Six Thinking Hats

The green thinking hat is concerned with finding new ideas and new ways to look at things. It is useful when a group gets bogged down with old ideas and needs a fresh approach, especially when nothing else has worked.

The green hat might be needed more than any of the other thinking hats, because new ideas are “delicate seedlings,” and the green hat protects these ideas from the negativity of black hat thinking.

The signaling value of the six hats has several aspects. One can request that someone put on a certain hat; indicate that a certain type of thinking is desirable; signal to others a desire to think in a certain way; and signal to oneself. The latter is especially useful, as it requires setting aside time for creativity.

The brain is designed to create and use patterns. Creativity involves exploration and risk-taking. The green hat permits and even demands efforts to bring new ideas about. No new ideas may be generated, but at least the time has been put aside and the effort has been made.

De Bono uses the word creativity to cover the broad range of creative endeavor. It is not limited to lateral thinking, which was previously defined as the process of solving problems by generating as many alternative answers as possible.

Lateral thinking is concerned with changing concepts and perceptions and is based on what the author calls “information behavior in active self-organizing information systems” (121). Unlike vertical thinking, the patterns it looks for are not predictable but asymmetrical—sudden jumps in insight. The process is somewhat similar to the odd patterns that create humor.

Techniques of lateral thinking are designed to help a thinker cut across patterns. These patterns are created by perception, so lateral thinking must try to alter established patterns through perception.

Normal thinking uses judgment, comparing ideas to established patterns of experience. De Bono calls this the “backward effect” of an idea. The term describes the process of looking backward at past experience to assess an idea. For most thinking, such judgment is important, but with green hat thinking, judgment is replaced with movement.

Movement isn’t just the absence of judgment. It is more active. With movement, people use the idea for its forward effect, or what it will lead toward. The idea helps the decision-makers to move forward. De Bono provides several examples of how to use an idea for its movement value instead of its judgment value. One is the concept of the neighborhood watch: It proceeded from the idea of everyone becoming a police officer. Another is the idea of making hamburgers square.

Movement has various approaches. It can involve starting with one idea and ending up with another that applies a useful principle extracted from the first idea. Alternatively, decision-makers might stay with a “seedling” idea and help it to grow. Another approach would be to take an idea that is vague and shaping it into something practical. All involve moving forward with (or from) the idea.

Movement asks questions such as: What is interesting about the idea? What is different about it? What does it suggest or lead to?

Nature provides provocations—accidents that arise from the logic of asymmetric patterns and are recognized as useful events. People can wait for provocations to occur, or they can try to produce them deliberately by way of lateral thinking.

The use of provocations is an important part of lateral thinking and are used for their movement value. De Bono uses the acronym po, short for “provocative operation,” to indicate an idea put forward as a provocation for its movement value. It forces people out of habitual patterns of perception.

Decision-makers can formally set up provocations by spelling out the way something usually happens and then reversing that process. For instance, a “po” could be the idea of a store paying customers; it may sound absurd but could lead to a useful concept such as slot machines that routinely pay out jackpots at intervals.

Words chosen at random can serve as prompts for provocations. For instance, one might think of a dictionary page number and turn to that page to find a word to associate with the idea under consideration. There need not be a reason for a “po” statement until after it has been said. The word is simply a starting point; the person making the statement then looks for value.

There is no reason to suppose that the first answer that comes in mind for a question is the best one. The answer should be acknowledged and set down as the thinker looks for alternative solutions. They can then see which answer best suits the needs and resources for the question at hand.

The search for alternatives implies that different approaches exist. It may be the framework itself that needs adjusting or challenging. A group might be considering different ways to load a truck when it would make more sense to transport the product via train. Under the green hat mode, it is best to be prepared to work both within and outside of the framework.

Although creativity may be a matter of skill, talent, and personality, it is better to think of creative thinking as something that can be developed. People do not need to change their way of thinking to be green hat thinkers. However, some people do get stuck in their black hat thinking. In such cases, the leader would ask them to try to change their approach or else to refrain from contributing during a green hat session.

People tend to look only for the final, clever solution to a problem. However, valuable ideas can be generated in a discussion. The idea should fill two sets of needs. The first is the situation and its constraints, such as cost. These constraints should shape the idea as opposed to rejecting it. The second is the needs of the people who will act on the idea or give it buy-in. For instance, if a group is resistant to new ideas, the idea must be compared to one that is tried and true.

Green hat thinking is collected, and then the best idea is put under the yellow hat stage to search for benefits and values. Black hat thinking comes next; white hat thinking can be called on at any point to supply data. The final stage is red hat thinking to see how much enthusiasm decision-makers have for the idea.

The search for alternatives is fundamental to green hat thinking. Thinkers seek to move forward from ideas instead of judging them. Provocation, or “po,” takes thinkers out of the usual thought patterns, for instance by generating random words to associate with an idea. Lateral thinking cuts across patterns to generate new concepts and perceptions.