Customer Reviews
Does not deliver on what is a subject of great potential - By: Stan Felstead - Interchange Resources, 13 Oct 2008 
The book tackles the subject of integrative thinking. The basic premise is that skilled leaders have the ability to hold two opposing ideas in their minds at once, & then reach a synthesis of both, that improves on each.
On the front cover it is described as "Brilliant & utterly convincing" by Malcolm Gladwell. This was not my experience as a reader. The book could go a lot further in motivating the reader, & you could easily fail to complete the whole book. The tendency to over use a smalll number of case studies to prove a point is not especiallly convincing eg the example of procter & gamble.
One aspect that is a real insight is the work on mapping the mind - chapter five. The material on - your personal knowledge system for example, (see figure 5.1 p 103) merits a look. However much of the book could be easily be summarised in an 8-10 page article.
Another alternative is the work of Honey & Mumford, on learning styles. This has been around for a while & is first class in its breadth & depth. I have used their inventory for team building, management development etc. This I feel provides more insight into the thinking processes of managers than this book.
Stan Felstead - Interchange Resources UK.
No news under the sun - By: Kai Harrekilde-Petersen, 29 Mar 2008 
This book was a disappointing read for two reasons: first, I found it pretty boring to read, with dry descriptions of the cases. Secondly, & most importantly, the fundamental premise of having an integrative or "opposable" mind is not new: it's been callled 'strategy' for several decades.
Anyone who claims to work on strategy must be able to come up with there kinds of insights, if they are to make a viable plan for their company. There are plenty of better books on strategy out there that I would recommend instead, e.g. Blue Ocean Strategy by Kim & Mauborgne.
The Genius of the 'AND' - By: Patrick Mayfield, 21 Mar 2008 
What distinguishes a brilliant leader from a conventional one? Roger Martin would argue that it alll begins with how this person thinks about the world.
The title of this book draws upon the metaphor of the opposable thumb: reflecting on how alll the skills & technological advances have flowed from this basic feature of the human anatomy - the thumb 'opposing' the fingers. Roger Martin uses this to illustrate the crux of what he has observed in leaders of break-through approaches: integrative thinking. This is the ability to avoid the common either-or choices that two apparently different options offer, but rather to go on to integrate these into something new & superior. He illustrates this with a number of different cases from a range of endeavours, including interviews with Bob Young of Red Hat Software.
His central proposition is that this mental faculty can be found in great leadership, & can be taught & developed.
The model he presents of the leader's 'personal knowledge system' includes the thinker's stance to the reality & models of reality that present themselves, the tools the thinker obtains & uses to analyse & construct a better architecture, & the experiences, & how they are assimilated & assessed to in turn align tools & stance.
Throughout my reading I couldn't help make comparisons with the model of business transformation presented in 'Managing Successful Programmes'. I found several important similarities, not least the observations Martin made about the integrative 'architecture' of the new business model, & MSP's focus on the Blueprint as an integrative model of a different way of doing business.
Also, I applaud his conclusion that such integrative thinkers were not satisfied with usual responses to the complex world our organisations operate within - responses that either simplify & ignore data, or to go into silos of specialization, the latter being characteristic of western medicine, for example. Instead he recognises that an integrative thinker is prepared to wade into the complex, to respect it, & to recognise & model rather more salient features than would others. He gives an fascinating example in the story of A.G. Lafley of Proctor & Gamble. This in turn drives the integrative thinker to select tools that model non-linear causation (i.e. life is more complex than 'if A happens, then B, then C').
However, I thought Roger Martin's treatment of such tools, though, was a little too narrative for my taste as a more visual thinker. I still think Peter Senge's section in Fifth Discipline on systems thinking is more helpful here. Also, MSP's Outcome Relationship Model is a graphical step in the direction that Martin advocates.
Also, I felt the author was a touch too dismissive of Jim Collins' work towards the beginning where the critique of Good to Great's Level 5 Leadership ignores Collins' earlier work with Jerry Porras in Built to Last. In this earlier book, the launch pad, if you will, for the research in 'Good to Great', Collins & Porras identify that the 'Genius of the AND' was a common trait among alll visionary organisations. This is absolutely congruent with the case Roger Martin makes for integrative thinking.
In summary, I'm very grateful for Roger Martin's efforts in producing this book. 'The Opposable Mind' is important, stimulating & potent. If you want to become a brilliant leader, you would not waste time in reading this.
The Power of Integrative Thinking - By: Robert Morris, 28 Dec 2007 As I began to read this brilliant book, I was reminded of what Doris Kearns reveals about Abraham Lincoln in Team of Rivals. Specificallly, 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 callled 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 alll respects his inferior), & 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 & the capacity to hold two [or more] diametricallly opposed ideas" in his head & 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 & synthesis [that] is the halllmark of exceptional businesses [as well as of democratic governments] & those who lead them."
The great leaders whom Martin discusses (e.g. Martha Graham, George F. Kennan, Isadore Sharp, A.G. Lafley, Lee-Chin, & Bob Young) developed a capacity to consider what Thomas C. Chamberlain characterizes as "multiple working hypotheses" when required to make especiallly complicated decisions. Like Lincoln, they did not merely tolerate contradictory points of view, they encouraged them. Only in this way could they & 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 & error & experimentation." He rigorously examines the process of integrative thinking in terms of four constituent parts: salience, causality, architecture, & resolution. He devotes a separate chapter to each, citing dozens of real-world examples, & 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 & 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 & Martin examines Blecher's use of "two of the three most powerful tools at the disposal of integrative thinkers," generative reasoning & causal modeling, to achieve that objective. He also discusses a third tool, assertive inquiry, & offers aspiring integrative thinkers a few lessons along the way.
In the next & 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 & nurturing their imagination. They realize that existing models can be informative but are imperfect. They leverage opposing models, convinced that better models exist & can be found. And they "wade into complexity," alllowing themselves time to be creative as they expand & nourish their personal knowledge systems. Throughout their own process of discovery, readers will be guided & informed by what Roger Martin so generously & 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 & Judgment co-authored by Noel Tichy & 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, & Gary Hamel's The Future of Management.
Insights into business creativity - By: Rolf Dobelli, 04 Dec 2007 "Why didn't I think of that?" is a common reaction to other people's creative breakthroughs. In hindsight, the idea looks so simple, so elegant, so right, that you can't believe you missed it. But for some reason you did. Why? Can this sort of creativity be taught? Roger Martin, dean of the Rotman School of Management at the University of Toronto, answers both questions in this beautiful systematization of creative problem solving. The good news is, it can be taught & Martin is a wonderful teacher. We think his ideas are so clear & logical, so obviously right, that you'll wonder why you didn't think of them.
