How many of us learn on a daily basis that we are not as smart as we think we are? But what if our problem is actually that we don’t know how, literally, to make decisions? Most of us typically lump together the factors that influence us into one big stew of facts, hope, fear, opportunity, and creativity as if they’re all equal.
In his little gem of a book, Six Thinking Hats, the famed scholar of organizational management Edward de Bono makes the flaws in normal decision-making painfully clear—and then lays out a simple, lucid way of reorganizing how we think. I have found that using his method can benefit everything from individual decisions to meeting management, especially providing clarity and confidence around the toughest choices.
As de Bono outlines it, six qualities that typically get confused in our thinking are best pulled apart and evaluated in their own way. For reasons he soundly explains, he assigns each quality a different colored hat:
White Hat: Facts and information
Black Hat: Worries and concerns
Yellow Hat: Brightness and optimism
Green Hat: Creativity and possibilities
Red Hat: Emotions and intuition
Blue Hat: Managing the thinking process
Having done so, he walks us through a process for using his hat approach in meetings, group choices, and personal decisions that is easily deployed when needed. Each of these hats and the qualities they represent, he argues convincingly, play a part in helping us assess and make hard decisions. By purposefully separating them, we can soundly contemplate the many qualities affecting our judgments.
As we know, no matter how logical we think we are, emotions typically drive our choices. de Bono's method clarifies the other factors at play so we can use them to either inform and support the emotions influencing our choices or recognize that, actually, those emotions were leading us in the wrong direction.
Even if you never use the techniques de Bono offers, his book may give you a whole new understanding of the problem-solving dynamics in your own head (and in others’). Beware, though: You may never see decision-making the same.
This post is the last in a four-part series on books that help us think more strategically, clearly, and creatively. Read the others here: