By Jennifer Riel
Day to day, every individual in every company is faced with a series of choices, big and small. Of course, some of the choices are simple and straightforward. Many more require some degree of careful thought and deliberation. And then there are those complex problems that deal with difficult “either-or” trade-offs and that seem to offer no good solutions at all.
At the Rotman School of Management, we are particularly intrigued with how successful leaders react when faced with complex problems that seem to have no right answer. How do some leaders come up with better, more effective and more innovative solutions than others?
Through years of research, including interviews with more than 50 successful leaders, we’ve identified a pattern of effective problem-solving that can be learned and developed. Rather than looking at what these leaders did, we looked at how they thought. That way of thinking – which our Dean, Roger Martin, termed "Integrative Thinking™" – enables leaders to tackle the most complicated problems and make better decisions in the face of them.
Integrative thinking enables leaders, when faced with a world that tells them they must choose between two problematic options, to say, “No, I can do better than that!”
Integrative thinkers refuse to accept the choice, and instead dig deeper into the complexity of the problem, to recognize and use the tension of the opposing ideas to create a new solution. This new answer takes aspects of each original option but creates something better than either one alone.
As Proctor & Gamble’s A.G. Lafley, one of our integrative thinking exemplars, said: “Everybody can do ‘or.' That’s the way the world works. You trade things off. But you’re not going to be the best in your industry, you’re not going to win, if you’re in a trade-off game.”
You can learn more about integrative thinking by watching the video at the bottom of our web page.
Jennifer Riel is associate director of the Desautels Centre for Integrative Thinking at the University of Toronto's Rotman School of Management in Toronto.
Seeking to improve your strategic decision-making? Be sure to attend CEO/Executive Team Network, Nov. 6-9, 2011, at The Cosmopolitan of Las Vegas, where Riel will present "What is Integrative Thinking?"
