Yellow Hat Explained: The Six Thinking Hats [Book Summary 5/7]
This is the 5th part of the book summary series on the Six Thinking Hats.
The yellow color stands for sunshine and optimism. With the Yellow Hat, we are looking for opportunities and benefits.
Wearing the Yellow Hat, we ask:
- What value can we see?
- How can we create this value?
“People care more about the health benefits of food they eat now. I’d like your Yellow Hat Thinking on our business strategy for this trend. What opportunities does that bring?”
“My Yellow Hat tells me we can use this market downturn to buy some great locations at decent prices.”
Main Benefits of the Yellow Hat
- Assessment: See more benefits. We have a natural tendency to be positive about our own ideas or ones we can benefit from ourselves. With the Yellow Hat, we don’t have to wait for this and can find benefit in ideas coming from anywhere.
- Find opportunities. Consciously look for opportunities in different situations. Instead of seeing mainly negative consequences of new situations or ideas, we can make an effort to look for new opportunities.
- Constructive: Find solutions. We can use the Yellow Hat to put forward and improve proposals that help us solve our problems.
The Yellow Hat is the opposite of the Black Hat. We are looking for positivity but with logical reasons.
The Yellow Hat is not as natural as the Black Hat. We don’t have as much of a natural mechanism to recognize opportunity as we have to identify threats. One wrong move in the Savannah, and you are dead. Miss one bush full of berries? Not so bad, there will be another one somewhere else.
For positive feelings that aren’t based on logical reasons, we should use the Red Hat.
Since many of us carry this risk-averse attitude into our personal and business life, it is essential to train ‘value-sensitivity’. This means being as sensitive to value as we are already to danger. We make a conscious effort to see opportunities in situations.
Entrepreneurs are naturally good at using the Yellow Hat. They see opportunities where others don’t.
De Bono describes it as a Positive-Speculative Hat. It is the opposite of skepticism.
We can use it to:
- Asking ‘what-if’ questions?
- Suggesting solutions to problems
- Laying out visions
In a SWOT Analysis, the Yellow Hat is being used when handling the Opportunities Section.
How far into dreamland should the Yellow Hat be allowed to go?
When are ideas just foolish and when are they grand visions that can inspire us to action?
Let’s look at two very different scenarios to see the difference.
- Playing the lottery and hoping to win is just foolish.
2. Having a dream to put a man on the moon is improbable, but not impossible.
History is filled with unrealistic ideas and plans that inspired people to take action and manifest beautiful outcomes.
Yellow Hat in Full Action.
We choose to go to the Moon in this decade and do the other things, not because they are easy, but because they are hard;
JFK’s Rice speech is a beautiful example of a solid Yellow Hat in the speculative but action-inspiring domain. Even though it seemed very challenging at the time, he saw an opportunity for the U.S. to be the first nation to put a man on the moon.
So what matters is whether there is something we can do about the idea that will increase the likelihood of the dream being achieved.
“With my Yellow Hat, I see an opportunity to create a new voting system that represents people more accurately than our current system does.”
Likelihood
As discussed in the White Hat, we should be aware of the probabilities of specific scenarios. We should put all the possible outcomes on the map.
We don’t need to follow the long-shot scenarios, but it’s good to be aware of it.
Thus, de Bono suggests using a simple qualifier when we assess positive outcomes
- proven
- very likely, based on experience and what we know
- good chance, through a combination of different things
- even chance
- No better than possible
- Remote or long shot
Since we all interpret words differently, it may be better to use actual numbers, such as 80% likely.
“I estimate a 10% chance that some people survived the crash-landing on the glacier. We must go and look.”
“There is a 15% chance our vegan burger patty gets chosen as the burger patty of the year. We should be prepared with follow-up PR activities. It may not happen, but we should be prepared.”
Reasons & Logical Support
What is the positive view based upon?
A positive assessment can be based on experience, available information, logical deductions, trends, guesses and hopes.
The Yellow Hat Thinker should always lay out those reasons. She should find as much support and evidence for the view she gives. Otherwise, she may just utter her positive feeling with the Red Hat.
Speculation
But Yellow Hat thinking should not be restricted to only those points that can be fully satisfied. So even if we fail to find substantial evidence, we can still put the point forward in a speculative manner.
Constructive Thinking
Making things happen
In the assessment part of a discussion, the Yellow Hat Thinker tries to find benefits in an idea just as the Black Hat Thinker tries to find risks and dangers.
However, we can also use the Yellow Hat to put forward concrete proposals to make something better.
“Michael, what suggestion do you have? Put on your Yellow Hat and tell me what you see.”
“We can reduce greenhouse gas emissions by converting everyone into veganism.”
“We could also look for new plant-based protein sources that people can’t distinguish from meat. Then we don’t need to convince people of changing their diets as much.”
“What about a meat tax? If we properly priced the greenhouse emissions of animal agriculture, the alternative protein sources would become popular overnight.”
Each of these is a concrete suggestion. We can now develop these further and then subject them to Yellow Hat and Black Hat assessment.
Between generating proposal and assessing proposals there is a third mode de Bono dubs “construction.” In this mode, we take an initial idea and build it up for its final assessment.
The Black Hat can find flaws in the initial idea, then the Yellow Hat can be used to find solutions.
“Introducing a meat tax is an extremely challenging proposition in the current cultural environment. People are so used to eating meat, they can’t imagine a life without it and would vote against any such proposal.”
“What if we started with just a beef tax? It’s by far the worst type of meat for the climate. People don’t eat beef every day and may be less opposed to this.”
Your Turn
Training
- When can you apply the Yellow Hat next?
- Whom can you ask to wear the Yellow Hat to switch them out of their Black Hat thinking?
Next Steps
Next time we’ll dig into the Green Hat!
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Overview of the Six Thinking Hats
Flavio Rump 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.
