#integrative thinking

A 2007 study by the Center for Creative Leadership found that nearly 92 percent of surveyed executives believe the challenges their organizations face are more complex than they were five years ago. Businesses are constantly being challenged to do more with less and respond even more rapidly to changes in their industry and economy.

Complexity will not go away, but developing the skills needed for integrative thinking, as described by Roger Martin in The Opposing Mind (the ability to hold two conflicting ideas in creative tension), is one way to avoid marginalizing it. Integrative thinking is largely a tacit ability in the minds of people who have consciously or unconsciously not developed their opposite mindset.

How do we develop integrative thinking? First, we start by thinking about how we think. Martin writes, "When you refuse to take your thinking lightly, you are giving yourself the best opportunity to improve and fully use your paradoxical mind."

By taking a look at your personal knowledge system – how you know what you know – you can gain insight into your decision-making. Martin has defined three areas that will guide and inform each other as your experiences grow.

Attitude: how you see the world and interact with it; Your vision.

Tools: Integrative thinkers use creative thinking (asking what can happen), causal modeling (considering not only linear and unidirectional relationships, but also non-linear and multidimensional relationships), and what I have found useful - vigorous inquiries (non-argumentative, but focused questions looking for similarities).

Experience: Your attitude directly affects the type of experiences you have. Mastery develops from the structured repetition of a coherent type of experience. Along with originality, mastery will help you grow.

Conflicting models are only a problem if we choose to treat them as such. A more productive approach is to use conflicting ideas to really understand the problem. We can delve deeper into the conflicting alternatives and the tension between them in order to discover a better answer, treating the opposing models as the raw materials – the building blocks – for creating something new. This is what we call integrative thinking.

Over the past seven years, we have developed a process for consciously and purposefully applying integrative thinking. Following this process will not necessarily lead to an inclusive solution every time, but it will provide more chances of arriving at a creative solution.

Four stages of integrative thinking

The process of integrative thinking consists of four major stages.

Explain the models

Check models

Discover new possibilities

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How to Solve Wicked Problems in Business

In addition, the nature of problems in the economy has changed. Many have become "bad problems" - coined by Horst Reitel and Melvin Weber to describe a problem that has no "right" solution, is difficult to define, is linked to other problems, and stakeholders with different perspectives are incorporated and developed over time.

After yesterday’s post about speed, price, and quality, a friend of mine from Rotman emailed me and said: but what about integrative thinking?

When I was doing my MBA at Rotman and Roger Martin was the dean, integrative thinking was a significant part of the curriculum and the messaging for the school. 

Here’s how Roger explains it:

Over the past six years, I have interviewed more than 50 such leaders, some for as long as eight hours, and found that most of them share a somewhat unusual trait: They have the predisposition and the capacity to hold in their heads two opposing ideas at once. And then, without panicking or simply settling for one alternative or the other, they’re able to creatively resolve the tension between those two ideas by generating a new one that contains elements of the others but is superior to both. This process of consideration and synthesis can be termed integrative thinking. It is this discipline—not superior strategy or faultless execution—that is a defining characteristic of most exceptional businesses and the people who run them.

So what my friend was getting at is why -- when it comes to speed, price, and quality -- do you only get to “pick any two?” Doesn’t that go against the rules of integrative thinking? Isn’t that a failure to look for a more holistic and integrated solution?

It’s a great point. And it’s a thought that crossed my mind while I was writing yesterday’s post. The fact that “something had to give” made me second guess myself.

In general, I’m a believer in integrative thinking. I think there are lots of opportunities to create new hybrid solutions and models that are superior to what might exist today.

But what I was getting at yesterday was perhaps a bit more low level in thinking.

Let’s say for instance you’re a developer constructing a new building and you and your construction manager are in the process of tendering for curtain wall. You receive 3 bids back and 2 of them are roughly the same, but one them is $5 million cheaper.

My immediate thoughts would be: Why is that one bid so much lower? Did they bid on the same scope? Are they missing something? Will the curtain wall arrive on-site on time? And if it does, is it going to leak like a sieve?

I’ll be the first to admit that the construction process is fraught with inefficiencies and ready for integrated solutions. I’m certain that the trade-offs between speed, price, and quality could be better managed.

Wicked Problems: Competing Beliefs

Everyone faces this problem sooner or later – when two very good beliefs or values come into direct conflict with each other. So which wins out? For example, a recent post in LinkedIn about Chick-fil-A’s hiring strategy.  Chick-fil-A ensures that all of their hires believe the same Christian values as the owner and founder does – and in addition, the founder only approves married, Christian men…

Our second class discussion on developing a policy on guns in our hypothetical school district was a “world cafe” style facilitated meeting.  The facilitators laid the groundwork for productive dialogue from their initial invitation:

Please join your local School Board and fellow community members for a facilitated group discussion of the conceal and carry referendum that is currently before the…

Both policy-makers and the public can make wiser decisions if they think through an issue together. This means involving the public in some way

when defining an issue,

when thinking through what might be needed to fully understand that issue,

when identifying the options to discuss, and

when weighing those options.

Having a sequenced approach to public engagement helps to build both public…