Blue Hat Explained: The Six Thinking Hats [Book Summary 7/7]
This is the 7th part of the book summary series on the Six Thinking Hats.
The Blue Hat is the overview Hat. With Blue, think of the sky above. Or think of being cool and in control.
The Blue Hat is for the management and organization of thinking. It is concerned with metacognition.
“We’ve heard your criticism of this plan. What I want now is some positive assessment. Let’s put your Yellow Hats firmly and place and tell me what you see there.”
Who is wearing the Blue Hat?
As with the other hats, anyone can wear the Blue Hat in during a discussion. However it is often useful to have a person assume the role of a facilitator who wears the Blue Hat throughout the meeting.
The chairperson or manager of a unit or project has a natural Blue Hat function.
Main Benefit of the Blue Hat
Typical discussions involve all the thinking modes mixed together. The implicit assumption is that through an adversarial exploration of ideas and facts, the best solution will survive.
While obviously those discussions do bring results, we might be severely limiting our problem solving capabilities by mixing together facts, opinions, criticism and creativity. We’re not getting the best out of all the thinking modes and hence the potential clarity and solutions we could get if we applied a more structured approach.
Getting more out of our brains is the promise of the Blue Hat.
The Blue Hat allows us to
- Focus (specify the) the discussion
- Outline and design the program
- Results (summarize) and draw conclusions
- Monitor and control the discussion
I picked those words so that it can be easier to remember with the mnemonic FORM. Maybe it helps to remember a blue form :)
Let’s dig into how we can use the Blue Hat.
Specify the focus of a discussion
A critical use of the Blue Hat is to focus the discussion on a given topic or problem.
“Let’s focus on what each of us wants from this holiday.”
“The broad focus is how to increase the number of vegans around the world. The tight focus is how to convince school cantines to increase the number of vegan meal options.”
The Blue Hat comes into play when we stray away from our initially defined focus.
“We’ve generated lots of ideas here, but they have little to do with the original question. Let’s shift our focus back to original point. Any other Blue Hat comments?”
It is said that asking the right question is the most important part of thinking. It may also be the most difficult. The Blue Hat is concerned with asking the right question.
“Let’s define the objective of this meeting. What would success mean to us?”
“Why are we having difficulties deciding between those alternatives?”
Design the program (with Example!)
The Blue Hat can be used for more than just the order of the Six Thinking Hats.
“In this discussion, let’s map the areas of agreements, disagreements and irrelevance.”
“We should start by analyzing all relevant factors we must take into account when designing this education program.”
Here is how a typical sequence of Hats could look like for solving a problem.
Say we want to find a way to win an election.
1. Blue Hat:
What is the problem we want to solve? What are the relevant points to consider? Who should be in the meeting? Which Hats should we use in what sequence?
Example:
How do we get 30,000 votes? What influences voter turnout? Who knows about this? What Hats should we use in order to solve this?
2. Red Hat
If this is a contentious topic because the participants are for example angry, scared or jealous, we might throw in the Red Hat. This allows the feelings to come to the surface.
“I feel like this new open seat has aroused lots of emotions. Let’s put on our Red Hat to clear the air first.”
Without this, people might express their feelings otherwise, such as with excessive Black Hat thinking.
3. White Hat
What are the facts of the situation? What else do we need to know?
Example:
“We need to win 20% of the votes to win 5 seats. The voter turnout in the last three local elections has been 43, 48 and 41%. The polls indicate that if the election were held today, we’d get 17% of the votes. We have a budget of CHF 200,000. Our website doesn’t have an easy to start new fundraising campaigns. We don’t know exactly which topics are most important to voters this year.”
4. Blue Hat
After some important facts have been established, a Blue Hat may help us further organize our thinking.
“Wearing my Blue Hat, I see that there are several separate areas which require further attention. Fundraising and voter turnout are huge topics by themselves. We can’t possibly deal with all of them today, so I suggest to form teams who tackle the most important areas individually and focus on the area with the highest urgency today.”
5. Yellow Hat
In it’s constructive mode, we can use the Yellow Hat simply generate ideas. They can be very conventional.
“Let’s put on our Yellow Hats and find ways to increase our fundraising impact.”
“We could do online fundraising focusing on issues that are emotional. We could try to identify the wealthy members of our party and approach them individually. We could send out letters to all our members and solicit donations.”
6. Black Hat
The Black Hat can then be used to find limitations in the ideas put out.
“Most of those ideas we have tried before, and the raised funds have been quite limited.”
“We don’t have an easy way of finding out who is wealthy within our party.”
7. Green Hat
We could then use the Green Hat to find solutions to problems pointed out with the Black Hat.
“The current ideas all have limitations, but I do like the idea of approaching individual, well-off donors. How about we Green Hat this idea?”
“I’ll provoke our thinking and say Wealthy Donors Po Bicycles”
“What if we auctioned off Bicycles ridden by our most popular officials?”
8. Yellow and Black Hats to Assess
We could then further use the Yellow Hat and the Black Hat in their assessment mode.
“What are all the benefits of selling of the bicycles?”
“What could go wrong if we go through with this?”
9. Blue Hat
“I’ll summarize what we have learned today.We desperately need more money for the campaign. Our existing methods haven’t worked that well, so let’s try something new. Selling Bicycles from popular officials has a relatively low risk and could both raise money for the party and generate positive buzz in the media.”
10. Final Red Hat
“Let’s hear everyone’s opinions on how satisfied they are with today’s discussion and whether they endorse this idea.”
Additional Sequences
Here are a couple of other suggested sequences I’ve found very useful:
Control and monitor the discussion
Once the discussion has started, we want to make sure that we are as productive as possible. The Blue Hat is a handy tool with which we can be very direct.
“If I put on my Blue Hat, I see that we really aren’t getting any closer to a resolution between the two of you. Why don’t both of you use the Yellow Hat on each others points of view? This should help resolve the matter.”
Doing this reminds me of the Double-Crux method I learned at CFAR.
“I’m sorry, but this is clearly Black Hat thinking. Let’s get back to the White Hat to establish the facts first.”
We can also use the Blue Hat to pause an argument and help resolve it.
“Joe thinks most consumers who are turning vegan are doing so because of animal welfare concerns. Mary believes those who turn vegan do so simply because their doctors recommend them to reduce meat and dairy intake. Both points may be valid. What does White Hat thinking have to offer here?”
Summarize results and draw conclusions
The Blue Hat controls the discussion and can summarize discussions and make us redirect our attention to the relevant points.
“Let’s pause and summarize what we’ve got so far.”
“We seem to be very concerned with the cost of this campaign. We don’t even know if it could be effective. Shouldn’t we establish this first?”
At the end of thinking mode, it can help us draw conclusions.
“With the Yellow Hat we’ve noted several well-established ways we could get this more money into our party coffers. How about we use our Green Hats to come up with a few new ideas for ten minutes and then put them under scrutiny of the Black Hat to see which one we like best?”
“It seems like we’ve exhausted all of our options for now. The idea with the new satirical video is the one that got the most support. Let’s move on with this.”
Summary of the Blue Hat
The Blue Hat is the director’s hat. It’s absolutely key in getting most out of the other hats. It directs the thinking. It defines the questions we are asking and the methods we chose to answer them. It summarizes the thinking. It also monitors the thinkers and makes sure it stays productive.
Remembering the Blue Hat
I would assume that regular attention and awareness training, such as mindfulness training would help with remembering to put on the Blue Hat. Half of the value of the Blue Hat probably just lies in putting it on. The meta-lense will offer a new perspective on the problem and the thinking that is happening.
Your Turn
Training
- When can you apply the Blue Hat next?
- What sequence of Hats could be appropriate there?
This concludes our Six Thinking Hat Series.
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Overview of the Six Thinking Hats
is an entrepreneur and investor. He shares decision-making models from the world’s best decision makers. You can read his articles, watch his YouTube Videos or join his free newsletter to learn how to make better decisions.