Aussie Bloggers

The following technique for problem solving or debating is an oldie but a goodie in my opinion.

It’s De Bono’s six thinking hats. I came across it years ago in a work environment and every now and again I still use it to clarify my thoughts or form an action plan.

It can also help to dispel emotion and see things more rationally. Something happened to me just recently and I used the six thinking hats to problem solve. It reminded me of its effectiveness and I thought that there are plenty of blogging situations where it might come in handy.

I should say that this is an overview and I’ve probably adapted the meanings and the technique over the years to suit myself so if you’re interested in learning more there are plenty of resources online.

The basis of it is to look at something in six very distinct ways. Coloured hats are used as a symbol for each way of thinking as follows:

Red hat = emotion. Use it as an outlet for your feelings, passion, irrational thoughts.

White hat = information. Use it to gather the facts.

Black hat = logical negativity. Use it to define logical, rational reasons why something won’t work or you shouldn’t do something.

Yellow hat = logical positivity. Use it to define logical reasons why something is a good idea.

Green hat = new ideas. Use it to generate new ways of thinking.

Blue hat = overview and processing. Use it to review what you’ve learnt and formulate a way forward.

A couple of weeks ago a client of mine wasn’t getting the results they wanted and I’d been working at trying to improve things. I received an email highlighting some unfavourable figures and my first thoughts were all emotion based. I was upset that the client was unhappy, resentful that I’d been doing the best I could and anxious about what was going to happen. The six thinking hats helped me to get it into perspective and come up with a way forward. I worked through each hat one at a time and by the end of the process I felt much better, in fact pretty good about the whole thing.

There are always problems to be solved and decisions to be made when you have a blog and plenty of times when emotions take over so it can be useful to have a structured way of seeing things from different perspectives at times. Most people tend to favour one of the ways of thinking as well so it can be useful to deliberately change that mode to get a different or more complete picture.