Using De Bono's "Six Hat System" To Solve Problems
A Summary/Synopsis by Marlowe C. Embree, Ph.D.
To make optimal use of the information below, think of a problem you are facing in your life right now. It helps to think of a chronic problem that you've had difficulty solving or resolving in the past, a nagging issue in your life. As you learn the steps below, try applying them, step by step, to your own real-life situation.
Step One: Vent your feelings (Red Hat)
With emotionally charged problem situations, it's helpful to begin by being honest about your feelings. Powerful feelings like shame, rage, panic, despair, guilt, sorrow, confusion can block any attempt at rational problem-solving. So start by getting those feelings out of your head and onto a piece of paper. Use journaling to write out your feelings in detail. Remember that, when wearing the Red Hat, you don't have to be logical, consistent, or coherent. You don't have to have reasons for the way you feel. Your feelings don't have to make sense to yourself or others. Others don't have the right to sit in judgment on you while you are, as De Bono says, "under the protection of the Red Hat". So start by "telling it like it is" about your emotional reactions to the situation you face.
If you are weak at Red Hat thinking, you may be tempted to skip this step on the ground that feelings are irrational or unimportant. Or you may draw the conclusion that you "have no particular feelings" about the situation you are facing. This could be true, or it could mean that you're out of practice in identifying and articulating your feelings. Before assuming that your feelings are nonexistent or insignificant, make sure you're in touch with the way things really are underneath the surface. As my counselor friends say, denial isn't just a river in Egypt.
On the other hand, you don't want to stay mired in your feelings either. The goal is to get them out so you can look at your situation in a fresh, and hopefully more rational way, unencumbered with strong feelings that can keep you stuck or create mental blind spots for you.
Example: I'm failing my psychology class and it makes me really mad. I wish Dr. Embree would just drop dead. Underneath I'm mad at myself too. I'm scared that if I don't pass the class, I won't be able to graduate and I'll end up with a minimum-wage, dead-end job. I'm frustrated with myself because, no matter how hard I try, I can't seem to do any better. I feel stupid. I feel like a failure. I feel like giving up on life and becoming a Wal-Mart greeter.
Step Two: List the facts and reality constraints (White Hat)
Now that you've dealt with your emotions, you're ready to list the facts as they relate to your situation. Unless you've done your Red Hat work first, it can be very hard to do this: emotions can be distorting lenses that magnify some facts (or, in extreme cases, create imaginary "facts" that don't really exist), minimize others (or, in extreme cases, make you completely blind to their existence).
In the spirit of the White Hat, don't analyze the facts or try to figure out what to do about them. Just list them. De Bono suggests a P-M-I approach:
Example:
Plus: I have successfully completed 30 college credits with a GPA of 3.2. I show up for class every day. I am young (21) and motivated. My tuition is paid. Dr. Embree lets students drop one exam.
Minus: I am bored with the psychology class. I don't seem to understand much of what Dr. Embree is saying. Dr. Embree is the only person on campus right now who teaches this particular class. The class is held at a bad time of day for me (8 a.m.) I got a D on my first exam and an F on the second.
Interesting: The class has 40 students. I sit on the left hand side of the classroom near the front.
Step Three: Brainstorm creative solutions (Green Hat)
Green Hat thinking means creative, "lateral" thinking. The goal is to dream up as many possible creative solutions as you can, without worrying about whether or not any of them is realistic or rational. Low-probability, bizarre, deliberately flawed solutions are desirable, as they may break limiting mental mindsets and widen your solution set. Humor is a desirable trigger for creativity.
Aim for a minimum of 25 different solutions (50 or more would be even better). Use random-word association if you need help in achieving this target. Don't stop generating solutions until you have a strong sense that you have "scraped the bottom of the barrel" or come up against the "law of diminishing returns". If you have not included some stupid, crazy, absurd ideas, you haven't done your job!
Example:
Bribe Dr. Embree to give me a passing grade. (Rumor has it that small bills, with no consecutive serial numbers, work best.)
Hack into the UW Colleges computers and change my grade to an A.
Hire a tutor.
Cheat. For instance, hire a really smart student to submit to plastic surgery that will make her/him look just like me, so s/he can take my exams for me without being detected.
Define "success" as any grade of F or higher, thus guaranteeing success (unless I happen to get a final grade of G or H).
Use telepathy to read Dr. Embree's mind before the exam and find out what the right answers are.
Incite Osama bin Laden to destroy the state of Wisconsin. Because this would mean the end of the UW System, my grade would not matter since no student would have a transcript.
Meet with Dr. Embree and ask him for help.
(random word: "raisin") Raisins are wrinkled. Can I figure out a new "wrinkle" to approaching the class, such as a new and different study technique?
(random word: "cable") A cable is a connecting fiber or wire. Is there some way I can build a better "connection" between the information in this class and things I care about, such as my present or future career?
(random word: "beer") Can I find a way to get Dr. Embree drunk while he is grading so that he will be more generous in setting grade cutoffs?
Step Four: Categorize, strengthen, combine possible solutions (Yellow Hat)
The goal is to find and retain what is useful about each solution on your Green Hat list. Even the stupidest, craziest solutions contain, in all probability, the germ of a good idea. Your job is to find it.
Substep 1: Cluster or categorize your solutions
Write your Green Hat solutions on index cards, one solution to each card. Then sort the cards into piles of similar solutions (solutions that have something important in common).
Example: Some solutions involve faking or cheating my way into a good grade. Some solutions involve lowering my standards or deciding in some way that the grade does not matter. Some solutions involve changing my skill set or strategies/approaches to the class. Some solutions involve changing my attitudes or motives. Some solutions involve changing Dr. Embree's attitudes or perceptions about me. Some solutions involve asking for help in some way.
Substep 2: Identify what is helpful or useful about each idea
Find what is "worth salvaging" about each idea, even the craziest of them.
Example: I don't really think that having Osama bin Laden destroy the state of Wisconsin is a good idea. It would mean the end of the Packers, for instance. But the idea does suggest to me that my grade doesn't exist in a vacuum. It only has meaning relative to the grades of other students. It only has meaning within a social system (the university). Maybe I can find a way to "stack the deck" in favor of myself relative to others. Maybe I can find a different social system (such as a career path or an employer) where grades don't really matter.
Substep 3: Look for solutions that can be combined
Sometimes, two half solutions can be combined to yield one full solution. If two solutions have opposite flaws, the two may cancel each other out if they are implemented in tandem. Look for such combinations.
Example: Bribery (solution 1) is illegal, but it does address what I think the real problem is, the fact that Dr. Embree is biased against me. Hiring a tutor (solution 3) is legal, but it doesn't address this bias factor. Combining the solutions, could I hire someone to be, not my tutor, but my "advocate" or my "marketing specialist" to talk with Dr. Embree on my behalf and convince him to give me a second chance?
When you are done, you should be able to roughly rank-order your solutions from the best overall to the worst overall. Try to select a "short list" of the five or six best solutions overall before moving on to Step Five.
Step Five: Play devil's advocate in troubleshooting your solutions (Black Hat)
Now take off your rose-colored classes and take the most skeptical, hard-headedly objective look as possible at your "short list" solutions. Try to identify all the possible flaws and problems associated with them. Assume the worst case scenario. What might prevent each solution from working? Is there a fatal flaw or "doomsday scenario" lurking behind some of the solutions?
If you find this difficult, ask a friend to play this role for you. But don't get mad when s/he trashes your best ideas. That's her/his job.
The goal isn't to be negative for the sake of negativity. The goal is to identify serious flaws and problems in advance, so they can be corrected before the fact rather than waiting (as many of us so often do in real life) until after the fact.
Example: Meeting with Dr. Embree (solution 8) makes sense, but there are some problems. He's busy, so maybe he won't have time to meet with me. I haven't been very respectful to him in the past, so maybe he won't be willing to help. Maybe our schedules won't overlap enough to make a meeting possible.
Now try to think of a workable strategy or sub-solution to each obstacle you have identified.
Example: I need to mend some fences, perhaps even apologizing to him for the time I called him a no-good dirty expletive deleted, before asking politely for help. I need to be flexible about scheduling, even taking some time off from work as needed, to find a time that fits within his work week.
If, after you have done your best at this step, one or more of your "short list" solutions have "survived the gauntlet" and seem realistic and workable, move to a trial implementation. Try the best of them (or your choice of the "best of the best") out for a defined period of time, then assess whether or not it's working. If it is, keep going! If not, determine what's wrong and either decide to modify that solution or to move to a different solution.
If no solutions make the cut, you will need to go back one, two, three, or even four steps and backtrack in a way that will lead to additional solutions:
Strengthen other weak solutions to move them onto your "short list" (moving back one step to the Yellow Hat)
Do some additional brainstorming, generating additional "out-of-the-box" ideas with which you can work (moving back two steps to the Green Hat)
Take a more detailed look at the facts, if a lack of factual clarity is what has prevented you from coming up with a good solution (moving back three steps to the White Hat)
Doing more emotional venting and healing, continuing your "grief work" until you are emotionally ready to go on with the process (moving back four steps to the Red Hat)
With practice, you become more and more adept at identifying which step in this process is the weak link or the bottleneck:
Emotional roadblocks due to a lack of effective processing of feelings (Red Hat)
Insufficient attention to facts and real-world constraints that set limits on possible solutions (White Hat)
Failure to consider a wide enough range of creative solutions, or being locked into a few unworkable solutions (Green Hat)
Failure to recognize the hidden value or potential within solutions you have considered or are considering (Yellow Hat)
Failure to recognize hidden flaws and problems that can prevent you from successfully implementing a solution (Black Hat)
Working on strengthening a weak cognitive mode ("Thinking Hat") may help you to overcome this problem. Or, you can partner with someone who is strong where you are weak (though sometimes this is emotionally threatening; choose your partner wisely).
That's only five Hats. What about the sixth?
The Blue Hat (representing mental strategizing, overseeing your own problem-solving process, or "metacognition") is implicit in the entire process. This entire essay is a venture in Blue Hat thinking: it is helping you to find a structure with which you can tackle most life problems. Effective problem solvers know how to move back and forth between cognition (thinking about, and acting on, the problem itself) and metacognition (thinking about thinking, or monitoring the effectiveness of the process of solving the problem); between action and reflection; between (to use Stephen Covey's terms) "production" and "production capacity". There's a time to use your saw to cut down trees; there's a time to sharpen your saw so you can continue to cut trees down in the future.
Best wishes in using this method to become an increasingly effective and balanced problem solver! Problems are an inherent part of life and are also the source of all job security (since, as Tom Jackson notes, a job is nothing more than a formal invitation to solve a particular class of problems for someone -- an employer or customer -- who wants them solved). Becoming a fluent, flexible problem solver is one of the most important skills you can develop in your lifetime!