The Disney Technique
I’m a big fan of the Disney Technique. It’s a process I run on myself every January, when I do my week of strategic thinking. It’s also a technique I take clients through when I’m helping them get clarity on their business goals and strategy.
The technique is so useful because it helps us shift our ‘perceptual positions’; sequentially exploring your goals, or a particular challenge through the eyes of a Dreamer, Realist, and Critic. As you know, the best decisions often come from changing the way you think about or look at problems, and examining them from different perspectives.
Edward DeBono’s Six Thinking Hats
Another technique that applies the same principle is Edward DeBono’s six thinking hats (published in his 1985 book of the same name). The six hats (or perceptual positions) and their corresponding thinking styles are as follows:
White Hat
Focus on the information and the data you have. See what you can learn from it as well as what knowledge gaps you may have, to either fill them or take account of them.
Red Hat
Look at the problem emotionally by using your intuition and emotion, and consider how others might react to it emotionally.
Black Hat
Look at a potential solution through the eye of a critic to see its possible negative outcomes. Be cautious and try to see why or how it might not work.
Yellow Hat
Look at the problem through the eye of an optimist, or dreamer, to see all the benefits of the decision and the value in it.
Green Hat
Consider the problem with your creative thinking to develop solutions in an unrestricted and open way.
Blue Hat
This hat represents process control – the meta position where you can observe the process as a whole (to assess what hat may be needed next).
Applying the Technique
The next time you have a problem to solve, consider using these metaphorical hats. You don’t need hats; you could, of course, use different areas on the floor to represent the different cognitive styles.
The principle is the same – to become more creative, get better at shifting your perspective. Spend time examining challenges from different viewpoints and you will likely trigger fresh ways of thinking about the best approaches.
