Streamline Training & Documentation: Integrative Thinking Is/Is Not

Wednesday, May 30, 2007

Integrative Thinking Is/Is Not

Roger Martin, dean of the Rotman School of Management of the University of Toronto, offers a good example of is/is not analysis in the June 2007 issue of the Harvard Business Review.

Martin's subject is integrative thinking, which he defines by contrasting it to what it is not, namely conventional thinking.

Martin lays out four steps that leaders go through (quite possibly with some iteration) in order to solve a problem or meet a challenge. For each step, an integrative thinker handles the decision-making process differently from a conventional thinker. The steps are:

Determine salience
Integrative thinking is: Seeking less obvious but potientially relevant factors. Integrative thinking is not: Focusing only on obviously relevant features.

Analyze causality
Integrative thinking is: Considering multidirectional and nonlinear relationships among variables. Integrative thinking is not: Considering one-way, linear relationships between variables (in which more of A produces more of B).

Envision the decision architecture
Integrative thinking is: Seeing problems as a whole, examining how the parts fit together and how decisions affect one another. Integrative thinking is not: Breaking problems into pieces and working on them separately or sequentially.

Achieve resolution
Integrative thinking is: Creatively resolving tensions among opposing ideas; generating innovative outcomes. Integrative thinking is not: Making either-or choices; settling for the best currently available options.

Martin concludes his article with the thought that integrative thinking is a skill that people can hone; it is not a gift shared by an elite few.

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Labels: Decision-making, Innovation, Leadership

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