Mon
26/10
Tool Time: The Six Thinking Hats
Join a short, social and experimental session to familiarise yourself with a famous, powerful and playful tool for generating ideas, beating biases and bringing teams together.
What are the Six Thinking Hats?
Psychologist Edward de Bono's Six Thinking Hats tool provides a powerful and playful way for flexing different modes of thinking on purpose. Instead of tackling a live problem from a default or single perspective – the Six Thinking Hats enable you to deliberately cycle through several. A proven tool to try among teams (or indeed solo) – the hats get us intentionally out of our default world view, ensuring diverse perspectives are being heard and that our default biases are dampened. de Bono originated the term 'lateral thinking', and his Six Thinking Hats colourfully and intentionally bring that concept to life. Each metaphorical 'hat' has a different colour, and represents a particular way of thinking; from the problem-oriented perspective of the Black Hat, to the deliberately glass-half-full frame the Yellow Hat insists we look through. The White Hat seeks data and detail, while wearing the Red Hat is about going with your gut.
You'll love the hats
Used within a number of exercises, powerful combinations of perspectives quickly combine – in meetings, workshops, idea generation sessions; 1-1s and solo moments too. Big businesses like IBM, Boeing and Siemens use it to this day, as do lots of creative agencies and educational institutions. We've facilitated hundreds of Hats sessions and activities over the years with our partners. Once you've tried it, you tend to love it – and use it again and again. Which is what this session is all about – discovering ways to experiment with the Six Thinking Hats tools. Over a colourful and collaborative 60 minutes, we'll share and run some of our favourite exercises, applying them to live challenges and opportunities in the group. You'll leave with the confidence to take and test it further in your own teams and settings, super-charging your creative thinking and decision making capability.
What we'll cover
• The Six Thinking Hats as a concept and the 'modes of thinking' they represent. • Frameworks for using the hats solo and in teams. • Spotting our own default views within the hats. • Using the hats to challenge biases. • Ways you can use the tool immediately.
How the session will be structured
We'll work with pace through a series of short exercises that demonstrate the core ideas at the heart of the Six Thinking Hats, applying them to live challenges and opportunities within the group. You'll work in small, supportive breakout groups with curious peers, and leave with ongoing workbooks and resources to experiment and practice back in your own teams.
Who the session's for
Anyone keen to arm themselves with a new tool to support creative, collective and decisive thinking.