The uprisings in the Arab world are capturing worldwide attention not only because we’re witnessing history in the making, but because the changes are bound to affect us all. We live in a world that’s interconnected in ways that were hard to fathom only a few years ago. Interconnectedness is creating new challenges with social implications that traditional institutions and leaders aren’t equipped to handle.

The clashes across the Middle East and North Africa are only the latest example of unforeseen events that reverberate across regional boundaries. Before that, the sub-prime mortgage crisis in the U.S. sparked a deep global recession that affected more sectors than anything economists had seen before. As some economies began recovering during the following year, Europe’s mounting debt crisis triggered  a cascade of new problems in distant economies.

Today’s challenges, geopolitical or otherwise, are more difficult to predict, understand and handle than the kinds of problems we’ve seen until recently. As the world grows more interconnected, we become more exposed to what design theorists Horst Rittel and Melvin Webber called “wicked problems” which are substantially harder to define and solve than so-called “tame” problems.

Force Majeure

Wicked problems are a major force in today’s world. Many of us working on a global stage recognize that the kinds of challenges we face now are wicked by nature. Tackling them requires greater creativity and cooperation with our peers. Solving wicked problems is the defining challenge of our age.

Wicked problems are vexing because they have multiple, interrelated causes that can’t be solved by traditional tools and methods.  They are, by definition, unique and novel.  Wicked problems occur in a social context where stakeholders tend to disagree about the underlying causes thus hampering efforts to reach an effective solution.

Wicked problems affect nearly every organization and leader today, yet many leaders honed their problem-solving skills when most issues could be readily circumscribed and methodically solved.

Roger Martin observes, “There was a time when leaders shared a sense that the problems they faced could be managed through the application of well-known rules and linear logic.  Those days are gone.  Most of today’s important problems have a significant wicked component, making progress impossible if we persist in applying inappropriate methods and tools to them.”

Lean-software developer Mary Poppendieck puts it another way:  “The easy problems have been solved.  Designing systems is difficult because there is no consensus on what the problems are, let alone how to solve them.”

Wicked problems demand new ways of collaborating. Wicked problem-solvers must first seek to gain a common understanding with their counterparts. The new skills required include self-reflection, consensus-building and mobilizing others. My hunch is that relational competencies will be more critical measures of future leaders.

“Wicked problems call for us to harness all the creativity and knowledge at our disposal,” says Martin.  “Whether we choose to fight one another or work together to confront threats and opportunities, our fate and common wealth are in our hands.”

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Want more?

Check out the University of Toronto Rotman School’s Rotman Magazine, WINTER 2009, “Wicked Problems” including a feature by John Camillus (“Strategy as a Wicked Problem”) and an interview with Jeff Conklin of CogNexus.  Conklin identifies six characteristics of wicked problems:

1. The problem is not understood until after the formulation of a solution
2. Wicked problems have no “stopping rule”
3. Solutions to wicked problems are not right or wrong
4. Every wicked problem is essentially novel and unique
5. Every solution to a wicked problem is a “one shot operation”
6. Wicked problems have no given alternative solutions

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Martin defines integrative thinking as the ability to deal with the tensions of competing solutions to a problem. Instead of choosing one solution at the expense of the other, the practioner generates a solution integrates both solutions.

In his ’07 book, The Opposable Mind, Martin argues that integrative thinking is superior to conventional thinking which consists of “accpeting unattractive and unpleasant tradeoffs”.

This concept is relevant to how government and business leaders ought to approach the financial crisis.  Instead of deciding between implementing tax cuts or a stimulus package – seemingly contradictory models – why not try both?  Instead of businesses merely cutting operating costs, why not implement initatives that preserve high margin business increase customer retention and profit per customer.

Martin considers these issues in an October 8  interview. He applies integrative thinking to the vexing challenges associated with the economic crisis affecting today’s leaders.

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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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