cases, each of the participants in the discussion is right, but based on his own perception, which is based on his principles, values, upbringing, knowledge, etc. Given this, the focus should not be on persuading the opponent, but on effective interaction, which allows developing creative proposals that satisfy the true interests of the parties.
De Bono notes that the still widespread orientation exclusively to the logical principles proposed by the ancient Greek philosophers is not able to effectively solve modern problems. In contrast, he offers his own - water logic (instead of the traditional stone one). For example, according to accepted logic, a statement can be either true or false. And the water logic is more flexible - the glass may not be completely filled with water - "it is half full, and it is half empty." It is important that water logic has serious practical applications. De Bono believes that she is the future. He rightly notes that the dominance of stone logic led to the flourishing of science and technology, but did not advance human relations at all - until now, conflicts are resolved through force due to the inability to agree, to look at the problem more broadly.
Consider one of the simplest and most effective methods of thinking proposed by De Bono − six hats. The advantage of this method is that it can be used for both group, so with individual thinking, and you can learn it in just half an hour. It is no secret that a person, thinking about a problem, tries to "embrace the immensity" - at the same time looking for new ideas, analyzes their logic, tries to abstract from emotions, draws conclusions, etc. It turns out chaos from which it is very difficult to extract something truly valuable. De Bono singled out six main types thinking, each of which he designated with a hat of a certain color. He suggested using these types sequentially in the process of thinking - by analogy with taking off and putting on hats. The description of each hat illustrates it. functionality:
Red Hat. Emotions. Intuition, feelings and forebodings. Feelings do not need to be justified. What are my feelings about this?
Yellow Hat. Advantages. Why is it worth doing? What are the benefits? Why can it be done? Why would it work?
Black hat. Caution. Judgment. Grade. Is it true? Will it work? What are the disadvantages? What is wrong here?
Green Hat. Creation. Various ideas. New ideas. Offers. What are some of the possible solutions and actions? What are the alternatives?
White Hat. Information. Questions. What information do we have? What information do we need?
Blue Hat. Organization of thought. Thinking about thinking. What have we achieved? What needs to be done next?
In group work, the most common model is to determine the sequence of hats at the beginning of the session. The sequence is determined based on the problem being solved. Then the session begins, during which all participants simultaneously "put on hats" one colors, according to a certain sequence, and work in the corresponding mode. The moderator stays under the blue hat and oversees the process. Session results are summarized under the blue hat.
Advantages of the method Six hats (to find them you need to use the Yellow Hat):
Usually mental work is boring and abstract. Six Hats allows you to make it a colorful and fun way to control your thinking;
Colored hats are a catchy metaphor that is easy to teach and easy to apply;
The six hats method can be used at any level of complexity, from kindergartens to boardrooms;
By structuring work and eliminating fruitless discussions, thinking becomes more focused, constructive and productive;
The hat metaphor is a kind of role-playing language, in which it is easy to discuss and switch thinking, distracting from personal preferences and without offending anyone;
The method avoids confusion, since only one type of thinking is used by the whole group in a certain period of time;
The method recognizes the importance of all components of the work on the project - emotions, facts, criticism, new ideas, and includes them in the work at the right time, avoiding destructive factors.
Of course, like any technique, Edward De Bono's system of thinking requires time and patience to master: it is necessary to form the habit of thinking by the rules. But in return, the practitioner will receive:
- increasing the efficiency of your thinking and, as a result, the decisions you make;
- enjoyment of the thought process.
For development of creative thinking I De Bono advises:
- Get away from clichés and established thought patterns;
- Doubt what is allowed;
- Generalize alternatives;
- Grab new ideas and see what happens;
- Find new entry points to push off from.
