How to Use Colorful Hats to Lead Change?

Of all leadership responsibilities, that of initiating change in a team and navigate the turbulent waters through that change is probably near the top as far as complexity, challenge, and failure rate are concerned.

As leaders, we all know that the key to initiate change in a team or an organization is essentially to let members of the team/organization be part of the decision-making process, at the very least of the discussion around the change. But to be frank, it is easier said than done. Because what does it mean to let the team be part of the discussion? Does that mean everyone can propose anything, anytime, everyone can make a decision?

That’s definitely a way to go about it. However, I would also contend that efficient ways of involving a team or an organization in a change include letting people express their feelings, fears, frustrations and hopes about that change.

Recently, I have been using a tool that allows navigating a change process while taking into account all of this. This tool or process is called the 6-Thinking Hats and was created by Edward de Bono - first approaches were developed by de Bono in the 1970’s but his main work on the subject appeared in his 1985 book.

I will not go here into the details of that process. Suffice to say that the tool is about wearing 6 hats (figuratively or not) of different colors that represent different ways of thinking: Red is about emotions and feelings, Yellow is about positive things, etc. There is otherwise ample literature that explains it much better than I could do here. What I want to do is give 3 take-aways I got from using that tool and explain what I noticed during the exercise, and how I believe these could be helpful for other leaders to understand why this tool is particularly powerful to use in a context of change.

1. It gives everyone a chance to vent and express strong negative emotions about a change.

Change in a team or organization is more often than not seen as an extreme threat rather than an opportunity. People fear change because it creates unknown conditions for them and the work they have to do. By using the 6-Thinking Hats approach, I noticed that because I use the black and red hats (black hat is for negative attitude, red hat is for feelings/emotions), people have the opportunity to say openly what they think about the change, and how they feel about it. Often, I have found that in more standard approaches, because only the people who support the change tend to speak first, other people will shy away from expressing negative feelings about the change. With the 6-Thinking Hats technique, everybody has to wear a black or red hat at some point, so everybody has an opportunity to say something negative or show an emotion. And although the change will still happen, people embrace it more willingly because they have been heard.

2. It helps the team/organization connect not only with the change itself, but also some opportunities from that change.

When we go through a change, we usually focus our speech on the critical issue behind the change. The typical hidden message is “if we don’t do this, this very bad thing will happen”. It is fair to say that as a leader, if you want to successfully lead change, you must convince people that this is a “must do” change, and not a “nice to do” change. This is what my High-Performance Leadership class teacher during my Columbia MBA, Professor Mike Feiner, referred to as the “law of the burning platform”. This means that the change must be presented in the way of “if we don’t change now, a painful future is ahead of us”.

There is nothing wrong about the burning platform approach; in fact it is the only way to provoke change. But when I used the 6-Thinking Hats to let people think about the change, at one point, I had them wear the green hat (the hat for opportunities, creativity). And what happened is that although people understood that the change was a must do thing, they also took time to think about “what is something positive for me that I get from that change?” “What is an opportunity created for me by that change?” In the end, a lot of the feedback brought from that green hat position helped finetune how the change would happen. And it resulted in higher change adoption and acceptance from the team.

3. It creates better collaboration among people to discuss the change or topic.

My early experiences with implementing change were very frustrating and demotivating: People were fighting, every person’s comment was immediately judged by the rest of the group. Added to this was my lack of experience at the time about how to create a burning platform (see my point #2) and I got stuck very quickly, the same way most leaders get stuck today: Everybody understands that change is needed, but nobody will embrace it or will want to change. So in the end, I failed like most leaders will fail in the same context.

When I had the opportunity to lead through change again, this time using the 6-Thinking Hats method as part of the process, then something different happened. Indeed, because in the 6-Thinking Hats process, everyone has to focus on a particular way of thinking at any one time (everybody wears the same color hat at the same time), the group tends to be much more collaborative. It is very different from what had happened to me before, where one person would react emotionally (Red hat) while another person would try to stay objective (White hat) and still another person would be critical of the points which emerged from the discussion (Black hat). This made a huge difference in the outcome of how the change was perceived and implemented, this time successfully.

The 6-Thinking Hats approach is one of the best tools I have at disposal as a leader to lead through change, but also to address any topic or question that would rise in the course of my activity as a CFO. For instance “Should we move to another office?” or “Should I organize the team this way?” It is also a very efficient tool I use as a coach when I have to work with teams. The strength of the 6-Thinking Hats approach is that it helps individuals in addressing problems from a variety of angles without weighing one angle more than another. This ensures all voices are heard and that everybody has a true opportunity to contribute to solving a problem or implementing change.

If you are a leader who needs to implement change, I strongly encourage you to learn more about that tool. Also consider how a team coach could help you and your team get through that change in a more efficient way.