The 6 Thinking Hats Approach
- Your leader for this activity is the person who is selected to wear the blue hat.
- The leader should now assign a coloured hat to each participant.
- Take a moment to read the role of your given hat colour (see below).
- Your leader will now read through the scenario that you will be discussing.
- You should each take turns in presenting your thoughts (2 minutes each), from the perspective of the given colour.
- Your leader will also be the speaker for the group, when we return to the Main Room.
Scenario
The company has grown exponentially in recent years but with so many new staff, there has been little time to nurture and develop a sense of belonging within teams.
It has been noticed that a significant number of newer recruits are unhappy and seem to be demotivated.
At a number of recent Exit Interviews, those leaving the company stated that they felt that the HSE Management Standards (https://www.hse.gov.uk/stress/standards/) had not been met in a range of areas and that this had created stress and anxiety.
Selected managers, including yourself, have been tasked with addressing this feedback, with a view to improving morale and staff retention, as a matter of urgency.
- Your leader for this activity is the person who is selected to wear the blue hat.
- The leader should now assign a coloured hat to each participant.
- Take a moment to read the role of your given hat colour (see below).
- Your leader will now read through the scenario that you will be discussing.
- You should each take turns in presenting your thoughts (2 minutes each), from the perspective of the given colour.
- Your leader will also be the speaker for the group, when we return to the Main Room.
Scenario
The company has grown exponentially in recent years but with so many new staff, there has been little time to nurture and develop a sense of belonging within teams.
It has been noticed that a significant number of newer recruits are unhappy and seem to be demotivated.
At a number of recent Exit Interviews, those leaving the company stated that they felt that the HSE Management Standards (https://www.hse.gov.uk/stress/standards/) had not been met in a range of areas and that this had created stress and anxiety.
Selected managers, including yourself, have been tasked with addressing this feedback, with a view to improving morale and staff retention, as a matter of urgency.
White hat:
this one represents a neutral and objective point of view. Otherwise speaking, you should give perspectives based on existing data, without any judgement. Remember however that here you don’t share opinions, just actual facts.
Red hat:
here the goal is to bring your own opinions, based on your emotions, intuition and judgement. No negative feedback should be made from other members of the team on what the person thinks. As during any step, you want each candidate to express themselves freely.
Black hat:
give negative opinions. Share with others why you believe the project or idea is not promising, show all the problems you think will interfere and will prevent the project from being successful.
Yellow hat:
bring out all the positive aspects of the idea. Give the reasons why you believe in the project, why it will be a real success. However, stay down-to-earth, being positive does not mean being incoherent with your statements.
Green hat: here, be imaginative. You need to find creative, alternatives, helpful ways to answer the defined problem. To validate your solutions, you can go through the viewpoints of the black and yellow hats.
Blue hat: the disciplinary hat. The person given this role should mainly supervise the whole session. In other words, this supervisor is in charge of defining the problem and the context of the exercise, and also the objectives that need to be achieved. They should also determine which are the retained ideas and make a statement of the project progress.
