Integrative thinking

Integrative thinking is a multistep decision-making technique. Often used in the business world, the technique recognizes that the options faced when making a decision are rarely clear-cut and often are in conflict with one another. Instead of attempting to make a choice between two or more options when none of them are completely satisfactory, a person applying integrative thinking will look for a new option that includes aspects of the other options and also is better than any of them. Integrative thinking patterns have been identified as one of the key tools of successful businesspeople, but the technique has applications in any situation where decisions must be made. While some people appear to use this model to make decisions almost instinctively, experts believe it can be learned.

Background

The idea of incorporating multiple levels and creative decision-making originated in the work of Australian author and consultant Graham Douglas in the field he called applied mind science. Harvard-educated Canadian author and educator Roger Martin applied the term integrative thinking to a decision-making model when none of the available options were acceptable. Martin developed his theory in the latter part of the twentieth century after conducting interviews with more than fifty experts from the fields of business, the arts, and the nonprofit world.

According to Martin, in the course of his more than six-year study of those who make crucial decisions on a regular basis, he determined that those who were the most successful at decision-making did not let the available options limit their choices. When faced with unpalatable possibilities, successful decision-makers challenged themselves to find new options that led to better outcomes. Martin published the results of his research in The Opposable Mind: How Successful Leaders Win through Integrative Thinking (2007). Martin published a sequel to the book, Creating Great Choices: A Leader's Guide to Integrative Thinking, in 2017, which offered a hands-on methodology for leaders looking to implement Martin's theories.

Martin's theory explains that when many people make decisions, they try to simplify the issue and look for an either-or choice. When this happens, the trend is to see one option as "right" and any other options as "wrong." This also tends to lead to a need to defend the selected option and put down the other options, which further limits the options a person can see. While this trend toward simplification and judging the available options is common enough to be considered part of human nature, Martin's theory of integrative thinking says that the successful innovators that he interviewed took a different approach that does not limit the options. The theory proposes that these people have what Martin called an opposable mind.

This concept is drawn from the opposable thumb, which is one of the traits that sets humans, some primates, and a few other species apart from most others. The opposable thumb can bend in such a way that it can touch the other fingers and press into the palm. This allows species with an opposable thumb to grasp things and use tools in ways that those without it cannot. Species without an opposable thumb are forced to choose between limited choices for moving objects, such as pushing the object or grasping it between two limbs.

In the same way that the opposable thumb allows greater options and more flexibility in moving objects, Martin said that the opposable mind provides greater options and flexibility in decision-making. Instead of choosing between two restrictive options, an opposable mind can find new ways and new options for action, in the same way that an opposable thumb allows many ways to grip and move an object. These flexible ways are at the heart of Martin's model for integrative thinking.

Overview

The integrative thinking process involves several steps, though integrative thinkers do not necessarily apply them consciously. The first step is to define the various aspects of the issue or problem and determine which of them are most relevant to finding a solution. Martin refers to this as salience, or determining how each aspect stands out from the others. The next step is to look for the relationships between these aspects of the problem, especially when they seem to be unrelated. This is called causality, or the way one option causes or is related to another. Next, the opposable mind will look for ways to structure a model that connects these relationships. This is known as sequencing, or connecting in a logical order. Lastly, the steps are connected, and the initial definition is reexamined. This allows for feedback to determine the validity of each of the other steps, which leads to final resolution.

For instance, a nonprofit agency wants to help improve access to nutritious food in an area where people have limited options for purchasing fresh produce. Ignoring the problem is not an acceptable option. Enticing a grocery chain to open in the area would be difficult and would take a long time. Transporting hundreds of people to a store in another area would be costly and complicated to arrange. The agency's leader is an integrative thinker who considers the problem that seems to have unacceptable solutions.

The leader determines that the main issues are transportation and cost, which are the most salient concerns to be addressed. These two issues are connected in causality in that transportation adds to the cost and difficulty of procuring fresh foods. The leader sequences the solution steps in the following way: If the people did not have to travel to get the food, the cost would be lower, and the people would have better access to more fresh food. The nonprofit leader determines that the answer is to bring the food to the people, eliminating the transportation and higher cost factors. One solution is to create a mobile food pantry that brings produce to the neighborhoods on a regular basis. This solution integrates the ideas of bringing the food and the people together, which are included in the original unacceptable solutions, but adds a creative innovation that provides a more acceptable resolution.

Developing integrative thinking skills requires that a person develop abductive logic. This is the ability to think not just of how things must be (deductive logic) and what is important to how things are (inductive logic) but also of how they might be. Another essential skill is the ability to analyze what makes successful models work and how to apply those elements to new situations. The successful opposable mind is able to see the merits of not only its own models but also those of other people. Experience and knowledge, combined with these skills, are essential elements of integrative thinking.

Bibliography

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Gray, Allan. "Creating Great Choices: A Leader’s Guide to Integrative Thinking." Purdue University Center for Food and Agricultural Business, agribusiness.purdue.edu/2021/02/05/creating-great-choices-a-leaders-guide-to-integrative-thinking-2/. Accessed 18 Dec. 2024.

"Integrative Thinking." Roger Martin, rogerlmartin.com/thought-pillars/integrative-thinking. Accessed 18 Dec. 2024.

Martin, Roger. "Becoming an Integrative Thinker: The Keys to Success." HuffPost, 25 May 2011, www.huffpost.com/entry/becoming-an-integrative-t‗b‗77171. Accessed 18 Dec. 2024.

Martin, Roger, and Hilary Austen. "The Art of Integrative Thinking." Rotman Management, Fall 1999, rogerlmartin.com/docs/default-source/Articles/integrative-thinking/the-art-of-integrative-thinking. Accessed 18 Dec. 2024.

Martin, Roger L. "How Successful Leaders Think." Harvard Business Review, June 2007, hbr.org/2007/06/how-successful-leaders-think. Accessed 18 Dec. 2024.

Riel, Jennifer, and Roger L. Martin. Creating Great Choices: A Leader's Guide to Integrative Thinking. Harvard Business Review Press, 2017.