Six Thinking Hats

Author: Edward de Bono
Publisher:
Publish Date: 2004-01-01
Features: This book, alongside "The Fifth Discipline," is considered one of the most valuable business books of the 20th century. It is a book on innovative thinking. Thinking is the most fundamental resource, and our pursuit of thinking methods is endless. No matter how good we already are, we always want to be better. Those who are already satisfied with their thinking methods are the people who believe that the purpose of thinking is to prove themselves right and satisfy vanity. If we are only satisfied with such superficial thinking, we might become complacent about our performance in the field of thinking, but that's all. The greatest obstacle to thinking is chaos. We always try to do too many things at once. Emotions, information, logic, hope, and creativity all flood in, like juggling too many balls. What I emphasize in this book is a very simple concept that allows a thinker to do only one thing at a time. The thinker must learn to distinguish between logic and emotion, creativity and information. This concept is the Six Thinking Hats method. Wearing any one hat represents a specific type of thinking. I will describe the nature and function of each type of thinking in this book. The Six Thinking Hats will enable us to guide our own thinking as if conducting an orchestra, allowing us to evoke whatever we desire. Similarly, in any meeting, the Six Thinking Hats can help people break free from conventional thinking and develop new perspectives on things. The greatest value of the Six Thinking Hats lies in their ease of use in thinking.