Typical Red Hat Questions
"How do I feel about this?"
"Is the overall result likely to be acceptable?"
"Can I live with this choice?"
"What's my instinctive reaction?"
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The purpose of red hat thinking is to discover one's gut reactions to
something.
In this mode, objective facts are laid to one side so that subjective
feelings can be assessed. Particularly in situations where the
acceptance or rejection of an idea depends on public reaction to that
idea, it can be helpful to simply react immediately to the plan or
concept under discussion without trying to analyze it. This "gut
reaction" can offer important clues to the effectiveness of any plan
that requires the support of others.
Furthermore, where white hat thinking tries to understand things by
breaking them down into their component parts, red hat thinking is
"holistic"; that is, it tries to consider a thing's nature as a whole
without concern for that thing's composition. This allows someone
doing red hat thinking to make apparently intuitive leaps of
understanding. (For this reason I equate red hat thinking with the
Myers-Briggs iNtuitive type preference.) While all the parts of an
idea might seem farfetched or unrelated, together they may result in a
unique whole idea that might work. Red hat thinking can provide such
insights.
It is important to remember that red hat thinking is not an analytical
function like yellow hat or black hat thinking. Although it is often
used to react to an idea, its primary function is not to judge that idea
but to provide information about what kinds of ideas in general are
desired. The emphasis is not on making a decision, but on assessing
and communicating personal reactions.
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