Your Team Sees One Option. Edward de Bono's Power of Perception Workshop Finds the Rest.
Same problem, same answer, every time. Participants put on six different hats and argue the problem from six angles, so the options they kept walking past finally show up.
Getting 112 executives learning at the same time.
Rooted in Edward de Bono’s Power of Perception
Edward de Bono showed that most thinking mistakes come from perception, not logic. We see a problem one way and stop there. This workshop puts that idea to work. Using his Six Thinking Hats, your people look at the same problem through six lenses and find the options they were missing.
An Ideation Workshop Designed to Promote Creative Thinking
The Think from Multiple Perspectives program is an ideation workshop designed to promote leadership development and creative thinking. Using Edward De Bono’s book “Six Thinking Hats” as a basis, this creative thinking workshop creates an opportunity for participants to analyze problems from a point of view that they wouldn’t normally use.
Participants are immersed in the experience through the use of both figurative and literal hats. Each activity will take participants out of their comfort zone by encouraging creative solutions and the perspectives that arise from leveraging different points of view. At program end, your participants will appreciate all the unique talents and solutions that diverse team members can bring to each organizational challenge.
Appreciate that multiple perspectives offer multiple solutions to one problem.
The Six Thinking Hats, and What Each One Does
De Bono gave each point of view a color so a group can switch on purpose instead of drifting. White is the facts hat: what do we actually know, and what are we missing. Red is the feelings hat, where people say what their gut says without having to justify it. Black is the caution hat, naming the risks and what could go wrong. Yellow is the value hat, looking for the benefit and the reason an option could work. Green is the possibility hat, where new options get invented rather than judged. Blue is the process hat, held by whoever runs the thinking and decides which hat the room wears next.
The power comes from everybody wearing the same hat at the same time. In a normal meeting the cautious person is always cautious and the optimist is always optimistic, so the same two people have the same argument every time. Here the whole room goes cautious together, then hopeful together, then inventive together. Nobody owns a position, so nobody has to defend one.
How a Power of Perception Workshop Runs
A session runs a half day or a full day, and it can be built around a live decision your group is already stuck on, which is what makes the room worth booking. Participants work the six hats in a set sequence on a small problem first, then run their own problem through the same sequence. Your facilitator holds the blue hat until the group can hold it themselves.
Groups leave with the options they had walked past, a note of which hat their team skips most often, and a way to run the sequence again without anybody from Learn2 in the room.
What Your Team Takes Away
Learn how to generate creative solutions to challenges.
Examine different points of view to create new solutions
Understand the essential elements of sourcing team-based decisions.
Frequently Asked Questions
- Is this based on Edward de Bono's Power of Perception?
- Yes. De Bono's argument is that most thinking mistakes come from perception, not logic — we see a problem one way and stop there. This experience puts that to work. His Six Thinking Hats give your people six lenses on the same problem, so the options they walked past become visible.
- What are the Six Thinking Hats?
- Six points of view, one per hat. Everybody in the room wears the same hat at the same time, so the group covers one angle together instead of six people defending six positions. Participants use both figurative and literal hats. The hat comes off, the point of view changes, and the argument stops being personal.
- How is this different from a brainstorming session?
- Brainstorming asks a room for ideas while everyone stays in their usual point of view, which is why the loudest thinker usually wins. Here the point of view is assigned. Participants have to argue the angle they would normally skip, and that is where the missing options come from.
- Who is this experience for?
- Teams that keep reaching the same answer. It fits leadership groups, project teams, and any group heading into a decision where the obvious option is already on the table and nobody is happy with it.
- Can you run this for a large group?
- Yes. One session ran 112 executives through the experience at the same time.
Interested in This Experience?
See a demo of a participant-driven experience, then we design an experience that solves it.