The Opposable Mind: How Successful Leaders Win Through Integrative Thinking (Hardcover)

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Key Phrases: opposable mind, integrative thinking capacity, radial metaphor, The Opposable Mind, Four Seasons, Red Hat (more...)

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

In this primer on the problem-solving power of "integrative thinking," Martin draws on more than 50 management success stories, including the masterminds behind The Four Seasons, Proctor & Gamble and eBay, to demonstrate how, like the opposable thumb, the "opposable mind"-Martin's term for the human brain's ability "to hold two conflicting ideas in constructive tension"-is an intellectually advantageous evolutionary leap through which decision-makers can synthesize "new and superior ideas." Using this strategy, Martin focuses on what leaders think, rather than what they do. Among anecdotes and examples steering readers to change their thinking about thinking, Martin gives readers specific strategies for understanding their own "personal knowledge system" (by parsing inherent qualities of "stance," "tools" and "experience"), as well as for taking advantage of the "richest source of new insight into a problem," the "opposing model." Each of the eight chapters is well organized, making for a clear and cumulative read. Part inspiration, part logic lesson, this title will provide fresh perspective for anyone prepared to dust off her thinking cap.
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Review

...compelling...the thesis that fresh thought processes are required to deal with the world s contradictions and complexities rings true. --The Financial Times, December 19, 2007

Martin makes a compelling argument for a paradoxical approach to problem-solving. --BusinessWeek, November 26, 2007

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 224 pages
• Publisher: Harvard Business School Press; 1 edition (December 4, 2007)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1422118924
• ISBN-13: 978-1422118924
• Product Dimensions: 8.3 x 5.6 x 1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 13.4 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (21 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #31,942 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

37 of 41 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars The Power of Integrative Thinking, December 28, 2007

By	Robert Morris (Dallas, Texas) - See all my reviews (TOP 50 REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)

As I began to read this brilliant book, I was reminded of what Doris Kearns reveals about Abraham Lincoln in Team of Rivals. Specifically, that following his election as President in 1860, Lincoln assembled a cabinet whose members included several of his strongest political opponents: Edwin M. Stanton as Secretary of War (who had called Lincoln a "long armed Ape"), William H. Seward as Secretary of State (who was preparing his acceptance speech when Lincoln was nominated), Salmon P. Chase as Secretary of the Treasury (who considered Lincoln in all respects his inferior), and Edward Bates as Attorney General who viewed Lincoln as a well-meaning but incompetent administrator but later described him as "very near being a perfect man."

Presumably Roger Martin agrees with me that Lincoln possessed what Martin views as "the predisposition and the capacity to hold two [or more] diametrically opposed ideas" in his head and then "without panicking or simply settling for one alternative or the other," was able to "produce a synthesis that is superior to either opposing idea." Throughout his presidency, Lincoln frequently demonstrated integrative thinking, a "discipline of consideration and synthesis [that] is the hallmark of exceptional businesses [as well as of democratic governments] and those who lead them."

The great leaders whom Martin discusses (e.g. Martha Graham, George F. Kennan, Isadore Sharp, A.G. Lafley, Lee-Chin, and Bob Young) developed a capacity to consider what Thomas C. Chamberlain characterizes as "multiple working hypotheses" when required to make especially complicated decisions. Like Lincoln, they did not merely tolerate contradictory points of view, they encouraged them. Only in this way could they and their associates "face constructively the tension of opposing ideas and, instead of choosing one at the expense of the other, generate a creative resolution of the tension [whatever its causes may be] in the form of a new idea that contains elements of the opposing ideas but is superior to each."

This process of consideration is based on a quite different model than the more commonly employed scientific method based on, as Martin explains, the working hypothesis that is used "to test the validity of a single explanatory concept through trial and error and experimentation." He rigorously examines the process of integrative thinking in terms of four constituent parts: salience, causality, architecture, and resolution. He devotes a separate chapter to each, citing dozens of real-world examples, and then (in Chapter 5), he introduces a framework within which his reader can also develop integrative thinking capacity.

For me, some of the most interesting and most valuable material is provided in Chapter 7 as Martin explains how integrative thinkers "connect the dots." He cites Taddy Blecher (co-founder of CIDA City Campus, an innovative South African university) as one example. I think the details are best revealed within their context. Suffice to say now that for Blecher, "existing models are to his mind just models, each with something useful to offer." However, his objective was to find a better model of post-secondary education and Martin examines Blecher's use of "two of the three most powerful tools at the disposal of integrative thinkers," generative reasoning and causal modeling, to achieve that objective. He also discusses a third tool, assertive inquiry, and offers aspiring integrative thinkers a few lessons along the way.

In the next and final chapter, Martin suggests that "mastery without originality becomes rote" whereas "originality without mastery is flaky if not entirely random." Successful leaders integrate both while strengthening their skills and nurturing their imagination. They realize that existing models can be informative but are imperfect. They leverage opposing models, convinced that better models exist and can be found. And they "wade into complexity," allowing themselves time to be creative as they expand and nourish their personal knowledge systems. Throughout their own process of discovery, readers will be guided and informed by what Roger Martin so generously and eloquently shares in this brilliant book.

Those who share my high regard for it are urged to check out David Whyte's The Heart Aroused and Judgment co-authored by Noel Tichy and Warren Bennis as well as Howard Gardner's Five Minds for the Future, Justin Menkes's Executive Intelligence, Richard Ogle's Smart World, Albert Borgmann's Holding On to Reality, and Gary Hamel's The Future of Management.

20 of 22 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars Poor Model of Thought With No Justification, May 26, 2008

By	Stoic Athos (Chicago, IL) - See all my reviews

This books starts off by presenting the concept of the "integrative thinker", which is a person who has "the predisposition and capacity to hold two diametrically opposing ideas in their heads. And then without panicking or simply settling for one alternative or the other, they're able to produce a synthesis that is superior to either opposing idea"

If you look closely at this and read the examples in the book of the "opposable mind" in action, you'll begin to notice an assumption that we have no reason to believe is true.

The Main Assumption:
Focusing on the two (or more) alternatives leads to the third alternative chosen.

There is no reason to believe that the managers in the situations in this book developed further possibilities and alternatives from the apparent existing possibilities and alternatives. In most of the situations given as examples in the book, the managers appeared to be developing new possibilities out of a more fundamental knowledge of the situation at hand, rather than "integrating" and focusing on a few possible reactions to a situation.

I think that this book mainly serves as a red herring to those looking to develop creative thinking. Creative thinking is not linear as this book suggests. You typically don't develop the third alternative by focusing on the first two any more than you develop the second alternative by focusing on the first.

7 of 8 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars CAPTURING THE WAY LEADERS THINK AND DECIDE, December 21, 2007

By	Yvette Borcia and Gerry Stern "Stern's Manage... (Culver City, CA) - See all my reviews

Based on extensive interviews, the author focuses on the thinking skills rather than the doing skills of leaders. Integrative thinking is the topic. This types of thinking enables an exploration of opposing ideas in order to reach innovative solutions. Integrative thinking involves four steps: salience (allowing more features to be considered, introducing complexity), causality (multidimensional and nonlinear), architecture (seeing the whole while working on the parts), and resolution (creative resolution of tensions). Each of these is explored in separate chapters, along with the obstacles of simplification and specialization, forces working against integrative thinking. A framework for building integrative thinking capacity is presented involving stance, tools and experiences, and the author discusses how each can and is being taught. This is an excellent journey into effective thinking, whether by a leader or anyone engaged in enterprise. Very highly recommended.