What makes certain leaders excel at solving seemingly impossible problems? How do they consistently find innovative solutions while others get stuck?
Roger L. Martin’s The Opposable Mind reveals that successful leaders share a unique approach to problem-solving called integrative thinking. This mindset allows them to take opposing ideas and create breakthrough solutions by combining the best elements of each perspective.
Keep reading to discover how you can develop this powerful skill and transform your approach to decision-making.
Overview of The Opposable Mind
What is it about the most successful leaders that lets them solve problems that other people find intractable? Do they possess some innate quality that helps them chart a course through the chaos of business and politics where others have a hard time making headway? In The Opposable Mind, published in 2009, Roger L. Martin says the key to their success is integrative thinking—the ability to consider two opposing ideas and create a solution from the best parts of both.
Most business experts focus on leaders’ ability to strategically execute their plans, but Martin argues that understanding leaders’ thought processes is more valuable than simply copying what they do. Martin points out that actions that work in one context may fail in another, which is why it’s more important to understand the underlying thought process that led to those decisions in the first place. To do that, Martin interviewed successful leaders from multiple fields, and he found that while they came from diverse backgrounds, they shared a similar approach to problem-solving—one that can be taught to others.
Martin is a business researcher and strategist who served as the Dean of the University of Toronto’s Rotman School of Management from 1998 to 2013. Martin’s experience in business consulting has informed his work on strategy and leadership. His other books include When More Is Not Better, Playing to Win (coauthored with A.G. Lafley), and Creating Great Choices (co-authored with Jennifer Riel). In 2015, he won the Social Enterprise Award with Sally Osberg for their work on social entrepreneurship, and Thinkers50 recognizes him as one of the world’s most influential management experts.
In this overview, we’ll examine how Martin says successful leaders think—the beliefs they hold, the way they come up with ideas, and their ability to toggle between creative thinking and instinctive knowledge drawn from experience. We’ll then explain how to apply these skills to decision-making—such as by rejecting “either/or” dualities and by recognizing that your mental models aren’t perfect and that simplicity isn’t always ideal.
(Shortform note: Prior to Martin’s work on the subject, Graham Douglas coined the concept of integrative thinking in 1986. There is overlap in Martin’s and Douglas’s definitions—for example, both advocate considering alternative viewpoints. However, Douglas also focused on the integration of the conscious and the unconscious mind, integrating the mind and the body as a means toward imaginative problem-solving, and integrating ideas from different fields of knowledge and experience to foster innovation.)
How to Think
Aspiring leaders in today’s business world have to mentally navigate the intricacies of technology, politics, and organizational management. Martin reiterates that you can master the skills that the most effective leaders use if you’re willing to examine and adjust your thinking process. To teach integrative thinking (or mental integration), Martin introduces the three key components of effective leaders’ thought processes—a useful set of beliefs about the world (which Martin calls your “stance”), a set of mental methods for generating new ideas, and the ability to apply past experience (“knowledge”) in new ways to solve unfamiliar problems.
Martin explains that the cognitive components of integrative thinking interact and shape each other. For instance, your beliefs determine how you engage in problem-solving, the results of which will add to your knowledge. However, the process also works in reverse—your prior knowledge guides your problem-solving strategies, which in turn refine (and often reinforce) your beliefs about yourself and the world. Martin says this can either be a good or bad thing. If your beliefs are unhelpful, they’ll lead to poor problem-solving and negative experiences that fuel more poor decisions, reaffirming your toxic beliefs. A useful outlook on the world, however, can trigger a positive reward cycle of experience, so that’s where we’ll begin.
Useful Beliefs
When working through a problem that calls for an imaginative solution, your mind creates a simulation of the problem to work with—one that’s shaped by your past experience and unconscious biases. To cut through the static of your own assumptions and be truly creative, Martin argues that you have to see your mental simulation for what it is, actively look for different ways to see the problem, and consciously work through your thinking process.
We often confuse our subjective perceptions with objective reality. Martin says the first useful belief you should accept is that your personal perspective is inaccurate. The uncomfortable truth is that no two people’s views of a problem are exactly the same, and neither is 100% correct. This has been proven time and again when witnesses offer conflicting versions of the exact same events. Martin suggests that nevertheless, most people are content with their own perspective and will even defend it tooth-and-nail. If you can accept that your mental simulation of a problem is distorted, though, then you also have to accept that a superior perspective must exist if you only try to find it.
The next useful belief Martin argues in favor of is that opposing perspectives should be seen as opportunities for learning rather than conflict. Differences between mental models—such as yours and someone else’s—are natural and shouldn’t be seen as threats. Instead, consider seeing different, opposing perspectives on a problem as fuel for creativity, not necessarily as a problem to be solved. That doesn’t mean that all perspectives are equal, but they all provide potentially valuable insights into the problems you’re working on.
The last useful belief that Martin espouses is that you can “hack” your thinking process and originate better perspectives. One way Martin suggests you can do this is to work backward from results. Start by identifying an outcome you want, determine what actions might lead to that outcome, then examine what thinking process might have led to those actions. This technique can give you valuable insights into how you make decisions and what sort of factors you might normally miss. Martin says this approach is particularly useful in complex situations where the consequences of your choices aren’t immediately apparent, such as when planning your next steps.
Imaginative Reason
After establishing the useful beliefs you should adopt regarding your thought processes, Martin offers several imaginative reasoning methods that successful business leaders employ. These include forward-thinking logic, understanding the complexities of cause and effect, and investigative questions to fully explore concepts and perspectives that differ from your own.
Forward-thinking logic requires that you use reason to explore possibilities instead of certainties. Martin explains that, as opposed to more traditional reasoning methods that use pre-existing models and data to form conclusions, this technique uses logic to create new conjectures in response to information or circumstances that don’t fit existing business theories. For example, imagine that your business is about to introduce a new product that doesn’t resemble anything else in the market. You can’t do effective customer research for a product that doesn’t exist yet, but forward-thinking logic can help you explore different possible market segments your product might serve and how to best approach them.
The next thing Martin says successful leaders do is imagine cause and effect in their full complexity. Most of us think of cause and effect as a linear progression from action to result, but reality is far more complicated. For instance, the success of a product might depend on a wide range of factors, such as the price point, marketing, and time of release. Plus, successful and unsuccessful ventures often fall into feedback cycles where effects trigger causes that further amplify effects—such as when bad word-of-mouth negatively impacts customers’ perceptions of a product, which leads to even worse online reviews, and so on. Martin writes that effective leaders know that causality isn’t a simple, straight line.
Rounding out his discussion of imaginative reason, Martin argues that you should respond to opposing views with questions instead of arguments. This is the practical application of Martin’s “useful belief” that you can learn from other people’s differing perspectives. If you take the time to question others about their views and the reasons behind them, you’ll expand your perspective and perhaps discover a few of your own false assumptions. Even if you’re certain that someone else’s views are wrong, understanding why they differ from yours can lead to insights you can further explore. Having as many perspectives on the issue as possible can help you find more creative solutions to business problems.
Originality Versus Experience
Lastly, in explaining how innovative leaders think, Martin addresses the perceived dichotomy between experience and original thinking, writing that the most successful business leaders can toggle between their depth of experience and original thinking at will. While many people acknowledge the value of experience, they might also believe that those with years of work under their belts are stuck in their ways and incapable of fresh ideas. Martin insists that this isn’t the case: Meaningful experience and truly original thinking depend on and grow from each other. Experience without flexibility becomes stagnant and limiting, while original ideas with no basis in experience are unreliable and only randomly successful.
In the leaders whom Martin interviewed for his research, he found that experience acts as a springboard for innovative ideas. You gain experience through years of learning by repeated trial and error, which deepens your expertise in your field. This leads to innovation if you use your formative years to experiment, be spontaneous, and take risks. Instead of locking you into habitual behavior, this kind of experience will strengthen your capacity for original thinking and action.
How to Make Decisions
Now that we’ve elucidated the patterns of thinking that innovative leaders use, the question is how to put those skills into practice. Martin divides decision-making into three components—determining what information is important, exploring the ways that different factors relate to each other, and then merging the best aspects of different possible solutions. All the while, integrative thinkers acknowledge their perspectives’ limitations and the complexity of the problems they face.
Gather Important Information From All Sides
When faced with complex problems, necessity requires that we ignore most of the data and focus on whichever elements seem most pertinent. This selective attention shapes how we frame situations, but Martin says you must still gather data from multiple points of view. Different people arrive at different conclusions based on their particular sets of mental filters. These filters don’t just guide your judgments, but also what information you choose to ignore. For instance, sports fans often disagree on penalty calls because they disregard information that doesn’t support their preferred outcome. Therefore, when making important decisions, you have to recognize your bias and actively look for ways to negate it.
If you can see beyond your flawed perspective, Martin writes that you can hold multiple points of view at once and explore the gap between opposing ideas, leading to more innovative solutions. This may be harder than it sounds because your brain automatically defaults to the assumption that your interpretation of reality is correct, limiting your ability to consider alternate perspectives. The trick is to know the difference between reality and your mind’s filtered perception. Martin argues that the most successful leaders do this—they can, in effect, “step outside” of a problem and evaluate it from every angle at once.
Look at the Whole, Not Just the Pieces
The next thing Martin says that creative leaders do is embrace the inherent complexity of situations, resisting the urge to simplify problems to make them “easier to handle.” Simplifying issues leads to rote, half-baked solutions that aren’t likely to produce significant breakthroughs. Innovative thinkers, on the other hand, consider the wide range of cause and effect when they generate new ideas. For example, a restaurateur expanding their business to a new city may look beyond the common factors of location, marketing, and pricing to explore the region’s food culture, how people react to new businesses moving in, any seasonal habits that might affect people’s dining, and how shifting demographics might be changing the new city’s character.
One form of simplification that hinders creative thinking is specialization, which often gives someone a narrow focus that ignores the bigger picture. The solution Martin offers is to assemble a diverse team with complementary skills and perspectives to draw from. As a leader, then, you can keep the big picture of a project in mind while fostering constant interaction among team members with a variety of backgrounds. Collaboration helps prevent the tunnel vision that results from specialization, enabling you to find creative answers to business problems. Martin adds that your goal shouldn’t be to make everyone a generalist, but to combine specialists’ knowledge in ways that lead to innovative outcomes.
Reject the “Either/Or” Option
Martin says that, once innovative leaders have assembled all the different points of view that suggest a variety of potential ways to move forward, they seek solutions that embody the best of every option instead of deciding between them. For instance, the hypothetical restaurateur mentioned earlier might be deciding between opening a high-class eatery or an affordable family restaurant. Instead of choosing one option only, they might decide to merge the best aspects of both and devise a way to provide families with a high-end dining experience they can afford. Martin argues that the business world’s most successful breakthroughs come when leaders turn their backs on conventional options.
As opposed to conventional thinking, which tends to simplify problems, weed out tangential variables, and accept “good enough” solutions, Martin asserts that innovative thinking produces new possibilities and reveals the world’s limitless potential. Over time, this type of thinking can raise your aspirations—once you step away from the quick and easy path, you might discover how much more you can actually achieve. Martin writes that creative leaders and thinkers who see all points of view and nourish the best aspects of every option are the ones who are pushing society forward. If you can cultivate an “opposable mind” via integrative thinking, you too can experience its transformative power in the business world and beyond.
