Face it, most corporate meetings tend to be unproductive.Many people dislike meetings because they see them as needless distractions or time wasters. You go into a meeting thinking, "I hope this is quick and painless, I have tons of 'real work' to do."
But meetings ARE real work.
Meetings are a great opportunity to communicate and collaborate-- and to BOOST productivity, not decrease it.
But that's not the way most meetings are run, is it?
Most meetings are BORING. And the managers who run them do a poor job of tapping into the talents of the group.
Most meetings fail to generate creative ideas and solutions; they fail to anticipate potential pitfalls of any given course of action; and they fail to solicit unvarnished feedback to ensure that everyone in the group has a say in the decisions that are made.
It's true. Most meetings are not collaborative and they're barely communicative.
If your meetings are taking too long, or if you feel that they're not as productive as they could be, then Edward de Bono's The Six Thinking Hats will be a revelation.
I read this book YEARS ago, but it has made a lasting impact. Some books leave indelible marks.
Maybe it's because De Bono's ideas about parallel thinking are both simple and profound.
But the best way to explain it is with a ficional case study. So here goes...
Imagine that your company's latest customer satisfaction survey showed a 20 point decline in customer satisfaction.
What are you going to do about it?
If you're like most managers, you'll devise a plan to reverse the trend and call a meeting to announce and detail your plan of action.
You don't ask for feedback. You don't ask for ideas. You're the manager and YOU know what needs to be done.
So you assemble your team and in a stern and slightly alarmed fashion announce the survey results.
Everyone is stunned.
They're working harder than ever, especially during this terrible recession, and yet customer satisfaction is at an all time low?
Deep down inside each one of them feels a little defeated. They're not sure what more they can do.
But then you step in with the answer.
"Here's how we're going to fix this," you state proudly.
Then you lay out your action plan. To your employees, it looks like a LOT more work.
Some of them are alarmed enough to embrace your action plan, if somewhat reluctantly. Others are skeptical and even more reluctant. They're not sure how much MORE work they can do.
Others simply resent your message because it sounds like TOO much work and TOO much responsibility. After all, THEIR customer service level is fine just the way it is.
And still others, are so stressed-out and so busy thinking about their workload that they're mostly tuning you out.
So finally, you field a few questions and adjourn the meeting thinking that hey got your message. And you think they'll comply.
Ninety days later, your customer satisfaction score hasn't improved. Instead, it dropped another 5 points!!
So what do you do now, call ANOTHER meeting and repeat the cycle all over again?
Using De Bono's Six Thinking Hats allows you to be more proactive than that.
Under his system, you would use the BLUE hat to state the purpose of the initial meeting: to announce and discuss the survey results, and discuss ideas on how to reverse the trend.
The Blue hat is like a judge in a courtroom.
The judge controls the proceedings but EVERYONE (the plaintiff AND defendant) is given time to speak.
Like the 'blue sky' that envelopes everything, the BLUE hat envelopes and controls all the other hats. That's why the manager usually wears the BLUE hat.
Once you announce the survey results, you might then switch to the WHITE hat.
The WHITE hat (think of a scientist in a white lab coat) is ONLY concerned with facts. What's the data? What information do we have? What information is missing?
Under the white hat, everyone discusses the survey findings.
It turns out, that while the average customer satisfaction score is down 20 points, the number of customers that gave the company an EXCELLENT customer service rating is up by 7%. And upon closer inspection, the data does not specify in what areas of service the company ranked poorly in. Was it order errors, delivery times, hold times on the phone, what?
After looking at the data, you move to the RED HAT.
The RED hat is all about speaking from the heart.
It allows everyone, one by one, to express their emotions without the need to justify those emotions in any way. And NO ONE is allowed to judge or make negative comments about the emotions being expressed.
The RED hat gives everyone a chance to vent.
It's interesting that many people think that emotions are messy and complicated, and that they have NO place at work.
That's ridiculous.
Human beings are EMOTIONAL creatures.
We may have access to rational thought but at the end of the day, we do what FEELS good or FEELS right.
Emotions are part of the work environment whether you like it or not, so why not create some mechanism by which get them out into the open where you can deal with them more effectively.
So, after everyone gets a chance to vent, the manager moves the conversation to the YELLOW hat.
The YELOW hat (think sunshine) is all about finding value in ANY situation. While 'wearing' the YELLOW hat everyone is encouraged to think of ways that this problem is actually a GOOD thing.
"Look," says one of your team members. "This is an opportunity to demonstrate to our customers, by actions and not words, that we really care about them."
"That's right", says another. "This is good because now we can work to find out why exactly some customers rated us as EXCELLENT and others as VERY POOR. This is an opportunity to improve our survey methods."
One by one, every team member is given a chance to find value in the current situation. That's powerful!
The next step is to don the GREEN hat -- the hat of ideas!
While wearing the GREEN hat everyone is encouraged to contribute ideas and craft the action plan. The effect is profound. Now, EVERYONE is focused on how to fix the problem. EVERYONE gets to contribute their skills and talents towards the goal of reversing the trend of declining customer satisfaction. EVERYONE has a say, not just management.
Once the group has come up with various ideas, it's time to wear the BLACK hat.
The BLACK hat is about constructive criticism. The BLACK hat is all about trying to anticipate what could go wrong with some of the ideas presented.
The BLACK hat is easy to wear because it's easy to criticize and find fault.
Humans are hardwired to anticipate and avoid danger in order to say safe. That's a GOOD thing!
The BLACK hat is an extremely useful hat but once you stop wearing it, you are no longer allowed to be negative.
Also, the BLACK hat is NOT about emotion. You're not allowed to say, "This plan sucks!" That's RED hat.
You are, however, allowed to say something like, "Sending a memo to our customers apologizing for our bad customer service is a bad idea because it will be perceived as hot air."
The BLACK hat allows you to be negative, as long as you have a REASON to support your view. It's the logical, rational underpinnings of the BLACK hat that make it so valuable.
Once everyone has worn the BLUE, WHITE, RED, YELLOW, GREEN and BLACK hats, you may choose to end the meeting with another RED hat.
You'll see that emotions may have shifted. What looked like doom and gloom 30 minutes ago, now looks manageable.
Your team now sees opportunities where they once saw only problems. Everyone participated in the meeting and so they feel like their views were respected and heard. Everyone had a say in how to respond to the 'problem' and so they are more likely to be committed to a successful outcome.
That's the beauty of the Six Thinking Hats.
Now, I'm sure this process may seem gimmicky to some, maybe even silly to the hardened skeptic, but parallel thinking works.
Don't let the colorful hat metaphor confuse you into thinking this is pollyanna.
Go ahead and call it whatever you want... 6 thinking hats, cognitive modalities, parallel thinking, WHATEVER! Collaborate with your peers in this fashion and you will transform yourself and your business, never mind running great meetings!
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