Lateral Thinking with “Six Thinking Hats”

Humans have been endowed with a wonderful and intelligent tool in the form of the brain. And one of its major roles is to make decisions. That decision is made after a series of thought processes. Over time, humans have evolved physically, but the brain has stuck to its natural, logical and inherent form; rationalizing everything in terms of true and false, or simply good and bad.

Since antiquity, this type of logical thinking became a standard decision making method. But Edward de Bono, a physician, author, inventor and a consultant, came up with a new approach to problems, products and other issues using what he termed as lateral thinking.

In his book, Six Thinking Hats, also known as "Six Hats", he showed how his thinking method could be a powerful tool for group discussion and individual thinking.

The preface of his methodology is simple. According to him, the human brain thinks in a number of distinct ways to generate an approach to a solution. The quest to find answers to problems is often consciously coordinated.

His revolutionary option offers an alternate thinking method, which identifies six distinct states of brain, each assigned with a different color. Now each thinking state can then be switched literally, or metaphorically, as per the needs. In the real world, it would mean something like changing hats of different colors. This alternate thinking system empowers strategists with innovative business solutions.

In principle, the method is radically different. It segregates different states like Emotions (red), Creativity (Green), Information (White), Opportunities( Yellow), Potential Obstacles (Black) and finally, the best solution in the form of right thinking (Blue), which literally means thinking about thinking.

According to him, the above mentioned six states can be made reactive to identify and bring into conscious thought certain aspects of issues being considered. These six thinking hats indicate problems and solutions about an idea or a product that the brain’s orthodox approach would not have come up with.

Many great thinkers, like Aristotle and Socrates, formed a thinking style which has become reductive in today’s contemporary times. Their way was designed to eliminate all but the truth. On the other hand Edward de Bonoand his "Six Thinking Hats" method show the importance of disrupting the dominant patterns preferred by the human brain to facilitate potentially creative abilities.

His techniques have helped over 750,000 people worldwide to develop innovative strategies, sharpen critical thinking skills that maximize talent, evaluate and execute new solutions, and simplify processes with reduced complexity.