The Opposable Mind

Posted by Rich Crowley in books, leadership, thinking

The Opposable Mind was written by Roger Martin, Dean of the Rotman School of Management at York University. The book’s premise is that small minority of business leaders think in a very unique manner compared to their peers and this manner of thinking is what Martin coins Integrative Thinking.

These leaders, when confronted with a problem, are unlikely to settle for a solution that requires trade-offs when compared to the other available solutions. He likens this approach to choosing the best of the worst and such an approach is simply not acceptable to some.

These leaders are not “either / or” people but rather they strive to solve problems by coming up with options that others aren’t able to see by combining the best attributes of competing options while at the same time eliminating the trade-offs.

This is a business book that really stands apart from many others I have read that might be considered in the same genre. What makes it unique is that it really feels more like a research paper at times than a book. This isn’t a criticism – it’s just an observation regarding the research that Martin did that forms the underpinnings of his arguments. While I found this academic style more difficult to read than more mainstream business literature, it really is full of remarkable real-life examples of leaders demonstrating the very behaviours that Martin describes first in abstract, theoretical terms.

The book outlines four key elements that Integrative Thinking resolves around: Salience, Causality, Architecture and Resolution. You can feel the researcher bias right from the tone of these words. However, Martin does a nice job of providing of real-people examples that make the concepts behind these words come alive. The book then provides the “how to” for those who want to build their Integrative Thinking capabilities. This part of the book revolves around what he calls your Stance, Tools and Experiences.

Like all things we read, there are usually a handful of key concepts or ideas that stick with us. In this book, I really liked the notion that attempting to simplify a problem as a means of solving it isn’t necessarily a good idea. Complexity, whether by experience or indoctrination via our education system (his inference, not mine), is something we tend to avoid and want to eliminate. Eliminating it often involves attempting to simplify somehow. However, his book shows that leaders using Integrative Thinking embrace complexity and actually looks for solutions that don’t necessarily try to eliminate this aspect of a problem.

I also liked the assertion that much of the world of ideas is based on models. However, models are an ever-evolving construct and too often we perceive the prevailing model as reality itself, which it is not. Ultimately, most models are simply the best abstraction of reality that we’ve developed up to a point in time.
Leaders who achieve breakthroughs often are those who recognize this and are constantly striving for a new model, a completely different representation of reality rather than a incremental refinement.

He defines two ways in which people perceive models. Those in the “contented model defense” camp, which he describes as the factory default setting for most people, tend to be defenders of the status quo and look for data to support its relevance. These people like certainty. Those in the “optimistic model seekers” camp are more likely to be the Integrative Thinker types because they always believe there may just be a better way, in spite of any evidence to the contrary which supports the currently accepted model.

Lastly, I liked his section on how we may be good at thinking about problems, but we are lousy at thinking about our thinking – what he calls reflection. If we don’t strive to review how our thought processes got us from A-Z, (thought leading to actions leading to outcomes), we really don’t give ourselves the chance to improve our thinking as it applies to solving problems.

This book is worth the read but only if you feel up to a bit of ivory tower flavouring.