How smart and successful business leaders think: The opposable mind.

The decisiveness and speed with which lucrative leaders work invigorates us, their application of diametrically opposed courses, like when leaders at some point in time insist on market leadership and then abruptly switch to market segmentation always excite and impress us.

We must however remember that the moves that work in one context often make little sense in another even in the same company. We shall try to examine the cognitive processes that produce the actions of great business leaders.

Most successful leaders have the predisposition and capacity to hold in their minds two opposing ideas at once, they are able to creatively resolve the tension between the two ideas by generating a new one that contains elements of the others but is superior to both. This process is termed as INTEGRATIVE THINKING. -This is the ability to hold two opposing ideas in the mind at the same time and still retain the ability to function, which is a sign of a truly intelligent individual. However not all business leaders exhibit this capability and is not the sole source of success for those who do but it improves the odds.

So, are successful business leadership capabilities and integrative thinking abilities you are born with or abilities you can hone?

This ability, which echoes another human trait, is what we call the opposable mind. We are all born with opposable minds, which allow us to hold two contrasting ideas in constructive tension. We can use this tension to think our way towards new superior ideas as the opposable mind provides insights.

Unfortunately many people don’t exercise this capability much, great integrative thinkers are consequently fairly rare. Why is this latent tool used so infrequently?
--It produces anxiety
-- Most people avoid complexity and ambiguity and seek the comfort of simplicity and clarity
-- Most people desire the certainty of choosing between well-defined alternatives and the closure that comes when a decision is made.

Our first impulses are determining which of two models is “right” and which is “wrong” by elimination. In rejecting one model we miss out on all the value, which we could have realized by considering the opposing two, at the same time and finding in the tension clues to a superior model rather than disengaging the opposable mind by forcing a choice between the two.

To take advantage of our opposable mind we must resist our natural leaning towards simplicity and certainty. We must try to resist settling for “either-or” choices especially in business. Everyone can do “either-or” we must strive to be different.

The four stages of decision making by integrative thinking.

Determining salience

Begin by figuring out which factors to take into account. The conventional thinker discards as many factors as possible to avoid complexity. The integrative thinker actively seeks less obvious but potentially relevant factors going beyond the immediate reach of his job or functional speciality. Note that the best answers always come from complexity as crating innovative solutions is allowed.

Analysing causality

Entails determining how the different salient factors relate to one another. The conventional thinker adopts a straight-line causal relationship in which more of A will produce more of B. The integrative thinker is not afraid to question the validity of apparently obvious links or to consider multidirectional or non-linear relationships.

Envisioning the decision architecture

On most occasions, an order in which one can make decisions most easily is derived as decision-making variables are bound to explode. With this comes the desire to establish a strict sequence of considering the variables or distributing them to different corporate functions so that they can work them out separately.

By doing this, the overriding issue is forgotten and a mediocre outcome results. Integrative thinkers don’t break down a problem into independent parts and work then separately or in a certain order, they see the entire architecture of the problem and how the various parts fit together, how one decision will affect another. They hold all those pieces suspended in the mind at once.

Achieving resolutions

After choosing simplicity when making the trade off a conventional thinker will shrug and say, “What else could we have done?”. Holistic thinking is much messier than segmented thinking but when a satisfactory outcome emerges it is due to the leader’s refusal to accept trade offs and conventional options.

Born or bred?

Integrative thinking is a habit of thought that all of us can consciously develop to arrive at solutions that would otherwise not be evident. Integrative thinking is a concept that can even be taught in business schools.

Ref: The Harvard Business Review.

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