Transcript Learning how to learn is life's most important skill

The Six Thinking Hats
by
Edward De Bono
Thinking and Intelligence are
quite separate…Many highly
intelligent people are poor
thinkers.
Thinking is a skill that can be
learned practised and developed
Socratic argument (dialectic
argument)
Sets out to question and ensure rigour of thought.
Argument is a poor way of exploring a subject as
each side wants to win the point:
 Thesis
 Antithesis
 Synthesis
No possibility of parallel thinking
Six Thinking Hats is a good
technique for…
looking at the effects of a
decision from a number of
different points of view.
From De Bono’s Six Thinking Hats
The six hats represent six modes of
thinking and are directions to think
rather than labels for thinking.
The hats are used proactively not reactively.
The Six Thinking Hats
by Edward De Bono
 encourage
parallel thinking
 encourage full-spectrum thinking
 separate ego from performance
The Six Thinking Hats
by Edward De Bono
The hats must never be
used to categorise
individuals, even though
their behaviour may
seem to invite this.
The White Hat
This covers facts. Focus on the data
available.
 Look for gaps in your knowledge, and either
try to fill them or take account of them.
 Analyse past trends, and try to extrapolate
from historical data

The Red Hat
This covers intuition and emotions.
 The red hat allows the thinker to put
forward an intuition without any need to
justify it with logic.
 Allows you to understand the responses
of people who do not fully know your
reasoning.

The Black Hat
This hat of judgment and caution.
 Point out why a suggestion is flawed – look
at all the bad points of the decision.
 Risk assessment
 The black hat must always be logical.
 Try to see why it might not work.
 Black Hat thinking helps to make your plans
'tougher'.

The Yellow Hat
This is the logical positive – optimistic.
 Why something will work and why it will offer
benefits.
 It can also be used to find something of
value in what has already happened.
 Constructive thinking, also speculative –
what if

The Green Hat
The hat of creativity, alternatives, proposals,
what is interesting, provocations and
changes.
 This is where you can develop creative
solutions to a problem.
 It is a freewheeling way of thinking, in which
there is little criticism of ideas.

The Blue Hat
The overview or process control hat.
 It is concerned with meta-cognition.
 When running into difficulties because ideas
are running dry, they may direct activity into
Green Hat thinking. When contingency
plans are needed, they will ask for Black Hat
thinking, etc.

Western thinking is concerned with
"what is," which is determined by
analysis, judgement and argument…
But “what can be,” involves
constructive thinking, creative
thinking, and designing a way
forward.