Sadly, this sort of pseudo-psychological gobbledegook is all too common in corporate and bureaucratic Australia. Instead of providing a framework for thinking, De Bono's hats usually provide an excuse for not thinking. It astonishes me that, after all these years, De Bono's shallow - and only - idea is still taken seriously.

If you want to take your business or your government department forward, buy one of Michael Porter's books and engage seriously with the idea of strategy. You'll need to think hard, both about the idea and its implementation, but getting your intellect into gear will be better for you in both the short and long terms.

It seems to me that the author is quibbling over trivia, ignoring
substance.

De Bono's hat idea was what eventually led to the the concept
of Emotional Intelligence, as promoted by Goleman in his best seller.

Understanding and implementing emotional intelligence is hugely
beneficial, in business, in private, in all aspects of life really.

Its a shame that its not adopted by more people, especially in
global politics for instance. If somebody like Dick Cheney had
learnt the system at school, we might not have had the disaster that
has been America, for the last 8 years. His focus on strategic
thinking has led him and America, right up the garden path of
what we all face now in the world.

If this kind of basic thinking was taught to 6 year olds at school,
it would become part of their second nature, playing a major role
in conflict resolution, reduction of domestic violence etc, for
the benefit of society.

Senior Victorian, Chris's early-90s book on venture capital was far and away the best in the field, an excellent how-to guide both for entrepreneurs and policy wonks. I'm across Porter's work - I had the first copy of The Competitive Advantage of Nations in Australia (via the diplomatic bag from Washington in 1990) - but Chris's book was far more appropriate for entrepreneurial businessmen. I somehow missed de Bono's work (although my children were all conversant with it), and found the article interesting. Chris was a leading venture capitalist at a time when there were few in Australia - I'll investigate his web sit to see what he's up to now.

Senior Geordie.

Australia has more of de Bono's books per capita than any other country, I am told. I think the basic reason why all these hats have not generated much in practical action is that he omits a major pre-requisite - knowledge of what you are thinking about.

So there is too much pooling of ignorance - and even the ideas that de Bono himself has put up have suffered from lack of knowledge of the situations he was attempting to improve.

In schools especially, de Bono exercises should always include a preface - to research the subject being thought about.

As author of the article may I make the following comments.

First I did my MBA 1971-73 at London Business School and have been described by one associate as Pre-Porter. However I totally agree that of all the management gurus he is the one most worth reading and in subsequent editions of Enterprise and Venture Capital I included a section on Porter's 5 forces model and his competitive strategies. I found his HBS Review articles are easier reads than his books.

Re Emotional Intelligence I could not agree more on its importance and I have written The Humm Handbook: Lifting Your Level of Emotional Intelligence as a follow on to Goldman's book. Goldman describes what EQ is and why it is important but not how you do it. I think the Humm is the answer to the How to improve your EQ and I see that spreading this view is my next task in life.

The critique of 6 Thinking Hats is one of my first steps and was an exercise in thinking with a different hat on.

In passing I have heard De Bono and Porter both speak. Porter impressed me much more.

Chris, the way I see it that de Bono was a bit of a pioneer about
thinking, I give him credit for that.

I got interested in Goleman's work from a different perspective,
ie one of neuroscience and how the mind works. I found it very useful
and it led me on to read some of Joseph LeDoux's stuff about the
function of the amygdala etc. Once people understand it, little
lights go on to explain the world and their own minds to them.

What is really needed is a book called "Understanding our brains for
Dummies" :) or something similar, written in language that most
people can understand, for neuroscientific terms can get a bit
complicated.

The important thing is to get people to learn to think about what
they feel and explain the difference. Once they can do that, they
are halfway home to dealing with life, rather then be engulfed by
much of it, as many are.

So I've referred many to Golemans book and they have generally found
it pretty useful. IMHO going back to hats is perhaps a bit
simplistic, but each to their own I guess.

I gather that lots of people have jumped onto the EQ bandwagon
and many are making a quid out of it