Six thinking hats Essays - Hats, Educational Psychology,

Six thinking hats Six Thinking Hats' is an important and powerful technique. It is used to look at decisions from a number of important perspectives. This forces you to move outside your habitual thinking style, and helps you to get a more rounded view of a situation. This tool was created by Edward de Bono in his book '6 Thinking Hats'. Many successful people think from a very rational, positive viewpoint. This is part of the reason that they are successful. Often, though, they may fail to look at a problem from an emotional, intuitive, creative or negative viewpoint. This can mean that they underestimate resistance to plans, fail to make creative leaps and do not make essential contingency plans. Similarly, pessimists may be excessively defensive, and more emotional people may fail to look at decisions calmly and rationally. If you look at a problem with the 'Six Thinking Hats' technique, then you will solve it using all approaches. Your decisions and plans will mix ambition, skill in execution, public sensitivity, creativity and good contingency planning. How to Use the Tool You can use Six Thinking Hats in meetings or on your own. In meetings it has the benefit of blocking the confrontations that happen when people with different thinking styles discuss the same problem. Each 'Thinking Hat' is a different style of thinking. These are explained below: White Hat: With this thinking hat you focus on the data available. Look at the information you have, and see what you can learn from it. Look for gaps in your knowledge, and either try to fill them or take account of them. This is where you analyze past trends, and try to extrapolate from historical data. Red Hat: 'Wearing' the red hat, you look at problems using intuition, gut reaction, and emotion. Also try to think how other people will react emotionally. Try to understand the responses of people who do not fully know your reasoning. Black Hat: Using black hat thinking, look at all the bad points of the decision. Look at it cautiously and defensively. Try to see why it might not work. This is important because it highlights the weak points in a plan. It allows you to eliminate them, alter them, or prepare contingency plans to counter them. Black Hat thinking helps to make your plans 'tougher' and more resilient. It can also help you to spot fatal flaws and risks before you embark on a course of action. Black Hat thinking is one of the real benefits of this technique, as many successful people get so used to thinking positively that often they cannot see problems in advance. This leaves them under-prepared for difficulties. Yellow Hat: The yellow hat helps you to think positively. It is the optimistic viewpoint that helps you to see all the benefits of the decision and the value in it. Yellow Hat thinking helps you to keep going when everything looks gloomy and difficult. Green Hat: The Green Hat stands for creativity. This is where you can develop creative solutions to a problem. It is a freewheeling way of thinking, in which there is little criticism of ideas. A whole range of creativity tools can help you here. Blue Hat: The Blue Hat stands for process control. This is the hat worn by people chairing meetings. When running into difficulties because ideas are running dry, they may direct activity into Green Hat thinking. When contingency plans are needed, they will ask for Black Hat thinking, etc. A variant of this technique is to look at problems from the point of view of different professionals (e.g. doctors, architects, sales directors, etc.) or different customers. Example The directors of a property company are looking at whether they should construct a new office building. The economy is doing well, and the amount of vacant office space is reducing sharply. As part of their decision they decide to use the 6 Thinking Hats technique during a planning meeting. Looking at the problem with the White Hat, they analyze the data they have. They examine the trend in vacant office space, which shows a sharp reduction. They anticipate that by the time the office block would be completed, that there will be a severe shortage of office space. Current government projections show steady economic growth for at least the construction period. With Red Hat

Free Essays on Critical Analysis Of Albert Camuss

, and recognizing the voids they reveal, the reader sees Meursault as the stranger – a foreigner in an emotional, consequential world teaming with morality and sentiment. Society endures because of its own understood, furtive laws – laws which keep conformity, habit, and social harmony perpetually present – laws which Meursault cannot fathom. Religion, ambition, love – contempt, disapproval, sorrow – are all sensations by which people life – by which people are ruled; they are all sensations by which Meursault is never governed. Meursault’s rules to live by are hardly understandable to those of society. He is not ruled by emotion, he is not controlled by morals, and he is not bothered by decisions. Mersault is governed by absent fate, minimal satisfaction, and listless habit. He serves no God, no dream – no purpose. In the end, Meursault, living according to his own myriad of absurd rules, must welcome death as his only m eans to be in harmony with the indifferent universe. Meursault is aware of feelings and opinions in others, but he acknowledges few emotions in himself. Particularly in situations where one expects feelings, he professes to have none. Thus, he feels little sorrow at his mother’s death, little joy at Marie’s love, little pleasure at the boss’s offer of a promotion, little remorse for his crime. He expresses no anger and hardly any regret even at the loss of his freedom. He seems to feel no resentment toward Raymond, who drew him into the quarrel with the Arabs; nor toward his lawyer; who handles his case poorly; nor toward the court, which condemns him... Free Essays on Critical Analysis Of Albert Camus's Free Essays on Critical Analysis Of Albert Camus's Albert Camus was haunted with the notion that â€Å"our world exists in a universe which holds no place for us, where our life makes no sense.† In his novel, The Stranger, Monsieur Meursault is a man rendered in such a situation. He subsists from day to pointless day, morally deprived and socially detached. Holding Meursault to his words, and recognizing the voids they reveal, the reader sees Meursault as the stranger – a foreigner in an emotional, consequential world teaming with morality and sentiment. Society endures because of its own understood, furtive laws – laws which keep conformity, habit, and social harmony perpetually present – laws which Meursault cannot fathom. Religion, ambition, love – contempt, disapproval, sorrow – are all sensations by which people life – by which people are ruled; they are all sensations by which Meursault is never governed. Meursault’s rules to live by are hardly understandable to thos e of society. He is not ruled by emotion, he is not controlled by morals, and he is not bothered by decisions. Mersault is governed by absent fate, minimal satisfaction, and listless habit. He serves no God, no dream – no purpose. In the end, Meursault, living according to his own myriad of absurd rules, must welcome death as his only means to be in harmony with the indifferent universe. Meursault is aware of feelings and opinions in others, but he acknowledges few emotions in himself. Particularly in situations where one expects feelings, he professes to have none. Thus, he feels little sorrow at his mother’s death, little joy at Marie’s love, little pleasure at the boss’s offer of a promotion, little remorse for his crime. He expresses no anger and hardly any regret even at the loss of his freedom. He seems to feel no resentment toward Raymond, who drew him into the quarrel with the Arabs; nor toward his lawyer; who handles his case poorly; nor toward the court, which condemns him...

Cultural Sensative Counseling Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1500 words

Cultural Sensative Counseling - Essay Example 72). The ultimate goal is for the counselor to be â€Å"culturally sensitive† in that he/she â€Å"is aware of, shows recognition of, demonstrates some knowledge of, and expresses an interest in the client’s ethnic identity and cultural background† (Day 2008, p. 72). This is very important because conduct in one culture may be more distressing in another culture. For example, a Filipina student going against her parents’ choice of major may be more of an issue than for an American student. In other words, there is no universal prescription for dealing with all human beings’ problems (Day 2008, p. 72). Cultural sensitive interviews will help the counselor obtain the information necessary for narrowing the issues down to a specific culture. Therefore a cultural sensitive interview will begin by first determining the client’s first language. Language questions will seek to determine whether or not the client’s family or home speaks anothe r language or languages and what language or languages are used at home. The client’s feelings about whether his or her language is â€Å"standard English or nonstandard English† will also be queried at a cultural sensitive interview (Day 2008, p. 73). Secondly, the client will be questioned about family roles. Essentially, the counselor will attempt to determine what is expected of children within the family and how those expectations are modified throughout childhood to adulthood. Other questions about family roles will include information about whether or not adult children have to take care of their parents; the degree of authority that parents have over their adult children and adolescent children’s decisions; whether or not parents are strict and if the client follows their parents own â€Å"parenting style† (Day 2008, p. 73). The client will be questioned about sex/gender distinctions and roles. Specifically, the counselor attempts to determine cul tural beliefs relative to sexes and the degree to which those beliefs and distinctions are reflected within the client’s family. The counselor will also need to ascertain the client’s own feelings about those prescribed differences and roles. The counselor will also endeavor to obtain information about sexual orientation. More specifically, the counselor will attempt to determine the degree to which the client’s sexual orientation or the sexual orientation of others affects the client. Information about what the client learned about sexual orientation from the family and whether or not the client’s own concept of sexual orientation has been refuted (Day 2008, p. 73). Another area of query includea information about the client’s independence. Specifically, the counselor will be required to determine if the client firmly believes in â€Å"freedom from others’ influence†, or if co-dependence within the family or the community ranks highe r (Day 2008, p. 73). Questions about the spirituality and its influence on the client are also important. How the client’s culture defines success and how conflict is dealt with by the client’s culture are also important questions. Cultural and family history and its influence on the client are also important questions in a cultural sensitive interview. Questions about money, more specifically class status, economic objectives and the importance of wealth to the client’