Multiple perspectives for people managers

Decision making is a delicate part of a managerial career. This is true for people managers as well. Thinking is the central theme when it comes to decisions. Today’s column is all about how people managers can play six thinking roles, based on six thinking hats developed by Dr. Edward de Bono, in the early ’80s.

Dr. de Bono in his book, ‘Six Thinking Hats,’ discusses an important and powerful technique that is used to look at decisions from a number of important perspectives. This forces us to move outside our habitual thinking style, and helps to get a more rounded view of a situation.

First, let me be clear. Who is a people manager? Essentially, one who manages people. It can be an HR professional or a functional professional handling people. This is in the context where every manager has a dimension to work as a people manager.

People managers are involved in attracting, engaging developing, rewarding and retaining the most precious resource of any organisation, i.e. human resource. In this endeavour, they need to demonstrate thinking in a big way. Let’s draw parallels to the roles they should play in line with six thinking hats of Edward de Bono.

In a nutshell, I would call them six Ps, viz., prober, partner, preventer, provider, proposer and a planner.

People Manager as a Prober

When he/she wears the white hat, the role in focus is what I would like to call prober. According to de Bono, white hat pertains to facts and information. It covers facts, figures, information needs and gaps. “I think we need some white hat thinking at this point.” means “let’s drop the arguments and proposals, and look at the data collected.”

Rather than jumping into conclusions, people managers need to gather needed facts and make decisions based on facts. Sources and uses of information should be very clear in the mind of an People Manager. Take recruitment for an example. Assessing the prospective candidates involve a fair deal of information such as educational qualification, working experience, previous career highlights etc. Probing helps him/her to dig deeper before taking a decision.

People Manager as a Partner

When the people manager wears the red hat, the role in focus can be viewed as a partner. Here, I use the term partner, to identify the feelings and emotions associated. As someone near and dear, he/she uses the gut instincts more than the logic.

This covers intuition, feelings and emotions. The red hat allows the thinker to put forward an intuition without any need to justify it. “Putting on my red hat, I think this is a terrible proposal.” Usually feelings and intuition can only be introduced into a discussion if they are supported by logic. The feeling is genuine but the logic can be spurious. The red hat gives full permission to a thinker to put forward his or her feelings on the subject at the moment.

Let’s take the earlier example of recruiting a manager. He/she may have ended up short listing two candidates who are equally qualified and experienced. Where the head stops, the heart may begin. Feelings and emotions of the People Manager, truly showing his/her partnering, might

People Manager as a Preventer

As much as a people manager has to be a thinker and doer, he/she has to be a preventer as well. It has a connection of what Edward de Bono termed as a Black hat thinker. It essentially involves being cautious, in looking at the worst case scenarios, in truly playing the role of “devil’s advocate”, in preventing a disaster.

This is the hat of judgment and caution. It is not in any sense an inferior or negative hat. The black hat is used to point out why a suggestion does not fit the facts, the available experience, the system in use, or the policy that is being followed. The black hat must always be logical.

The need here is to identify barriers, hazards, risks and other negative connotations. The overall spirit should be to see that the final decision is error free or not just emotionally –laden one without value. The challenge is not to overdo it by becoming a stumbling block for success, or not to undermine it by merely ignoring obvious risks.

This is a delicate challenge for people managers. They are supposed to project a positive image oozing with optimism. Yet, becoming cautious, in clearly identifying the risks involved in a decision is the pragmatic way forward.

Let’s take an example from industrial relations. A people manager has to deal with a tricky labour union, which is opportunistic in changing their stance to suit to ongoing political trends. As much as the people manager demonstrates care and cooperation, he/she need to be cautious in looking at variety of possible scenarios so that the organisation is not be vulnerable in future.

People Manager as a Provider

This is the most demanded role, linking with Edward de Bono’s yellow hat. It is all about being positive and optimistic. Some authors have called it as logical positive, in answering why something will work and why it will offer benefits. It can be used in looking forward to the results of some proposed action, but can also be used to find something of value in what has already happened.

As a provider of constructive ideas on benefits of a particular course of action, the People Manager can influence a team decision making. Such an approach might have a potential conflict with the black hat thinking. Eventually, what would come out is a balanced decision not tilting to any of the sides.

There are situations where the context is bleak and participants are depressed resulting in an inefficient process of decision making. People manager can be the cheer leader in getting everyone engaged to reach a meaningful decision.

People Manager as a Proposer

This can be regarded as the role of our times. As a proposer, a People Manager would wear a green hat, in generating new ideas. It involves identifying new possibilities. It is the hat of creativity, alternatives, proposals, what is interesting, provocations and changes.

Unleashing of creativity is an absolute must with regard to complex decisions that do not have text-book solutions. As the competition intensifies, human creativity increasingly emerges as the cutting edge, resulting in innovative products and services.

It is also the hat of novel thoughts. It is based around the idea of provocation and thinking for the sake of identifying new possibilities. Things are said for the sake of seeing what they might mean, rather than to form a judgment. This is often carried out on black hat statements in order to identify how to get past the barriers or failings identified there (green on black thinking). Green hat thinking covers the full spectrum of creativity and it can take many forms.

People Manager has to propose a variety of options, related to different scenarios, with clarity in mind on the promises and pitfalls of each of such options. Take a case of talent hunt for an example. You have to find novel ways of filling your existing vacancies with competent people. Allowing potential employees to use social computing tools such as face book or linked-in to get familiar with the organisation is one such example.

People Manager as a Planner

This occurs when a People Manager wears the blue hat. It is all about looking at the big picture. This is the overview or process control hat. It looks not at the subject itself but at the ‘thinking’ about the subject. “Putting on my blue hat, I feel we should do some more “green hat” thinking at this point.” This can be a possible comment of a participant.

It helps the People Manager to get connected to the ‘broader canvass”. If he/she is leading a decision making discussion, it is an opportunity to be the process-controller as well, in truly demonstrating the essence of planning. He/she may invite the other participants to wear the other caps so that the discussion is an enriching and insightful one, leading to a decision with higher accuracy.

From Six Ps to one Big P

Having discussed the six Ps for People Managers in becoming better thinkers, the big P cannot be ignored. It is all about performance, ranging from institutional level to an individual level. People Managers should use the six thinking hats in playing the corresponding roles in order to attain higher level of organisational performance.

Last week, I sat in a board of a development bank, to decide whether to go ahead or not with regard to the new head office building. It was a classic example how multiple perspectives expressed by different directors, amply justifying the practical applications of the six hat thinking. It is not just a flash in the pan.

Particularly, People Managers have plenty of opportunities to do so, with regard to pressing issues. Sri Lankan workplaces require such contributions from People Managers to move them forward with “humane results”.

(Dr. Ajantha Dharmasiri is a learner, teacher, trainer, researcher, writer and a thinker in the areas of Human Resource Management and Organisational Behaviour. He can be reached on [email protected].)