Effective Meeting Management

How many times have you been chairing or attending a meeting to discuss a specific topic / project and attendees start talking at cross purposes and before you know it personal conflict arises and initial objective for the meeting is lost.

To avoid this happening try using De Bono’d Six Thinking Hats to help channel energy and ideas to make your meetings as effective as possible. Controlling the thinking process during meetings will allow you to get people pointing in the right direction and thinking in harmony.

The White Hat

The white hat concerns information.  When we wear the white hat, we ask the following kinds of questions:  “What information do we have?”; “What information do we need?”; “What information is missing?”; How are we going to get the information we need?”;  “What questions should we be asking?”.  The white hat is used to direct attention to available or missing information.

The Red Hat

The red hat is to do with feelings, intuition and emotions.  You may not know the reasons why you like something, or why you do not like something.  When the red hat is in use, you have the opportunity to put forward your feelings and intuitions without any explanation at all.  Your feelings exist, and the red hat gives you permission to put these feelings forward.

The Black Hat

This is probably the most useful hat.  It is certainly the hat that is most often used.  Black reminds us of a judge’s robes.  The black hat is for caution.  The black hat stops us from doing things that may be harmful.  The black hat points out the risks, and why something may not work.  Without the black hat we would be in trouble all the time.  However, the black hat should not be over used, as over use may be dangerous.

The Green Hat

The green hat is the energy hat.  Under the green hat, you put forward proposals and suggestions and propose new ideas and alternatives.  Under the green hat, you suggest modifications and variations for a suggested idea.  The green hat allows you to put forward possibilities.  When the green hat is in use, everyone makes an effort to be creative.

The Blue Hat

The blue hat is for looking at the thinking process itself:  “What should we do next?”, “What have we achieved so far?”  “We use the blue hat at the beginning of a discussion in order to define what we are thinking about, and to decide what we want to have achieved at the end of our thinking.  The blue hat may be used to order the sequence of hats that we are going to be using, and to summarise what we have achieved.

The Yellow Hat

Under the yellow hat we make a direct effort to find the values and benefits in a suggestion: “What is good about this?”  Even if we do not like the idea, the yellow hat asks us to seek out the good points “Where are the benefits?”  “Who is going to benefit?”; “How will the benefits come about?”; “What are the different values?”

At Maguire we can support you and develop the necessary skills to deliver truly effective meetings.

http://www.maguiretraining.co.uk/management-leadership/making-meetings-work/