Six-Hat Thinking: Implementing a Team Approach to Strategic Planning

The development of an effective marketing strategy does not happen by accident or in a vacuum. Rather it’s the result of a methodical approach to elicit and apply great ideas from a wide range of constituents.

But a number of barriers can impede the development of a strategic plan. Many marketers are just too consumed with firefighting to plan ahead. Some lack the desire, and some the skill, to actually create a plan. For others, the inability to determine what makes a good plan holds them back. Planning well and knowing how to plan are two very different things.

To think strategically, marketers should ask their organization three critical questions:

1) Where are we now?
2) Where do we want to go?
3) How will we get there?

According to “Darwin” magazine, 75% of 2,000 senior executives and managers surveyed said that collaborating with others was the skill most important to be successful today – and tomorrow.

As strategic planning is a collaborative process, it should take into consideration varied thought processes. Early in the 1980s, Dr. Edward de Bono invented the Six Thinking Hats method, a framework that can incorporate lateral thinking. I have found that the concept of Six Thinking Hats works particularly well in adopting a team-based approach to strategic planning.

Six-hat thinking can help you consider potential decisions from a number of important perspectives. Thinking this way forces you to move outside your own habitual thinking style and helps ensure a more rounded view of a situation. Six-hat thinking also allows for necessary emotion and skepticism to be integrated into an otherwise purely rational process.

Each colored hat represents a different planning and decision-making style:

* White hat: information, facts
* Yellow hat: benefits, value
* Green hat: creativity, ideas
* Black hat: caution, concern
* Red hat: feelings, intuition
* Blue hat: managing the thinking, process control

When wearing a white hat, a marketer will think of the facts involved in the issue. He will focus on the data available, examine information and learn from it, look for gaps in knowledge, and analyze past trends before arriving at a sound conclusion. Types of white-hat thinking include SWOT (strengths/weakness/opportunities/threats) analysis and cost/benefit analysis.

Yellow-hat thinking involves thinking of the positive characteristics or aspects–in other words, the benefits. Wearing a yellow hat enables you to maintain an optimistic viewpoint. This mindset shifts the focus from the idea-killer habit of knocking ideas down as soon as they are suggested. One type of yellow-hat thinking involves plotting a creative strategy map that includes questions about “thinking now” vs. “thinking in the future” and “doing now” vs. “doing in the future.”

When you don a green hat, you consider all the possibilities involved around a particular issue. Green-hat thinking means thinking creatively and creating a freewheeling environment with little criticism of ideas. One type of green-hat thinking is developing a simplex creativity model. A simplex creativity model consists of an eight-stage cycle that takes into consideration problem solving, fact finding, problem definition, idea finding, selection, planning, idea selling, and action. By moving through these stages, you’re certain to solve the most significant problems with the best solutions available–and it can be an intensively creative approach.

Black-hat thinking involves an examination of the illogical nature of an issue. It helps you to spot fatal flaws and risks before you start on a course of action. It also enables you to be cautious and defensive as it highlights a potential plan’s weak points. While wearing a black hat, you can make a plan tougher and more resilient.

Two types of black-hat thinking are Pareto analysis (better known as the 80/20 rule) and force-field analysis. A Pareto analysis not only reveals the most important problem to solve, but it also provides a score showing the severity of the problem. Force-field analysis looks at all forces both for and against a plan and helps you weigh the importance of the factors to determine if a plan is worthy of implementation.

When wearing a red hat, you’ll think of the feelings that the issue brings to the forefront. Red-hat thinking looks at problems using intuition, gut reaction, and emotions. It causes you to think about how other people will react on an emotional level and to anticipate the responses of those who do not understand the reasoning behind a plan. One type of red-hat thinking is reframing matrix. This is a formal technique used to look at problems from different perspectives–product, planning, potential, and people.

Finally, while wearing a blue hat, you will oversee and manage the planning process. This is the hat worn by the person or people who lead meetings. It is the wearer of the blue hat who directs activity into other hats to stimulate collaborative thinking, keeping in mind that effective meeting management is about balancing the interests of the individual, the team, and the task.

Michele Fitzpatrick is chief marketing officer, data-based marketing solutions, for Harte-Hanks (www.harte-hanks.com), a San Antonio, TX-based provider of direct marketing services and shopper advertising opportunities.