Six Thinking Hats Theory workshop was conducted by ISBR students Sayantan Pandey, Kanada Kanna, Sai Kiran, Pratibha, Arnab Bose and Sridhar Dharba under the guidance of Prof. Preeja Sridhar Faculty- HR.
Edward Debono’s ‘Six Thinking Hats’ is a tool for group discussion and individual thinking involving six colored hats theory that foster thinking process in human. It provides a means for groups to plan thinking processes in a detailed and cohesive way, and in doing so to think together more effectively. Thinking is a skill just like any other skills which is acquired through specific training. Any kind of skills can make a person expert in a specific task.
Let’s take an example. If a fat guy and a slim guy were to race, the thin guy is most likely to go faster, now if we can teach the skill of cycling to the fat guy; he is going to go way faster than the slim guy.
Lets imagine we send an explorer off to an island, and when he comes back we ask him what did he see and he would say, “There were mountains around the shore with some land, funny little bird that didn’t fly and so on.” Now if we ask him what else did he see, and he would say that is all he remembered and caught his attention. Now this time we send him back and ask him to take a diary and go North and write whatever he see, go South and write whatever he sees and do the same for the rest of the direction . And this time when he comes back he will have a broader knowledge and information of the island.
So just by specifying things we could be more productive. The directions that we specified to the explorer are nothing but frameworks that directs attention because of which he could have better knowledge. Now let’s talk about how Debono’s 6 hats theory works.
There are times when we have to take critical decision under intense pressure which overloads the brain because of which we get confused. Confusion can also occur when we are not clear about ideas. It is because the brain always multitasks which leads to less attention towards specific tasks. There are instances when the solution of a problem is really simple but because of confusion we don’t get to get a hold on the solution. Six thinking hats is a boon for eliminating confusion. Now let’s talk how it works.
Suppose we have a problem for which we need to come out with a solution, so instead of thinking all the things at once and creating confusion, we think step by step at a time. We wear a white hat and think of all the basic raw facts and information currently available, then we wear a red hat and express our emotions and feelings about the problem, then we wear the yellow hat and think of all the positive attributes associated with the solutions of the problem, then we wear the black hat and think of all the negative attributes associated with the solutions, then we wear the green hat we can think of more creative approaches to the solution and think of more possibilities and finally the blue hat to consider all the outcomes, generate results and implementation
I Sayantan Pandey was the one with the blue hat. It was my responsibility to organize this session, take note of the entire process and ensure that discussion goes in the right direction. I finally got the result and worked on implementing it.
I gave a topic “Whether there should be a Men’s Day along with the Women’s Day” and I asked Sai Kiran, who donned the White Hat to start the process.
Sai Kiran took all the information from me and explained the rest of the teams about the topic and further added some additional information. He did the job of the White Hat, to bring out the raw information.
Next was Pratibha who donned the Red hat, gave her opinion about the problem just from her gut feeling and emotion. She said, “She has very wonderful brothers, extremely loving dad and loyal male friends so she doesn’t mind to have a Men’s Day”.
Then it was the turn of Yellow Hat, role played by Sridhar Darba. He agreed with the topic and said, “There should be Men’s Day to respect all the men out there and that would increase the morale among men.”
Arnab Bose donned the Black Hat. He disagreed with the topic. He said, “Men are already fortunate enough. The society is already male dominating and that men enjoy many privileges than women. So there is no need of a Men’s Day.”
Now it was the Green Hat turn, the one and only Mr. Kannada. He is the creative guy. He said, “Men should get an intentional holiday and a moment to enjoy.”
At the end I, Sayantan the blue hat, took all the results and concluded the process.
Thus “Six Thinking Hats” helped us to look at problem from different perspectives, but one at a time, to avoid confusion from too many angles crowding our thinking. It forced us to move outside our habitual thinking style and also allowed us to get a more rounded view of the situation.
– Sayantan Pandey
PGDM ( 2016-18)