Black Hat - from Six Thinking Hats
Black like a judge’s robes. Critical, cautious, risk averse
Heya. Here’s the most commonly used hat of the Six Thinking Hats by Edward de Bono1. That doesn’t mean you should use it the most. It’s a common default, so it is useful to recall this hat and notice when you’re reacting instead of responding.
Today’s sticky is:
Black Hat
Black like a judge’s robes. Critical, cautious, risk averse
What could go wrong?
We don’t have enough capacity.
We’ve tried this before.
He doesn’t have enough experience.
An excerpt from Serious Creativity:
Mistakes can be disastrous. So the black hat is very valuable. It is the most used hat and probably the most useful hat.
At the same time it is very easy to overuse the black hat. Some people feel that it is enough to be cautious and negative and that if you prevent all mistakes then everything will be fine. It is easy to kill creative ideas with early negativity.
One possible way to reference the black hat is when someone is being overly negative. You can point out, “That’s useful black hat thinking. How about we try some of the other hats?”
What do you think?
Love,
Kate