
Six Thinking Hats®
How to Think Your Way to Success
Thinking
performance drives business performance. Most mistakes in business are
mistakes in thinking. Decisions are poorly thought through. Risk factors
are overlooked. Faulty information is taken as fact. Ideas are killed far
too early. Benefits aren’t built into solutions — customers have no idea why
they should embrace your new efforts. Changes backfire.
If any of this
describes the condition at your company we can help you improve the
thinking performance of your employees. The end result for your company:
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Increases in bottom-line
profit.
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Increases in top-line growth.
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More time to develop meaningful
customer relationships.
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More time to work on what’s
important to develop the business.
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A happier and more motivated workforce
The Six Thinking Hats® Process and Tools
When teams engage in six hats thinking they are practicing
parallel thinking — everyone is using the same tool at the same time on the same
challenge. This speeds up the process saving everyone time. Each person’s unique
thinking on the challenge is included which ensures a stronger solution is
implemented, supported and is well thought out.
Six Thinking Hats® training will equip your teams with a process
and proven tools to participate in productive thinking together meetings and
work independently on projects. You will see measurable improvements in:
practical solutions developed that can be implemented and supported; written
reports, proposals, e-mail messages that are clear, compelling, balanced and
complete in thought.
Six Thinking Hats® is Powerful
"Six Hats is a simple, yet powerful tool that can be learned
rapidly and used immediately to achieve long-lasting results. Six Hats has
helped our product development group to generate ideas quickly, evaluate them
efficiently, and implement action plans effectively." - Laura Donahue, Nestle
The Six Thinking Hats® Tool Kit
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Process control. Managing the thinking.
- Focus tool.
- Thinking agenda development.
- Time management plan.
- Keep egos and argument in check.
- Action planning for next steps, roles, responsibilities, time.
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Data, information, facts — known and needed.
- White hat O.P.V. tool — other people’s views.
- Spectrum of relevance tool.
- Range of accuracy tool.
- Plan to get necessary white hat data.
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Creativity. Ideas. Alternatives. Solutions. Possibilities.
- Top of the head tool idea generating tool.
- Random entry tool idea generating tool.
- Concept fan idea generating tool.
- Time and space for creative thinking.
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Benefits with rationale. The optimistic view. Plus points.
- Frames of value tool.
- Levels of feasibility tool.
- Competitive advantage screen.
- Sense of potential.
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Risk assessment. Potential problems. Danger. Difficulties.
- Find errors in logic.
- Speculate about the future.
- Note ways something does not fit.
- Set out to remove difficulties with green hat solutions.
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Hunches. Gut instinct. Intuition. Feelings.
- Range of feelings tool.
- Decision making tool.
- Idea sorting tools.
- Idea power tools.
- Level of commitment tool.
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Six Thinking Hats® is Powerful
Customer Service Soars at MobiFon-Connex:
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The average speed to answer a customer phone call went from 225
seconds to 40 seconds
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A new point of sales process was introduced which reduced phone
activation time from 8 hours to less than 15 minutes
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Customer retention - customer churn was reduced by over 50%
Six Thinking Hats® Training Outcomes
The Six Thinking Hats® method helps teams and individuals:
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Save time by providing a framework to:
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Participate in productive “thinking
together meetings” that are focused on delivering necessary results.
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Clear up confusion on rapidly
changing challenges and complex issues.
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Minimize personality conflicts.
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Become better focused and to the
point in discussions.
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Separate out: facts from emotions;
the positive from the negative; critical thinking from creative thinking.
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Help individuals focus on what is
important rather what is irrelevant.
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Put quiet employees on an equal
playing field with those who are more talkative or monopolize meetings.
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Sidestep egos which get in the way of performance.
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Improve performance by providing a framework to:
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Make better decisions based on
thorough and clear thinking.
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Be better prepared to implement
change.
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Create communication plans that are
clear and concise.
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See all sides of a situation to avoid
being blindsided.
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Sort through wide ranges of data,
quickly, to work with just the necessary information. Avoid getting bogged down
in unnecessary detail.
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Solve problems that are high priority
rather than problems that are easy to solve and of little consequence.
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Design action plans that are
supported by the group and can be implemented.
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Complete documentation of decisions
and actions for future reference.
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Think through business challenges more thoroughly.
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Increase creative and innovative performance by providing a
framework to:
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Break the idea killer habit that
shuts down the creative process.
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Generate powerful new ideas that are
outside of the mainstream.
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Follow a practical process for idea
evaluation.
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Consider a broader range of possible
solutions and selecting the one that best meets the business need.
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Select opportunities to pursue based
on balancing value against risk.
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Develop action plans to minimize
risk.
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Sell well thought out ideas to
management and clients with more confidence.
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Look for innovative solutions more regularly — “out-think” the
competition.
Six Thinking Hats is Powerful
ABB reduced multinational project meetings from 30 days to
2 days.
Six Thinking Hats® Workshop Options
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Two-day customized full course
workshop with job application and coaching. Available in-house only.
Call
818-507-6055 to discuss.
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One-day short course.
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Half-day seminar to sample the method — perfect for time pressed
executives that want an understanding of the tool in order to support team
training.
Candidates for Training
HR/OD, project leaders, team leaders, high potential employees,
six sigma trained employees, process improvement teams, business unit leaders,
engineers, attorneys, R&D, product development, sales, advertising, marketing,
IT, finance, customer care and professionals.
Very Important Piece of Information: If you really need
to develop a team of highly skilled facilitators this workshop may not be the best
fit for you. Our experience tells us many people attend Six Thinking Hats®
training because they really want to learn how to use the tools to facilitate
meetings. If this describes you, Focus on Facilitation™ training will better
meet your need. Click here to learn more.
Call 818-507-6055 to discuss in more
detail.
Six Thinking Hats® Seminar Pre-reading:
Click here to download our
free PDF booklet.
de Bono Online Six Thinking Hats® Tutorial
Long term support is available for your training investment to
make it easy to introduce the method consistently throughout your organization.
For example: You have a business unit with 300 employees
led by 25 managers. The 25 managers attend a two-day custom workshop and plan
how to use the tools within their teams. The online tutorial is made available
to the remaining 275 employees at a very affordable cost of $69.00 each.
Click
here to learn more about our Six Thinking Hats® online tutorial.
Six Thinking Hats® 24x7 Software Application Support
Our de Bono Thinking 24x7 software is available to support job
application and skill development back on the job. It can also be used to
facilitate meetings. Click here to learn about our 24x7 software and how you can
purchase it.
Four Ways You Can Learn Six Thinking Hats® Tools and Process
Attend a Six Thinking Hats® Seminar
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Have us lead a customized Six
Thinking Hats® training event at your organization. Call 818-507-6055 for
details.
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Attend one of our public workshops.
View our current dates, locations and registration details.
Become a Six Thinking Hats® Certified Trainer
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Have us lead a Six Thinking Hats®
instructor certification training event at your company. Develop a group of
your own expert trainers that will train your internal clients.
Call
818-507-6055 to discuss details.
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Attend a public Six Thinking Hats® instructor certification
training event. View our current dates, locations and registration details.
Six Thinking Hats® Materials: attendees will always
receive the official de Bono Thinking Systems, Inc. materials which include
handy job aids for use back on the job. Some clients may choose to supplement
their training with our Innovation Instinct™ Personal Assessments.
Our Instructors: de Bono for Business is different.
Training is led by highly qualified business experts who understand the fast
pace of work and rapid change driving business. Many are successful leaders of
their own companies. This is what sets us apart from other training
organizations — we live and breathe in the world of business — we understand it. We
are results driven.
Book us to present or keynote at your conferences, team
meetings and executive retreats.
Call 818-507-6055 to
discuss the ways we can add value to your events by stimulating the thinking
of your groups.
Six Thinking Hats® is Powerful
"We know health care is changing. We don't have to sell the
need for creativity. For us it's the implementation piece; the next step. We
see the Six Thinking Hats as a method to go beyond generating ideas ... a way
to help teams effectively and efficiently evaluate the merits of the ideas
they learned during our "One Team, One Purpose" course." - Jennifer Kirby,
Washoe Health System
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