Past Book Review (July 13, 2008): "The Opposable Mind"
Past book review (i.e. posted prior to starting this blog) for The Opposable Mind: How Successful Leaders Win Through Integrative Thinking, by Roger L. Martin, Harvard Business School Press, 2007:
Copy provided by Amazon.
Great topic. Essentially, Martin argues that leaders need to integrate ideas in order to succeed. Although the author might have conducted considerable research to reach this conclusion, in my opinion much of what is offered in this text really is not ground-breaking material. While Martin does bring some structure to his research by offering numerous examples to support his views along with accompanying models that he has developed, there is not a lot of substance here. It might make sense for the reader to review one of the briefs written up about this book rather than taking the time to digest all of the material, although it is a quick read.
The author defines integrative thinking as "the ability to 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 in the form of a new idea that contains elements of the opposing ideas but is superior to each". Quite frankly, one would think that such an approach is already a common route to take.
Procter & Gamble chairman and CEO, A. G. Lafley, is quoted by the author at the start of chapter two as saying that "everybody can do 'or'…you are not going to win if you are in a trade-off game", but regardless of what decision is made, is not one still making an 'or' decision? Of course. The old adage that indicates that one is still making a choice regardless of whether it is a conscious one still applies. It is possible that much of what is being discussed here is the difference of thinking between right-brained thinkers, left-brained thinkers, and what Marti Olsen Laney refers to as "bilateral dominance" in "The Introvert Advantage" (see my review). Is it true that heavily left-brained thinkers are still dominant in business leadership? It would be interesting to hear what Martin has to say on this topic.