Being able to make the right decision is important, both in your work and social life. Good and bad decisions can make or break your career, or mean the difference between an epic love affair and a lost love. Decisions can be easy or difficult and they can be made quickly or take an age. So, how do you make sure you take the right decision?
How do you make a decision?
Most of us try to weigh up the options the best we can and then hope we’ve chosen the best way forward. But this can be haphazard, stressful and, worst of all, it can lead to a bad decision. So, over the next few weeks we’ll be looking at different techniques for making decisions. This week we will concentrate on the Six Hat Method devised by Edward De Bono.
The Six Hat Method
This method allows you to view a decision in six different ways. It’s simple and very effective, allowing you to improve your decision making process considerably. The six hats are described below; try the process out when you next need to make a decision – whether it big or small – to see how you like it and if it works for you.
The six hats are:
The Blue Hat – this is often the first hat you should wear as it’s the time for deciding what other thinking hats need to be used and in what order. So, you should think of the blue hat as your time to think about thinking.
The White Hat – when you wear this hat you should be thinking about what information is already known or needed to make your decision. You should be gathering facts, figures, information and data – nothing else. This is the questioning stage – you should be asking yourself what information you have, what you need, how you will get it and how long it will take to get it.
The Yellow Hat – this is the positive hat. It demands that you look at the options in a logical, positive way, with natural optimism. This is when you should be thinking what the positives are of making one decision over another. Benefits are not always obvious and it may take a little work to find them – yellow hat time is when you go hunting for them.
The Black Hat – this is the opposite of the yellow hat and asks that you look at the decision critically and cautiously. Look at the bad points that may arise from making one decision over another and consider contingency plans for any possible problems that your decisions might create. Black hat thinking is vital for creating a well-rounded view of the decisions available.
The Green Hat – this hat allows you to think creatively about the options you have. It encourages you to find new alternatives and possibilities and make changes to your decision process. You could come up with interesting approaches that you’d not thought of before. It’s all about viewing the options with new eyes.
The Red Hat – This is the hat that allows you to indulge your hunches, feelings, emotions and intuition without having to back them up with logic. You should put your feelings forward without having to offer explanations or justification. Allowing your true feelings about a decision to come out is a valuable process and hunches, either good or bad, often turn out be right.
So, that’s Six Hat thinking. If you try it out, let us know what you think. Next week we’ll look at how your values and ethics affect your decision making.
