Think!

by Edward de Bono

  Exactly the same thing applies to IQ tests. At the beginning, IQ tests were used to see how a child compared with others from better backgrounds, so the 'right' answer was the one given by the others. So if a child was different and saw different possibilities, they were marked down.

  You may be expected to choose a certain word, but a creative person can see the possibility of a different word. In a court of law the creative lawyer can show a possible alternative explanation for the evidence. This creates a 'reasonable doubt', and in a criminal case the accused has to be acquitted.

  Possibility is at the heart of creativity. We need to know how to handle possibility in a practical way. Without possibility creativity is impossible.

  The tennis tournament

  There is a singles tennis tournament. It is a knockout tournament. One player plays against another and the winner plays the winner of another match – and so on until there is a final winner. There is one final, two semifinals, four quarter-finals, and so on. On this occasion there are 72 entries. How many games will be required to find the winner?

  I sometimes use this problem in my seminars. It is not difficult to work out in the traditional way, but the audience usually get quite upset when I only give them 10 seconds to find the answer.

  With this problem, we normally seek to find the winner. With lateral thinking, there is another possibility. Forget about producing a winner; let us find the losers. With 72 entrants there will be 71 losers. Each loser is produced by one game. So 71 games are needed. That only takes five seconds.

  Another task is to add up the numbers from one to 10. This task is not difficult and you should get the answer 55. Now add up the numbers from one to 100. Again the task is not difficult, but it will take time and you might make a mistake.

  Instead, imagine the numbers from one to 100 written down in a row as suggested below:

  1 2 3 ... 98 99 100

  Then repeat the numbers from one to 100, but write them backwards under the first set of numbers as shown:

  1 2 3 ... 98 99 100

  100 99 98 ... 3 2 1

  If you add up each pair of numbers, you will always get 101 because, as you go along, the top number increases by one and the bottom number decreases by one. The total number must stay the same. So the total is 100 x 101, or 10100.

  This is, of course, twice the total we needed because we wrote down two sets of numbers from one to 100. So we divide the total by two and get 50 x 101, or 5050.

  Another approach might be to 'fold' the numbers over on themselves to give:

  1 2 3 ... 48 49 50

  100 99 98 ... 53 52 51

  Again the total of each pair is 101. This gives 50 x 101, or 5050.

  This method is not only very quick, but there is little chance of making an error. In short, it is a much faster and much better way of coming to the correct answer.

  Danger of possibility

  Beware. Some information together with a possibility can quickly condense into a certainty. Consider what happened with vampires.

  A certain Elizabeth Bartolo was told that if she had a bath in the blood of virgins she would live for ever. So she had her servants find virgins and exsanguinate them. They then dumped the bloodless bodies around the area. What was the possibility?

  There is a blood disease called porphyria which has several effects. One of them is severe skin rashes caused by exposure to sunlight. So such people stayed indoors and only appeared in the evening. Their skin was unusually white as a result. Another effect of porphyria is bleeding gums. So white-faced people with bleeding gums only appeared during the evening or night.

  Then there were the bloodless corpses found around the area. The result was a belief in vampires.

  Vampires were supposed to be allergic to garlic. By chance, two people I know with porphyria are also allergic to garlic! A possibility becomes more and more certain.

  Possibilities with a good story can quickly become fact and belief. So we are right to be wary of possibility. At the same time we have to accept the huge importance of possibility in thinking.

  It took me about 20 years to find a way of attaching my napkin so that my tie was not dirtied during a meal. I tried all sorts of clips and pins but invariably lost them by leaving them on the table. The final solution is incredibly simple. If I remember to describe it later in this book, you can use it immediately instead of waiting 20 years like I had to. That is the power of knowledge. So knowledge is essential – but so are possibilities.

  ARGUMENT

  If you have invented logic, there is much more fun in showing someone to be wrong than in proving a point. Those who do not yet understand logic will not appreciate your proof but they will appreciate your attack. Furthermore, as you seek to teach your logic to others, you will spend most of the time pointing out their errors.

  So argument was invented, perfected and disseminated by the GG3. Socrates in particular was very interested in dialectic or argument.

  Argument became such a central method that, amazingly, we have been content to use it for 2,400 years in all sorts of areas. We use it in parliament and in government. We use it in the courts of law. We use it in business negotiations. We use it in family disagreements and discussions. It works very well. There was, and is, a real need for a method of showing incorrect ideas and positions to be wrong. Without that there would be chaos.

  Yet it is a crude, primitive and very inefficient way of exploring ideas. Argument works best when we are seeking to destroy a position, statement or assumption. It works well when we are trying to decide between two different positions.

  Argument does not work well at all when we are seeking to explore a subject. It is negative. It has no generative qualities. Argument is a very good way of establishing the truth but useless for exploration. Exploration means exploring and discovering new aspects of the subject. Argument can only be concerned with 'know' aspects. You can argue about which road to take on a road map, but argument cannot create the road map.

  Unfortunately, we use argument to explore a subject because we have no alternative method.

  Faults of argument

  The following faults of argument apply to the use of argument to explore a subject:

  Argument is destructive and negative and concerned with attack.

  There is no design element. There is no attempt to design a way forward. It is win or lose.

  If 5 per cent of the other position is wrong, then the whole time is spent on this 5 per cent.

  A weak idea that cannot be attacked will prevail against a stronger but more vulnerable idea.

  There is a huge temptation to show off your superiority by proving the other party wrong – even on trivial points.

  There is too much ego play.

  A person who is skilled at argument may win against a less skilled person even if this other person has a better case.

  There is no generative energy or skill to develop new positions.

  It is only fair to say that argument was never designed to explore a subject.

  ALTERNATIVES TO ARGUMENT

  Is there any alternative to argument for exploring a subject? There is now – for the first time in 2,400 years – one example of which is given in the next section.

  Why has it taken so long to come up with such a simple and powerful method? Because our intellectual culture and education was determined by the Church in the Middle Ages and argument was what the Church needed to prove heretics wrong.

  Parallel thinking

  Imagine a rather ornate building of a square shape. There are four people, each of whom is facing one aspect of this building. Through a mobile phone or walkie-talkie, each person is insisting and arguing that he or she is facing the most beautiful aspect of the building.

  Parallel thinking means that they change how they go about this argument. All four people move around to the south side of the building together. Then all of them move on to the west side. Then the north and finally the east side. So all o
f them, in parallel, are looking at the same side of the building at any one moment.

  Instead of argument, where A is adversarially attacking B, we have a system where A and B are both looking and thinking in the same direction – but the directions change as they move around. That is parallel thinking.

  In our lives we need a symbol to indicate the direction of thinking at any one moment to ensure we are thinking in the same direction.

  A zebra is grazing and hears a rustle in the grass. A chemical is released in the brain, which sensitises all the circuits concerned with danger. As soon as the lion appears, the zebra is prepared to flee. The reverse happens in the lion's brain. As soon as the lion sees the zebra, the chemicals alert the lion's brain to positive action.

  For such reasons we need to separate out the modes of thinking because there is confusion if we try and do everything at once. We end up just operating in a negative mode.

  The purpose of the Six Hats is to separate the modes of thinking and to ensure that everyone is thinking in parallel in the same mode at any one moment. We use the symbol of the Thinking Hat.

  The Six Thinking Hats

  I designed this method in 1984. It is now very widely used by four-year-olds in school and by top executives in the world's largest corporations.

  ABB in Finland used to take 30 days for their multinational project discussions. Using the Six Hats, they do it in two days.

  Siemens told me they had reduced their product development time by 50 per cent through using the Six Hats.

  Someone at IBM told me that at their top laboratory, meeting times had been reduced to one-quarter of their original duration.

  J.P. Morgan in Europe reduced meeting times to one tenth.

  When the Boxing Day tsunami hit Sri Lanka in 2004, the various aid agencies seemed unable to plan a way forward. The Sri Lankan government invited my trainer, Peter Low, over from Singapore. In two days they had agreed a plan of action. The Sri Lankan government now insists that all aid agencies learn the Six Hats method.

  Grant Todd in the USA did research on the use of the Six Hats in jury discussions. Juries reached unanimous decisions very rapidly. Judges were so impressed that in some states the judge can recommend that the jury learn the system. This may be the first change in the jury system for over 1,000 years.

  MDC in Canada did a careful costing and found that they saved $20 million in the first year of using the Six Hats.

  Statoil in Norway had a problem with an oil rig that was costing them $100,000 a day until they fixed it. They had been thinking about it for some time. Then Jens Arup, one of my trainers, introduced the Six Hats. In 12 minutes they had solved the problem and saved $10 million.

  The hats

  There is no fixed order of use. You can choose the sequence you want. In training, some of the more useful sequences will be suggested.

  Blue Hat: This is the organising or control hat. It is rather like the conductor of an orchestra. It is used right at the beginning of a discussion to decide the focus and what sequence of hats to use. During the meeting the chairperson or facilitator metaphorically wears the Blue Hat in a disciplinary way. People are reminded of the hat in use if they stray from that mode. The Blue Hat is used at the end for the outcome, summary and next steps. The Blue Hat is like a bookend: one at the beginning and one at the end.

  White Hat: Think of white and paper and printout. The White Hat is concerned with information. What information do we have? What information is missing? What information do we need – and how are we going to get it? Questions can be asked under the White Hat. If conflicting information is put forward, there is no argument. Both versions are put down in parallel and then discussed when that information needs to be used.

  Red Hat: Think of red and fire and warmth. The Red Hat is to do with feelings, emotions, intuition. Under the Red Hat all participants are invited to put forward their feelings. In a normal discussion you can only put forward these things if they are disguised as logic. Here there is no need to justify or explain them. They exist and can therefore be put forward. The Red Hat period is very brief and simply allows these things to be put forward.

  Black Hat: Think of the black of a judge's robes. The Black Hat is for critical thinking. What is wrong with the idea? What are its weaknesses? The Black Hat looks at the down side, why something will not work, the risks and dangers. All the negative comments that might be made during a meeting are concentrated under the Black Hat. The Black Hat is very useful, possibly the most useful of all the hats, but it has its defined place.

  Yellow Hat: Think of sunshine and optimism, dawn and a new day. This focuses on the positive. What are the benefits? The values? How could it be done? Education is mostly about critical thinking. We never really develop 'value sensitivity'. This means the ability to find value in anything – even things we do not like and will not use. Nevertheless we should, honestly and objectively, find value in such things. Without value sensitivity, creativity can be a waste of time. I have sat in on meetings where good ideas have been generated but no one has been able to see the value of the ideas.

  Green Hat: Think of vegetation, growth and branches. This is directly concerned with creativity. When the Green Hat is in use, participants are expected to make a creative effort or keep quiet. They do not like keeping quiet so they make that effort. This means looking for new ideas. It means considering alternatives, both the obvious ones and new ones. It means generating possibilities. It means modifying and changing a suggested idea, possibly through the deliberate use of lateral thinking tools.

  That is all there is. Six Hats that allow us to think in parallel to explore a subject in a constructive and not adversarial way. This Six Hats method of parallel thinking challenges all those at the meeting to use their minds fully and not just in the adversarial mode. Someone who is against the idea being discussed is expected honestly and objectively to be able to see the values in the idea.

  The framework of the Six Hats might seem at first to complicate discussions and make them much longer. In fact, use of the Hats reduces meeting time to a quarter or even a tenth. Proper training in the method is recommended, but years of experience across a wide range of cultures, levels and sectors have shown that it works very well.

  Showing off

  One of the attractions of argument is that you can show your superiority by proving someone else wrong. You cannot do that with the Six Hats. If you want to show off, you can only do it by performing better under each hat.

  Under the White Hat you think of more information or better questions than anyone else. Under the Black Hat you think of more dangers and risks. Under the Yellow Hat you show more values. Under the Green Hat you put forward more ideas and possibilities.

  This is the showing off of performance – not of attack.

  EXCELLENT – BUT NOT ENOUGH

  As with so many other concepts in this book, I want to make it clear that argument is an excellent method when used in the right place. But it is not enough. We need a different method and framework (software) for exploring a subject in a constructive way.

  The US Air Force once published research on team performance. They compared teams put together according to psychological profiles and tests, and teams put together simply on a preference for one of the Six Hats. On every score the Six Hats teams performed better than the others. This may be due to what is known as cognitive dissonance (having made a choice, you live up to it).

  SUMMARY: KNOWLEDGE AND INFORMATION

  Last year I was told by a Nobel prize economist that he had been at the economics meeting in Washington the previous week, and they had been using the Six Hats. Later in the year, a woman in New Zealand told me she had been teaching the Six Hats in the highlands of Papua New Guinea (often regarded as the most primitive place on Earth). She went back a month later and they told her it had changed their lives.

  It is an extremely simple method, but very powerful. Why did it take 2,400 years to develop? Because we were so
happy with the excellence of argument!

  5 Language

  Language is an encyclopaedia of ignorance. A word enters a language and then becomes fixed. The word may have entered the language a long time ago at a time of relative ignorance. Once the word exists, it affects our perception and we are forced to see the world in that way.

  If there is something very new and defined then we might create a new word, such as 'computer', but it is very difficult to change existing words to have a different meaning on purpose.

  I introduced the term 'lateral thinking' in my first book The Use of Lateral Thinking in 1967 (the book was titled New Think in the USA). My interest in thinking had come from three sources. As a Rhodes scholar, I had studied psychology at Oxford and this gave me some interest in thinking. In the course of medical research I used computers extensively and I had become interested in the sort of thinking that computers could not do, which was creative and perceptual thinking. Continuing my medical research at Harvard, I had worked on the complicated way in which the body regulated blood pressure and the general integration of systems in the human body. This had led to an interest in self-organising systems.

  These three strands (thinking, perceptual thinking and self-organising systems) had come together and I had already completed the manuscript of the book and called it The Other Sort of Thinking. Then, in an interview with a journalist, I said that, for thinking that was not linear, sequential and logical, 'You needed to move laterally instead of going straight ahead.' I realised the value of the term – it was the word I needed – and I put in into the book instead of the other phrase.