Six Thinking Hats?

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:

• Increases in bottom-line profit.

• Increases in top-line growth.

• More time to develop meaningful customer relationships.

• More time to work on what’s important to develop the business.

• 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 discussion 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

• Focus tool.
• Thinking agenda development.
• Time management plan.
• Keep egos and argument in check.
• Action planning for next steps, roles, responsibilities, time.

• 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.

• 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.

• Frames of value tool.
• Levels of feasibility tool.
• Competitive advantage screen.
• Sense of potential.

• Find errors in logic.
• Speculate about the future.
• Note ways something does not fit.
• Set out to remove difficulties with green hat solutions.

• Range of feelings tool.
• Decision making tool.
• Idea sorting tools.
• Idea power tools.
• Level of commitment tool.

Six Thinking Hats® is Powerful

Customer Service Soars at MobiFon-Connex:

• The average speed to answer a customer phone call went from 225 seconds to 40 seconds

• A new point of sales process was introduced which reduced phone activation time from 8 hours to less than 15 minutes

• Customer retention - customer churn was reduced by over 50%

Six Thinking Hats® Training Outcomes

The Six Thinking Hats® method helps teams and individuals:

1. Save time by providing a framework to:

• Participate in productive “thinking together meetings” that are focused on delivering necessary results.

• Clear up confusion on rapidly changing challenges and complex issues.

• Minimize personality conflicts.

• Become better focused and to the point in discussions.

• Separate out: facts from emotions; the positive from the negative; critical thinking from creative thinking.

• Help individuals focus on what is important rather what is irrelevant.

• Put quiet employees on an equal playing field with those who are more talkative or monopolize meetings.

• Sidestep egos which get in the way of performance.

2. Improve performance by providing a framework to:

• Make better decisions based on thorough and clear thinking.

• Be better prepared to implement change.

• Create communication plans that are clear and concise.

• See all sides of a situation to avoid being blindsided.

• Sort through wide ranges of data, quickly, to work with just the necessary information. Avoid getting bogged down in unnecessary detail.

• Solve problems that are high priority rather than problems that are easy to solve and of little consequence.

• Design action plans that are supported by the group and can be implemented.

• Complete documentation of decisions and actions for future reference.

• Think through business challenges more thoroughly.

3. Increase creative and innovative performance by providing a framework to:

• Break the idea killer habit that shuts down the creative process.

• Generate powerful new ideas that are outside of the mainstream.

• Follow a practical process for idea evaluation.

• Consider a broader range of possible solutions and selecting the one that best meets the business need.

• Select opportunities to pursue based on balancing value against risk.

• Develop action plans to minimize risk.

• Sell well thought out ideas to management and clients with more confidence.

• 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.