These are reading notes on The Opposable Mind: How Successful Leaders Win Through Integrative Thinking by Roger L. Martin (Harvard Business Review Press, 2007). They are adapted from David Drysdale's Moby Diction notes.
1The thesis
The most successful leaders practice what Martin calls integrative thinking. It is a way of solving problems that accepts complexity and refuses binary, either/or choices. An integrative thinker looks at the whole problem, not at a string of separate decisions and trade-offs. They also take a broad view of what counts as salient, and that lets them find unusual, creative approaches.
2Key ideas
2.1Salience is subjective
Problem solving starts by identifying the features of the problem that matter most. We cannot weigh every facet of the challenge, so we choose what to care about. That means judging the salience of the information at hand.
Salience differs a lot between people. Martin says three things inform it: stance, tools and experience.
2.2Perspective is stance, tools and experience
Perspective on an issue forms from the interaction of three things.
- Stance is our personal domain of knowledge plus our sense of ourselves and our purpose. It frames our approach to the problem space.
- Tools include physical tools and also thinking tools: theories, processes, rules of thumb and best practices. We use them to turn a complex problem space into something easier to handle.
- Experience hones our intuition and our sensitivity to parts of a problem.
The three do not flow in a line from one to the next. They inform each other.
2.3Cognitive diversity helps teams solve problems
Alison Reynolds and David Lewis studied teams whose members process information in different ways. These cognitively diverse teams solved problems faster than homogeneous ones (Harvard Business Review, 2017). Teams and organizations that hire for "fit" may be hurting their own problem solving and creativity.
Martin adds that organizing a team around diverse specializations also widens its sense of salience, which gives a stronger, more holistic view of the problem. Specialization has a cost: it gives mastery of some mental models but filters what we see of the problem.
2.4Put mental models in conversation
A mental model helps us decide faster. It filters information and gives it narrative shape. But every model is one lens, and it buys meaning at the expense of information.
Relying on one model limits our view of the problem space. The remedy is to apply several models, and to pick models that might oppose each other. Use them to find salience or causal links in the data that no single model would show.
This is hard because we specialize over time and go back to comfortable tools. Bring in collaborators with different perspectives to close the gap. Martin calls the practice "assertive inquiry."
3Related reasoning ideas
Martin links integrative thought to abductive reasoning, and he argues that Western education favors deductive and inductive reasoning. The Mixed Methods notes cover those modes.
4What to take from it
- Before solving, ask what you are treating as important and why.
- Hire and staff for varied ways of thinking, not for similarity.
- Use two or more mental models on the same problem, and choose ones that disagree.
- Invite someone with a different stance to question your model.
5Sources
- Martin, Roger L. The Opposable Mind: How Successful Leaders Win Through Integrative Thinking. Harvard Business Review Press, 2007.
- Reynolds, Alison, and David Lewis. "Teams Solve Problems Faster When They're More Cognitively Diverse." Harvard Business Review, March 30, 2017.
Adapted from David Drysdale's Moby Diction notes.