CONCEPT
Six Thinking Hats
De Bono's 1985 framework for <em>separating modes of thought</em> that the human mind habitually tangles — adopted by IBM, NASA, Siemens, and the European Union, and uncannily suited to governing AI collaboration.
The Six Thinking Hats is de Bono's most commercially successful tool — a simple, memorable framework that assigns each mode of thinking a distinct color and demands that thinkers wear only one hat at a time. White hat: facts and information. Red hat: feelings and intuitions. Black hat: caution and critical judgment. Yellow hat: value and optimism. Green hat: creativity and new ideas. Blue hat: process management. The premise is that people think badly not because they are unintelligent but because they try to do too many kinds of thinking simultaneously, and the solution is deliberate separation — giving each mode its own protected space.
In The You On AI Field Guide
De Bono designed the framework for group meetings, where the tangling of modes is most destructive. In a conventional meeting, one participant is being cautious (black hat) while another is being creative (green hat) while a third is reacting emotionally (red hat) while a fourth is trying to establish facts (white hat).
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