Edward de Bono on ‘Exploration’

Argument is a primitive, crude and inefficient way of exploring a subject. It is inadequate for a number of reasons.

First, if there is 5% wrong with the opposing position, then all the time is spent attacking that 5% on the basis that error at some point suggests error throughout.

Second, both opposing positions may be weak. There is no mechanism in argument for designing better positions. A position may be weak but difficult to prove wrong. So that view prevails, even though it is very weak.

Third, there is no design energy in argument. It is assumed that both positions are opposed and will always be opposed. There is no constructive energy in argument.

Fourth, there is a lot of ego in argument, because proving someone else wrong is a sort of victory which indicates superiority.

Fifth, argument takes a long time, because relatively minor points are picked out and attacked.

Parallel thinking is a much better way of exploring a subject. In 1985 I designed the Six Hats method.

Each of the Six Hats represents a mode of thinking. For example, the white hat represents information. Under the white hat, the participants look at available information. They look at the information that is needed. They can ask questions and see how the needed information can be obtained. Information that is contradictory needs to be put down without argument.

The green hat is for creativity and new ideas. The green hat asks for alternatives, possibilities and new thinking. The green hat encourages modification of an idea or perception.

The other four hats cover different aspects of thinking. What is important is that, at every moment, all the participants at the meeting are wearing the same hat and thinking in ‘parallel’.

The method challenges each person to use their thinking fully. In a normal meeting a person who is against the idea being considered will spend the whole meeting seeking ways of attacking the idea.

In a Six Hats meeting, the person will be invited, under the black hat, to attack and criticise the idea as fully as he or she can. But when it is the turn of the yellow hat, that same person is expected to focus on the values in the idea. If that person is unable, or unwilling, to see the values, but everyone else is finding value, then that person is seen to be stupid.

There are formal training systems for the Six Hats method, and trainers can be trained to work within their own organisations.

I find it extraordinary that it has taken us 2,400 years to realise that argument is a very poor way of exploring a subject.

[Citation: Edward de Bono, Letter to Thinking Managers 3 January 2008 newsletter (along with Robert Heller)]