Six Thinking Hat

When I have learned the subject of ‘Critical Thinking’, I only realised there were so many different colors of hat wearers in my office.

In the Accounts and Finance Department, the accounts officer will always wear the ‘Black Hat’ in the office. Every time when I passed the memo to request for payment, she always will throw the same question: ‘Is the Memo being verified? Got attachment? I don’t want to process something that is not approved yet.’ I understand her objective to asking such question but she should know we also know the rules and procedures before passing the request.

While in the other department, for example, Sales & Marketing. The ’Green Hat’ seem like a uniform for them. They always very creative to generate the ideas in order to attract more business flow in to company. Sometimes there will let us have the ‘Green Hat’ being wear to give them the opinion and ideas. For example, what color is the most attractive to put in our corporate website? What is the most suitable name for the new product?

In my department, my boss is always wearing different color of hat when come to different situation and she also insists us to wearing the different hat at different time. If we received an e-mail from her to provide any ideas on the process flow of the department, she wants us to wear the ‘Green Hat’. When the other departments urged us to generate a report urgently without giving us a notice, she always throws the ‘Black Hat’ and reply ‘We are short of manpower and this is payroll time, please allow us a week time to come up the report’. Sometimes the new system is not working in the way that we expected, my boss will always wearing a ‘Red Hat’ and tells the vendor ‘I don’t like the report be generated like this!’

There is so much fun when I know about the Six Thinking Hat and I have learned to switch between the hats all the times. Like the mastermind of this thinking hat, Edward De Bo quotes: ‘The artificiality of the hats is their greatest value; they provide a formal and convenient way to request a certain type of thinking from oneself or others’.

Attitude or Quality?

‘The attitude of Malaysians, companies and the government doubting the quality of locally-made goods and the capabilities of local companies are among the causes for the difficulty to develop domestic industries, says former Prime Minister Tun Dr Mahathir Mohamad.’

The above statement was taken from The Star online, dated April 17, 2011.

The goods mention here actually is mean the national car, Proton.

Before we blame the attitude we must look into the actual factor, quality. Until today, we still can read many complaints about the national car form the newspaper or online discussion forums. The power window unable to lower and the engine always breaking down among the problems that face by the drivers. The product itself has such a poor quality and is normal that a person was doubted and less confident for the goods.

Instead of blame the people not have confident about the car, why not improve the quality of the car first?

So, the attitude of the people has nothing wrong. The quality is one of the factors that causes to the difficulty to develop domestic industry.

Ad-Hominem

My department just implemented a new payroll system and since then there will be a consultant from the vendor company will work together in the same office with us for about 3 months after the system go live to make sure the payroll processing is smooth.

One day during a lunch together with the team, the following conversation happen:

Consultant: Previously I work in an outsource company which the office located in Putrajaya.

I like the work very much. Now I starting miss the people and the office there.

Officemate A: Why are you resigned from that company and attached with current company now?

Consultant: Well. I am staying in Petaling Jaya and have to travel to work in Putrajaya is quite tired especially have to face the traffic jam everyday.

Officemate A: How about your work now?

Consultant: Is good. If compare to the previous company, I still prefer the working environment there.

Officemate B: How about the system? Are you using the same system?

Consultant: No. They are using different system. The previous system is easier to learn and recognized internationally.

Officemate B: How will you rate the current system now if compare to the previous one? I found it very complicated.

Consultant: The current system is good. You can generate many reports using the tools created in the system. You should learn faster so that you can get use of it.

Officemate A: Just now you say you prefer the previous company and said that system is easier to learn but now you defense the system from the current company…

From the above conversation, my officemate has a bad argument with the consultant. She used the Fallacy of Ad-hominem abusive. The consultant has no right to advice which system is good because he has compliment the system in the previous company.

Babysitter

Today, I have an argument with my husband about my children’s babysitter.

Husband: We should change the babysitter. Kak Na was not good enough plus her house is very far from here, it takes about 20 minutes to reach to her place.

Me: What do you mean not good enough?

Husband: Jasmin has fall down from her house until hospitalized. It proves that she was careless. If she able to monitor our baby closely, the incident will not happen.

Me: … (silent)

I keep silent because I have to support the change of the babysitter base on the two premises my husband mention: My babysitter not monitor closely is the caused of my baby fall down and her house is far, it takes 20 minutes to reach to her house.