What's your favorite hat?
· 2007-06-06 21:50 by Thijs Kroesbergen for Brokenwire.NET
Today I heard about a way of thinking called thinking hats although the idea wasn’t new to me, I really think that being able to put on different “hats” makes you a better thinker.
The 6 hats are:
- White (Observer) White paper; Neutral; focus on information available, objective FACTS, what is needed, how it can be obtained
- Red (Self, Other) Fire, warmth; EMOTIONS, FEELINGS, intuition, hunches; present views without explanation, justification
- Black (Self, Other) Stern judge wearing black robe; judgmental; critical; why something is wrong; LOGICAL NEGATIVE view.
- Yellow (Self, Other) Sunshine; optimism; LOGICAL POSITIVE view; looks for benefits, what’s good.
- Green (Self, Other) Vegetation; CREATIVE thinking; possibilities and hypotheses; new ideas
- Blue (Observer) Sky; cool; overview; CONTROL of PROCESS, STEPS, OTHER HATS; chairperson, organizer; thinking about thinking
More about the different hats here
Thinking with these different hats on can help you with all kinds of processes. It can make you a better partner in discussions or meetings, but if you use it to reflect on you own communications you could get some advantage there too.
Maybe you can even put on different hats while coding. That might even improve your code! (For example look at the way how “defensive” you write when it comes to exception handling!)
Of course everyone has its own “favorite” hat, but being aware of the other hats makes you a better “all-round” thinker.
I think my favorite hat would be green with yellow stripes, with a black spot on top.
