6 Thinking Hats

According to Edward de Bono, the six thinking hats are white hat, yellow hat, red hat, black hat, green hat and blue hat. Human thinking can be categorized under these six thinking hats and each has its own criteria and characteristics. Below are the descriptions regarding the type of thinking, imagination, functions, applications and questions of all color of the hat. So, what kind of “hat” you are “wearing” today? Let’s check it out!

WHITE HAT:

- Analytical thinking
- Clean white paper
- Seeks for facts and information, looks into unproven facts, strives to get more figures, uses experience and knowledge
- Concerns in getting facts and information
- Can I know about this? Can you translate the data?

YELLOW HAT:

- Constructive thinking
- Sunshine, a bright day
- Driven by optimism, looks for something good, looks into possibilities, strives to achieve effectiveness in new idea
- Produce concrete ideas for improvement
- What’s the benefit? Who gets the benefit?

RED HAT:

- Emotional thinking
- Heart shape, fire
- Symbolizes feelings and emotions, uses a lot of value system, uses fear, intuition and suspicion, looks into other’s feelings
- Makes correct judgments and decisions
- What do you feel? Is this preferred by everybody?

BLACK HAT:

- Critical and negative thinking
- Darkness, black coat
- Not good, gloomy, negative assessment, tells what is wrong, points out problems, risks and dangers
- Points out negative side of thing matters
- Is this right? Can we do this?

GREEN HAT:

- Creative thinking and provocative
- Plant, tree, leaves
- Looking for alternatives, provides new perceptions, tolerates ambiguities, accepts contradiction
- Generate new ideas and concepts
- How can we solve this problem? Do you have any idea?

BLUE HAT:

- Thinking about thinking
- Color of the sky
- Gives an overview of the whole discussion, a process of control, makes tentative program for a meeting
- Judges and controls the situation
- How far have we progressed? Are we developing?