I think I have spent a third, perhaps three quarters, of my life in meetings. During those meetings I have seen and heard everything. I have also said plenty of foolish things and often stubbornly clung to my beliefs.
The most frequent phenomenon I have observed is opinion-making, at which we Italians are black belts regardless of our expertise. The problem is not having opinions; it is making them the centre of attention when what is needed is to understand, decide and move the work forward.
A person without data-based information is just another person with an opinion.
When we mix data, emotions, criticism and ideas all at once, a meeting becomes a spin cycle. At best, it fails to produce a quality result. At worst, it turns into a boxing ring and a show of strength.
From adversarial debate to parallel thinking
Edward de Bono proposes a simple, immensely powerful solution. Instead of arguing as opponents trying to be right, we move as a team exploring a problem from different angles, one at a time, following an explicit sequence.
This is precisely what the Six Hats model introduces. The hats are a shared language and a mental switch. Putting on a hat means choosing one type of attention and temporarily suspending the others. Remember this: each hat is a temporary rule. It does not describe people's characters or assign identities.
In practice, you are not saying who you are; you are deciding how to think for a few minutes. This lowers tension, reduces the ego involved and improves the quality of decisions.
The Six Hats: what they do and what they ask
Below is a practical interpretation. You can use it as a reminder in your planner or as a poster in the meeting room.
⚪ White hat: focus: data, facts and figures. Purpose: lay out what we know and what is missing. Typical questions: what numbers do we have, which sources are reliable, what information do we need before deciding?
🔴 Red hat: focus: emotions, intuition and perceptions. Purpose: bring out gut feelings without requiring justification. Typical questions: what excites me, what worries me, how does this direction feel?
âš« Black hat: focus: risks, limitations and problems. Purpose: apply logical caution, not pessimism. Typical questions: what could go wrong, which constraint are we ignoring, what hidden costs are there?
🟡 Yellow hat: focus: benefits, value and opportunities. Purpose: look for what works and why. Typical questions: what concrete advantage does it bring, what conditions make it positive, what return could it generate?
🟢 Green hat: focus: creativity, alternatives and provocations. Purpose: generate options, even strange ones, to get things moving. Typical questions: what if we did the opposite, what alternatives do we have, how could we make it ten times simpler?
🔵 Blue hat: focus: process, rules and synthesis. Purpose: manage the sequence and finish with decisions and next steps. Typical questions: which hat do we need now, what have we decided, who does what by when?
Two useful anecdotes to truly understand it
De Bono often tells the country-house metaphor. Four people look at the same house from different positions. One sees the porch, one sees the back, one notices the chimney, one looks from above. In traditional debate, each defends their own ‘truth’. With the Six Hats, everyone looks at the same side together, then moves together to build a complete map.
It is not about who is right. It is about seeing everything in an orderly way to make better decisions.
The second anecdote concerns ‘role-playing’ that saves the ego. Asking a very critical person to be creative can make them defensive. Asking them to wear the Green Hat for three minutes, however, is a limited and impersonal task. They are playing a role. And precisely because of that, they may surprise everyone with brilliant ideas.
A ready-to-use sequence for 45-minute meetings
0. Blue hat: define the objective, expected output and timing.
1. White hat: 5–10 minutes on data and missing information.
2. Red hat: 2–3 minutes to bring out feelings and resistance.
3. Green hat: 10 minutes on options and alternatives, without criticism.
4. Yellow hat: 5 minutes to look for value and opportunities in the options.
5. Black hat: 5–10 minutes on real risks and mitigation.
6. Blue hat: synthesis, decision, next steps and responsibilities.
The key is that everyone wears the same hat at the same time. If someone switches into black-hat mode while you are wearing green, you do not silence them. You bring them back into the process: ‘Great, we'll cover that under the black hat shortly.’ It is a small phrase that prevents countless frictions.
Practical applications in marketing and product
This method is gold when you need to make decisions with a high degree of ambiguity, typical of marketing and digital. Some examples:
- Choosing positioning: white for data and research, red for perceptions of the brand, green for creative alternatives.
- Evaluating a campaign: yellow for opportunities, black for reputational and compliance risks, blue for an action plan.
- Product roadmap: white for metrics and constraints, green for solutions, black for technical debt and dependencies.
The greatest benefit is that you stop mixing up the stages. First you explore, then evaluate, then decide. It sounds obvious, but it changes everything.
Further reading and the book's audio
To explore further and listen to a short, engaging and clear audio about the book, you can find a dedicated page here: Six Thinking Hats on Mindvibes.
If you feel like it, next time try starting with two minutes of Blue Hat and five of White Hat. It is a simple experiment, but often enough to transform the energy in the room.