Inspiration from the "Six Thinking Hats"

"The Six Thinking Hats reduced our conference time by 80% and changed the corporate culture across Europe ." By J. P. Morgan International Investment Bank

Why are we so embarrassed?

"Ah! Today is terrible. After a day, no problems have been solved. My endurance has reached the limit. This damn meeting can not only solve the problem, but also damage my team. My work item has to be postponed again because of the meeting. I don't understand whether the meeting is to solve the problem or consolidate the political position of someone in the company. When can they understand that when a large ship is about to sink, what the crew members need is the captain who sends the order, not a meeting day after day !"

I wonder if you are deeply touched by the fact that we have spent too much time at the meeting, and the time that could have produced productivity for the company is wasted on lengthy and inefficient meetings. These meetings are often filled with an annoying atmosphere, and most of the time we can come to the conclusion that "meetings are dragging us down ".

Role and Value

The Six Thinking Hats method applies parallel thinking to the specific methodology of reality. It has been proved to be effective. I don't want to quote the success stories of the industry giants. This is just my opinion on this methodology.

FAQs about traditional regular meetings	Advantages of the Six Thinking Hats
Habits. Traditional regular meetings are easy to evolve into habits. This is a very serious signal, because people are reducing their attention and even stopping their thinking, just as if you don't have to spend too much time on your computer to log on to your QQ.	Break the habit because there is no fixed pattern to make you get used to it. Meetings are very flexible. Meetings are like games. You cannot predict what kind of story will be triggered in the next stage, everyone is passionate and thinking.
Emotional. We are constrained by the weakness of human nature. Most people will instinctively attack those ideas that are contrary to their own views or interests due to their defensive nature. This long debate may even spread beyond the Conference. This is only because our thinking model is too easy to be influenced by our emotions, so that our emotions beat our senses.	Everyone can switch between several types of emotions. rules do not allow you to stay in that intoxicating mood for a long time. Everyone can think about the problem comprehensively and get rid of emotional control. If someone is under emotional control, he can quickly bring another thinking cap to get rid of his emotions.
Confused thinking. The process of thinking is so complicated that people need to use computer software to assist in decision-making, because many times we ignore what we should have grasped.	People are always keen on the structured solution of complicated transactions. The six-day exams are a methodology about parallel thinking, which teaches people to think only one aspect of the problem at a time, our thinking is simplified, so that our thinking is well organized and we can fully think about problems from every aspect.
Company politics. Based on the company's political considerations, not all participating members can be open and honest, and good opinions may be buried until the development of history proves how dazzling this idea was.	It allows people to raise objections in a euphemism and give everyone the opportunity to express their opinions.

The Six Thinking Hats have two main purposes: first, to simplify thinking; second, to freely change the way of thinking. Although these two points seem simple, an enlightened manager can realize the value of both.

Three or six think hats

The Six Thinking Hats emphasize a very simple concept, which only allows the thinker to do one thing at a time. The Thinker distinguishes the logic from the emotion, the creation, and the information by bringing the "thinking cap" of different colors. In this way, the thinker can think about different aspects of the problem at different times to the extreme.

Basic rules:

• The order and quantity of hats are not unique. You can use a single thinking method or multiple thinking methods in a custom order.
• The number of times each hat is used is unlimited.
• You can use only one way of thinking at a time.
• It cannot take too long to use a thinking cap, especially a red thinking cap. People do not need to explain their feelings too much.
• Hats cannot be classified by people. Every thinker has the opportunity to wear hats of different colors.
• The blue thinking cap must be used at the beginning and end of the discussion.
• The red thinking cap can be expressed at any time during a meeting or discussion.
• The blue thinking cap can interrupt the argument and speech at any time, or raise new questions.
• The white thinking cap can be used to supplement the actual situation at any time.

Four Application Examples

Used separately, for example:

Combined use, for example:

Summary

The Six Thinking Hats method may take some training and running-in to achieve its true effect. In reality, we have a problem that cannot be ignored, that is, team building. If a procedure is forcibly implemented as the team's big methodology, it may speed up the promotion of this method. However, I believe that any activities forced by non-team consciousness may, it will make the team feel that "they cannot take care of themselves in the eyes of the leaders, and they need the 'Student manual' to constrain themselves", which will undoubtedly dispel the enthusiasm of the team. A Team member may respond to a headache in a way that is silent and does not resist. This is because I suggest that you either seek comments from the team and reach an agreement collectively, or use it in a hidden manner in the team as your own way of thinking, for example, you can ask each Member to answer the following questions in sequence during the phase summary:

• What do you think of the project? (Red)
• What have you learned from the project? (Yellow)
• What problems do you think exist in the project? (Black)
• For example. (White)
• How do you think these problems should be improved? (Green)

References

Six Thinking Hats