Virgin Brand Values - aide memoire

based on information available on the group's website

The Virgin brand revolves around delivering 
- value pricing, high quality, fun, great customer service and innovation 
whilst at the same time being 
- authentic, people-oriented and hip 
and associated with 
- Virgin founder Sir Richard Branson and his personal reputation.

Virgin Group Brand Values

Fun = enjoyment and humour, not offensive and incompetent

Value for Money = simple, not cheap

Quality = attention to detail, not expensive for the sake of it

Innovation = challenging convention, not different for the sake of being different

Competitive Challenge = responding to consumer needs, not being irrelevant

Brilliant Customer Service = empowered, not unprofessional people

sounds great - what can I do to help...

Meeting Essentials - good practice

PLAN
Make sure your meeting has
- a purpose and is necessary
- the right people - who need to be there
- an agenda in advance - with clear timings including the start and end times++
- people with clear roles for chairing, note taking and time keeping

DO
Meetings must
- start on time
- have action points recorded and distributed promptly
- stop when the purpose is achieved
- lead to positive, timely action and outcomes

CHECK and ACT
Individually we can all help :
- Arrive 5 mins early
- Be committed and involved – use our values
- Keep the meeting on topic – all other things are offline
- Leave the room as you would expect to find it

Learning - chinese proverb

"Tell me and I'll forget;

show me and I may remember;

involve me and I'll understand."

Alternative ....in terms of Personal Learning Journals

I hear and I forget

I see and I remember

I write and I understand

Humphrey Walters - other quotes

'Think in ink'
Safety, Happy, Fast
Crisis team focus challenge and motivation 'look for the gap in the waves' -the way ahead

Leadership is about
- game of increments
- ruthless simplicity
- no dumb ideas

Management need to
- look after resources
- give hope
- show the way ahead; examples crack in the ice, waves
- think outcomes
- plan 'decompression' (post key challenge/success) - model it

Fear...
- is only temporary
- if you give in - it will last for ever

Individuals in a team will make the difference
- thinking correctly under pressure
- goodbye to the normals

Humphrey Walters - Building winning teams // followers' duties

Dream a lot – if you dream a lot, opportunities will pop out of the woodwork.
Don’t tell people that it is easy when it is not, say "It gets easy – but it’s tough to start with."

winner's code

• punctuality - be 15 mins early land, 5 mins early sea
• empathy
• 'scuttlebutt' - don’t gossip, tell them straight
• find heroes and celebrate
• Leave each problem on the ‘wave behind’ – when you have faced a challenge, let it go
• Winning is about doing 100 things 1% better, not 1 thing 100% better.

To build a better organisation, you need

• a sense of excitement
• a sense of belonging
• a sense of performance
• a sense of worth & value

If, an inspirational poem by Rudyard Kipling
Humphrey Walters used this to celebrate the English Rugby team winning the 2003 Rugby World Cup.

If you can keep your head when all about you
Are losing theirs and blaming it on you,
If you can trust yourself when all men doubt you,
But make allowance for their doubting too;

If you can wait and not be tired by waiting,
Or being lied about, don’t deal in lies,
Or being hated, don’t give way to hating,
And yet don’t look too good, nor talk too wise:

If you can dream - and not make dreams your master,
If you can think - and not make thoughts your aim;
If you can meet with Triumph and Disaster
And treat those two impostors just the same;

If you can bear to hear the truth you’ve spoken
Twisted by knaves to make a trap for fools,
Or watch the things you gave your life to, broken,
And stoop and build ‘em up with worn-out tools:

If you can make one heap of all your winnings
And risk it all on one turn of pitch-and-toss,
And lose, and start again at your beginnings
And never breath a word about your loss;

If you can force your heart and nerve and sinew
To serve your turn long after they are gone,
And so hold on when there is nothing in you
Except the Will which says to them:

"Hold on!"If you can talk with crowds and keep your virtue,
Or walk with kings - nor lose the common touch,
If neither foes nor loving friends can hurt you,
If all men count with you, but none too much;

If you can fill the unforgiving minute
With sixty seconds’ worth of distance run,
Yours is the Earth and everything that’s in it,
And - which is more - you’ll be a Man, my son!

Humphrey was speaking at annual conference. He specialises in developing high performing teams and told about his experience on the 1996-7 BT Round the World Yacht Race and working with the English Rugby team until in 2003 it won the rugby World Cup. http://www.humphreywalters.com/

Responsibility, attitude and accountability

copyright Pearce Innovations, LLC. Paper given by Marc Pearce Vice President.... continued from previous post.

Quality and safety also an issue

Building projects, by their dynamic nature, involve other responsibilities — namely quality and safety — that deserve similar attention. As managers, we should define specific goals for these areas too. Of course, each supervisor may have different requirements, depending on his(her) trade, but it's still important to establish guidelines. Quality success, for instance, may be defined as:

• Installation meets specification.
• Rework is less than one percent
• Zero compliance items remain at the completion of an activity.

As for safety, it is, and should be, one of the highest priorities for builders today. Injuries can devastate a project in both money and morale, not to mention taint the reputation of the company. Supervisors and their subordinates make the best safety proponents on any construction project. You can empower them by defining aggressive requirements involving everyone. Safety success might include:

• Four safety audits performed each week by every front line supervisor
• Periodic examination by project and upper managers of safety practices being implemented
• Random interviews with subordinates by managers to determine the perceived attitudes toward safety of their supervisors

Attitude Is Key

Schedule, cost, quality and safety are fairly easy to define and, if managed professionally, will net a satisfactory project. But there's another "softer," more elusive issue that can have a profound impact on the project too. Attitude, in my opinion, is everything. It involves managers, supervisors and subordinates. It permeates all aspects of the project and site: In planning the work, in delivering a quality product, in training for safety, and in interacting with both internal and external clients. As managers, we usually know the type of attitude we want to see in others. The trick is to convey that message to our supervisors. Attitude success might include:

• Cooperation – readily helps subordinates and other front line Supervisors
• Communication – readily and accurately shares information with subordinates, peers and managers
• Teamwork – readily implements team and morale building activities or functions.

But how do we actually measure attitude since it involves perception? It's really quite easy once you've defined what's acceptable and what's not acceptable. You simply score each person, based on the collective observations of managers, peers and subordinates. I have to admit, measuring attitude can yield a few surprises. On one or two occasions, my perception of a particular supervisor has been considerably different than that of their subordinates.

But the underlying message is that by talking to others you gain valuable insight. For instance, some of the most experienced supervisors can be some of the worst communicators. Yet by learning that, you can provide specific training so that a supervisor not only improves his(her) skills but takes one step closer to success.

Accountability Is Essential

As a manager, you'll probably have other objectives or targets important to your organisation that you'll want to measure. After defining all the elements of a supervisor's success, you need to periodically monitor his(her) performance. Gathering, reporting and analyzing data is critical in measuring an individual's progress. But you'll need to determine how, and with what frequency, that information is collected and shared.

There is any number of measuring sticks to score a person's performance. It can be as simple as checking a "yes" or "no," indicating achievement of a specific target or marking a scale from one to five – or zero to 100 percent.

Whatever the gauge, by formally grading supervisory performance, managers can pinpoint accurately what and where attention is needed. For example, a supervisor who routinely scores low on safety may be putting others at high risk for an incident. Or a supervisor who seems to have a substantial rework rate could be experiencing outside influences – such as design or material deficiencies – that negatively affect performance. Low scores will trigger management to act. Periodically reviewing and adjusting each supervisor's goals, as predicated by the project, has to be part of the process. Objectives may be different, for instance, during the design-versus construction phases. A word to the wise: Invite front line supervisors to be part of the goal-setting and evaluation process.

You'll have instant feedback on how the program is playing – and a perfect backdrop for getting supervisors to buy-in. What's important is to focus attention where it's needed with laser-type accuracy instead of a shotgun approach.

Recognise and Reward

Managers are sometimes quick to discipline, but slow to recognise. But the suggestions enumerated here should help you identify those supervisors who are excelling within your organisation and, more important, merit your praise.

Supervisors who are successful in meeting their goals deserve to be rewarded, even if it's just a kind word. Too often, however, I think we ignore the obvious: Recognition, given in front of peers, goes a long way in lifting a team's spirit and improving morale.

Upper management should also encourage successful supervisors to acknowledge subordinates who've contributed positively to the team effort. Rewards don't need to be elaborate or expensive. Gift certificates or a catered lunch will suffice. The idea is just to motivate others by acknowledging "job well done."

You might be surprised at the spin-offs. Recognition will foster an innovative environment where camaraderie and even friendly competition helps everyone meet overall objectives.

The bottomline? Organisations that help supervisors be successful – and recognise them in the process – can expect measurable increases in performance and efficiency.

Pearce Innovations • www.pearceinnovations.com •

Empowerment and Accountability of Front Line Supervisors Improves Construction Performance

Historical Perspective

Construction projects are, by their very nature, dynamic environments, full of many variables. One day it's necessary to spray water to keep down the dust; the next day it's necessary to pump water to control the mud. Determining performance amidst such constant change is challenging at best. But the situation is more tenuous because our industry doesn't measure its front-line supervisors nearly as much as it tracks schedules, costs or safety. Yet these are the very people who have direct contact with hands-on personnel. Because they can influence performance and efficiency daily, their role should be encouraged, tracked, measured and rewarded. But how? Begin by retooling attitudes of the past. Gone are the days when a project boss can run his(her) site by simply invoking "It's my way or the highway" or "We've always done it that way" or even "If it's not broke, don't fix it." Gone also are the days when the solution to improving productivity and efficiency is simply pushing people to work harder. Managers have learned that putting the muscle to individuals can cause a backlash. Rather than raising productivity, it leads to quality problems and safety issues, not to mention absenteeism and low morale.

Today, savvy upper managers build on traditional productivity measures by motivating their front line supervisors to take responsibility for project outcomes. To do so, they create an environment in which supervisors are both informed and armed with:

Written descriptions of their responsibilities

• Access to planned-versus-actual data specific to their team's tasks
• Clear and measurable goals for success
• Frequent feedback on performance
• Continued training and rewards for their efforts —and those of the team

Communication is key.

Regardless of their titles, most supervisors want to do a good job. Yet they often ask questions for which they should know the answers. During my 18-year stint as a construction project manager, I was constantly amazed at the time I spent responding to my supervisors' queries: "When is 'X' scheduled to be finished?" "What is the equipment budget for 'Y'?" But I came to realise that as managers, we were often not effective in closing the information loop. Our front line supervisors sometimes didn't know or understand what was expected of them, even though we thought we had the items covered in the weekly schedule or budget report.

We have every fiscal reason to make things clear since supervisors routinely have direct weekly responsibility over thousands of pounds in labour, equipment and project material costs. So motivating subordinates to work smarter, not just harder, can be a positive step in improving the bottom-line.

Finding the holes; targeting changes

Moving forward starts with an honest evaluation of the organisation for ways to improve it. Your corporate soul-searching will no doubt lead to changes for both upper managers and front line supervisors. But you want to begin by asking people at every managerial level some trigger questions to identify what might be missing.

1. Do we have an effective communication tool to share information with our front line supervisors? Is that sharing done in a timely fashion?
2. Are we getting the right information concerning cost, scheduling, materials and effort hours to supervisors to help them with day-to-day decision-making?
3. Do we clearly define the expectations of our front line supervisors? Do they understand those expectations?
4. Do we have a program in place to measure accountability of our front line supervisors?
5. Do our front line supervisors understand the fundamentals of cost management?
6. Does our organisation have an effective change management system in place? Have our front line supervisors been instructed in the "do's" and "don'ts" of that system?
7. Do we have a process in place to identify where front line supervisors need training?
8. Do we allow, even encourage, our front line supervisors to implement innovative ideas?
9. Do we have a mechanism or forum in place to implement those ideas in other projects or areas? Does your organisation have a best practice data source?
10. Do we have a program for recognising and rewarding success?

Answering "no" to any of the above questions should raise red flags since they cover the components necessary for breakthrough success.

Information Empowers

To create any win, you want to ensure that each supervisor has accurate and timely information — along with clearly defined goals — to effectively manage subordinates.

Every supervisor should understand his(her) specific activities — and the labour and cost implications of them. As managers, we tend to keep detailed cost information close to the vest. But such data can be useful in making day-to-day work decisions, not to mention, improving efficiency and performance. The important thing is to package goals in relation to the factors most important to the organisation:

Cost , schedule, safety, quality and attitude.

For example, your schedule should spell out each task clearly so that front line supervisors know their assigned responsibilities and can't fall back on that old canard, "that's not mine to do." The budget for each task needs to include both effort-hours and labour cost, details which can be very valuable to supervisors in making daily decisions.

Once you've established each supervisor's responsibilities, the next step is to identify targets that will define this individual's success. That can be done in various ways. You may define success, for instance, as:

• Completing an activity before the actual due date
• Working activities in their planned sequence
• Achieving an actual progress percentage that's greater than the plan

In looking at "budget vs. actual effort-hours and costs," you also may define success as:

• Keeping construction equipment rental at 10 percent under budget
• Keeping actual effort-hours at five percent below budget
• Managing change so that cost of it is recovered with no impact to schedule.

But merely outlining budgetary and labour goals for supervisors is only part of the success equation. Every definition has to be backed-up by a management team that's both supportive and continuously involved. If we're to see positive results, we need to encourage supervisors to discuss schedules and budgets with subordinates and, as a team, look for innovative ways to save time and money.

Pearce Innovations • www.pearceinnovations.com •

Successful company leaders empower their people to execute their company’s mission and then hold them accountable to do so

That’s the essence of a new book titled, “Vital Factors: The Secret to Transforming Your Business - And Your Life.” The book’s co-author Lee Froschheiser is the chief executive officer and president of Management Action Programs (MAP) Inc. in Sherman Oaks, Calif.
Froschheiser was recently interviewed over the phone by SBT executive editor Steve Jagler.

SBT: One of the lines in your book is a reference about how effective leaders don’t spend most of their time telling people what to do. Instead, they create a system that empowers people to understand and execute the company’s mission statement. Is that a core principle of your book – empowering people and then holding them accountable?
Froschheiser: “The essence is to get people to understand what the right things to work on are, and empower them and train them and coach them. And when I give my speech in Milwaukee, I’m going to talk about empowerment, and what goes into empowerment. And then, you’re right. You’ve got to hold people accountable.

“I can go into companies and ask employees, ‘Do you feel empowered?’ And a lot of times, they’ll say, ‘No, I don’t feel empowered.’ As a leader, empowerment doesn’t mean they (employees) get to run amuck. As a leader, empowerment is that you train and develop and they understand that this is what I need to work on, and I’m going to be held accountable on this. It takes a lot of energy to tell people what to be doing all the time.

“I like to use the analogy of a buffalo herd and a gaggle of geese. I go fly-fishing up in Montana all the time, right in the heart of Yellowstone National Park, and there’s always buffalo herds there. If you ever watch a buffalo herd, a buffalo herd truly does have one lead buffalo. Where the lead buffalo goes, that’s where the herd goes. That’s why the buffalo hunters could wipe out so many buffaloes. They’d find the lead buffalo, they’d shoot it, and the rest of them would all stand around, waiting for the lead buffalo to move. And what happens in companies when the leader is always telling people what to do, is you become a buffalo herd. When the leader’s not there, guess what? Nothing happens. What you really want is an organization where there’s empowerment, and you become that gaggle of geese, where, when the lead goose gets tired and falls back, the next one takes the lead. And you don’t have that in an organization if you don’t have empowerment. So, you’re right on.”

Workshop rules

Housing Prime Contract Charter

Defence Estates, on behalf of the Secretary of State for Defence, awarded the Housing Prime Contract to MODern Housing Solutions on 14th November 2005. In approaching the delivery of this contract in a spirit of partnering, and being committed to excellence in its delivery, Defence Estates and MODern Housing Solutions agree to adopt the following principles, which are enshrined in this Charter:

Our Service Families

We aspire to develop a best in class service, aimed at minimising breakdowns and optimising responsiveness to the occupants of Services Families Accommodation. In developing our relationship, we will measure all our activities against their potential to improve the service to our customers. We will confirm this alignment through regular surveys and consultation with representative bodies.

Health and Safety

We shall employ best safe working practice and adopt a Target Zero policy to accidents, incidents and occupational illness, as a means of ensuring that we provide a safe working environment for employees and customers alike.

Collaboration

We will actively collaborate in all aspects of the execution of the contract and we will share responsibility for the resolution of differences and issues in accordance with the procedures prescribed within the Housing Prime Contract. We jointly commit to developing a fully integrated delivery structure, aimed at eliminating unnecessary bureaucracy and optimising the efficiency of the maintenance of the SFA estate.

Trust

We will work together in mutual openness to promote trust, through eliminating any potential for fraud in our joint working. We agree to deal fairly, honestly, and openly at all times, in order to achieve quality of service, and value for money.

Honesty

We agree to face up to potential difficulties, whether within our respective organisations or in our shared working relationship, and to seek resolution of such difficulties openly, speedily and objectively.

Exchange of Information and Mutual Assistance

We agree to share all information pertinent to the Housing Prime Contract and the maintenance of the MOD SFA, and to work together to ensure our information systems supply fit for purpose information. We agree to provide constructive assistance and mutual support in solving problems to the benefit of the specified objectives of the contract.

Continuous Improvement

We shall work together to identify areas for improvement and ensure that lessons learned are incorporated into joint working practices.

and we agree to share the following Vision:

Jointly to provide best in class housing maintenance for Service families.

Culture Change

In order to set out a view on Culture Change it is necessary to define a view on both culture and change with respect to organisations.

Culture

Culture is not just defined by formal things, such as mission statements and a company hierarchy, it is also defined by “soft” factors. Gerry Johnston of Cranfield Business School classified these factors as

• Rituals and routines
• Stories and Myths
• Symbols

These factors themselves help to define how people will intuitively respond in certain situations and reflect the values of an organisation. Stated and documented Values may not reflect well those actions that people adopted particularly in stressful or unfamiliar situations unless these truly reflect the culture of the organisation. Organisational cultures are particularly difficult to change.

Another way of considering the culture of an organisation, from Schein 1997, is to conceive it as consisting of three concentric layers with Values (as above) on the outside, Beliefs in the middle (more specific and are issues which people in the organisation can surface and talk above) and Taken for Granted Assumptions at the core – sometimes referred to as Paradigms (these are the aspects of an organisation that people find difficult to identify and explain).

There is no absolute right or wrong for a corporate culture and the appropriate culture will be in part dictated by the needs of the organisation to deliver a given strategy.

Charles Handy, in Understanding Organisations (1993), characterised culture into four key types.

	characterised by
Type of culture	strategy driven by	MO (modus operandi)	suited to deliver
role culture	committees	structures and systems	efficiency repetitive tasks	WorkManager process control
task culture	teams	shared values ad hoc procedures	projects or tasks innovation	MODern Housing Solutions & Defence Estates
power culture	leaders	command	rapid response	Armed Forces
personal culture	individuals	personal creativity expert power	innovation

Change

Management is becoming increasingly focused on the question of managing change. It represents a crucial switch from viewing companies as static entities to seeing them as dynamic organisations in a constant state of flux. Learning to live with change is for some people almost counter-intuitive. Traditional managers have almost always been conservative and, by definition, abhorred change. We need to learn to love change and feel comfortable with our creative intuition – in particular we need to make compassion, harmony and trust the foundation stones of business.

The ability to change per se is an overarching business imperative to survive and succeed and culture change is no different except that it has longer time horizons and will be driven by the strategic and operational needs of an organisation.

Role in effecting and leading culture change

Background

The last 10 years of service delivery that preceded the Housing Prime Contract was characterised by 20+ contracts covering a range of geographic areas and contractual responsibilities. These contracts were performed by subsidiaries from at least 5 construction to services companies that had inherited staff from the Government’s PSA; these staff had been integrated into their parent companies’ corporate culture to a limited extent as contracts had been let for only 3-4 years and staff had been ‘TUPE’d’ from one company to another during the decade. In addition the split of responsibilities between Establishment Works Consultants (EWC), focused on ‘white collar’ compliance and inspections, and Works Service Managers (WSM), focused on enabling delivery and administration of subcontract arrangements, has led to a divergence of values and cultures.

In addition to this we to need consider the interaction of cultures of Defence Estates, the armed forces hierarchy and the Service families themselves.

MODern Housing Solutions’ Values

MODern Housing Solutions has selected 5 key Values to help deliver the new organisation’s strategy and objectives. These are

Openness and Collaboration; by developing our staff and creating an open, rewarding place to work where success is the norm, best practice and lessons learned are shared and where challenge is welcomed.

Mutual Dependency; by collaboration to achieve each others objectives, working with customers and suppliers so that risks and rewards are shared.

Professional, Innovative Delivery; getting it right first time, smarter, better and faster. Constantly searching for and implementing fresh approaches to delivery, best practice in fulfilling our customer’s needs.

Sustainable, profitable growth; Striving for efficiencies in processes and methods, which increase the quality of our service to customers.

These Values do not entail proscriptive procedures in all cases but provide our staff with the blueprint that enables them to know how to behave and perform services in cases where procedures are not written down (those Taken for Granted Assumptions as set out above). The Values are there to drive to the core of changing the organisation’s culture but they need sound training and awareness, strong role models and strong policing of people who are not prepared to adopt the expected norms.

Roles to effect and lead this change

The key roles are to

• lead the change management process and ensure that all our people understand that it is everything that we do will be measured by how well live to the company’s Values
• provide an excellent role model for people to understand how to behave in situations - leading by example
• tackling non-compliance of people, wherever they are in the organisation, by applying the values and then taking appropriate disciplinary action
• evangelise on the benefits of our values and culture in all our forms of communication; e.g. posters, emails, presentations & newsletters

On Integration, Consolidation, Reorganisation, etc...

"We trained hard, but it seemed that every time we were beginning to form up into teams, we would be reorganised. I was to learn later in life that we tend to meet any new situation by reorganising, and a wonderful method it can be for creating the illusion of progress while producing confusion, inefficiency, and demoralisation."
Caius Petronius, AD 66

Morale and what employees want

'When dealing with people, remember you are not dealing with creatures of logic, but with creatures of emotions, creatures bristled with prejudice and motivated by pride and vanity.' Dale Carnegie quote

A leader's day-to-day actions and attitudes are critical. When a leader is fair, professional and optimistic, morale in the unit will be good. Good morale leads to success, and success leads to better morale.

The "short course" in understanding what employees really work for:
1. appreciation of the work they do
2. being part of something - belonging
3. Being respected and understood
4. Job security
5. Good wages
6. Interesting work
7. Personal growth and/or promotions
8. Good working conditions
9. Emotional security and stability
10. A sense of personal power
In truth when you stop and think they are the same expectation of what you and I want from work.

Dwight Eisenhower. 'Leadership is the art of getting somebody else to do something you want done; because he wants to do it.'

steer clear of the past lane

originally an extract from http://money.telegraph.co.uk/money/main.jhtml?xml=/money/2005/09/15/ccfifty15.xml(Filed: 15/09/2005) Link no longer available


This week: David Varney, HM Revenue & Customs executive chairman

build up a diverse team

originally an extract from http://money.telegraph.co.uk/money/main.jhtml?xml=/money/2005/10/20/ccfifty20.xml (Filed: 20/10/2005). Link no longer available


Paul Skinner, chairman of Rio Tinto
It was pretty late in my life as a business leader and manager that I began to realise just how important investing in people is.

Workshop team work image set

3 minute talk (...only three minutes for your speech - then use this aide memoire)

Using the following check-list you can do a three minute talk or speech on a any topic 

without any real preparation or notes

• Go back in time 
• History of
• Types, uses
• Cycles, Seasons & Patterns
• Visual Picture

People often recommend only having three topics or themes as that is what most people can typically remember and

- past, present and future are therefore the usual stalwart to frame a talk around - taking the above as a guide this can be far more imaginative. 

• Past /go back in time, for example in the case of an apple, could be anything from Adam and Eve to your childhood or just last summer

Try it out with

• apple
• moon

• potato

• your best friend
• you
• your best-man or bridesmaid's speech

It is fascinating what you'll have to cut out of only three minutes

De Bono Hats

De Bono Hats : How to Use the Tool:
You can use Six Thinking Hats in meetings or on your own. In meetings it has the benefit of blocking the confrontations that happen when people with different thinking styles discuss the same problem.

Each 'Thinking Hat' is a different style of thinking. These are explained below:
  White Hat  : With this thinking hat you focus on the data available. Look at the information you have, and see what you can learn from it. Look for gaps in your knowledge, and either try to fill them or take account of them.
This is where you analyse past trends, and try to extrapolate from historical data.

 Red Hat : 'Wearing' the red hat, you look at problems using intuition, gut reaction, and emotion. Also try to think how other people will react emotionally. Try to understand the responses of people who do not fully know your reasoning.

 Black Hat : Using black hat thinking, look at all the bad points of the decision. Look at it cautiously and defensively. Try to see why it might not work. This is important because it highlights the weak points in a plan. It allows you to eliminate them, alter them, or prepare contingency plans to counter them.
Black Hat thinking helps to make your plans 'tougher' and more resilient. It can also help you to spot fatal flaws and risks before you embark on a course of action. Black Hat thinking is one of the real benefits of this technique, as many successful people get so used to thinking positively that often they cannot see problems in advance. This leaves them under-prepared for difficulties.

 Yellow Hat : The yellow hat helps you to think positively. It is the optimistic viewpoint that helps you to see all the benefits of the decision and the value in it. Yellow Hat thinking helps you to keep going when everything looks gloomy and difficult.

 Green Hat : The Green Hat stands for creativity. This is where you can develop creative solutions to a problem. It is a freewheeling way of thinking, in which there is little criticism of ideas. A whole range of creativity tools can help you here.

 Blue Hat : The Blue Hat stands for process control. This is the hat worn by people chairing meetings. When running into difficulties because ideas are running dry, they may direct activity into Green Hat thinking. When contingency plans are needed, they will ask for Black Hat thinking, etc.

A variant of this technique is to look at problems from the point of view of different professionals (e.g. doctors, architects, sales directors, etc.) or different customers.