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I can’t remember the last time I read a business book where I was hungry for more. That was the case with Roger Martin’s ’07 book, The Opposable Mind. This is one that I’ll propose for our upcoming Executive Book series – it’s a “must read” for all business consultants, executives or managers who want to get to the true heart of problem-solving.
Martin, who is the Dean at the University of Toronto’s innovative Rotman Business School, debunks conventional, linear thinking conducted by many business practitioners. Instead, he advocates an unconventional, seemingly paradoxical approach to solving problems known as integrative thinking. He maintains that successful leaders excel at integrative thinking.
According to Martin, integrative thinkers view problems “holistically”while embracing the tension between competing ideas. Integrative thinkers actually “hold two conflict ideas in constructive, almost dialectic tension.” He argues that many people find such tension uncomfortable, but not integrative thinkers. In fact, their capacity to work in this space leads to creative solutions to complex problems.
Martin cites numerous examples of integrative thinkers and their successes including Meg Whitman of eBay, Victoria Hale of the Institute for One World Health, and Nanden Nilekani of Infosys.
Martin admits that shifting to integrative thinking isn’t easy. But, he’s convinced that practioners can vastly improve their capacity for integrative thinking and, by doing so, can increase their effectiveness as problem-solvers.
His prescriptions include:
• Look at problems holistically, with consideration to how various parts fit together, rather than analyzing the parts in isolation.
• Consider multiple causes, as well as possible nonlinear relationships between cause and effect, rather than thinking of terms of simple linear relationships between a single cause and effect.
• Embrace the tension between opposing ideas and use that conflict to generate creative new alternatives rather than making simple either-or decisions.
Martin walks us through his argument with great clarity and elegance. This was an informative and highly pleasurable read…
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Tags: integrative thinking, opposable mind, roger martin, rotman
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