The Opposable Mind: when good ideas come in twos (or even threes)

"All invention and progress come from finding a link between two ideas that have never met"
Theodore Zeldin

Many of you will know that one of the key foundations of our work is Prof Harry Schroder's "High Performance Management Competencies" also known as High Performance Behaviours (or HPBs). Along with Boyatzis (1982), Cockerill (1989) and Dulewicz and Herbert (1986), Harry's work identifies competencies that are related to, and indeed predictive of, superior managerial performance.

One of Harry's major contributions was to identify certain 'thinking behaviours' used by high performers. Among these the one that probably makes the biggest contribution, whilst being least often present, is 'Conceptual Flexibility' – the ability to hold up two opposing concepts simultaneously - and potentially produce an overarching plan or strategy which emphasises the benefits, and minimises the downsides, of the original options.

We have long used Roger von Oech's brilliant concept of "finding the second right answer" (from his book A Whack on the Side of the Head) as a means of teaching people how to develop their Conceptual Flexibility. Now, to go with the academic research and the creative, how-to-teach-it-to-people, Roger Martin has added a bevy of business case studies. His book The Opposable Mind is full of rich insights from business leaders including Isadore Sharp, creator of Four Seasons Hotels, A. G. Laffley of Procter and Gamble and Bob Young of Red Hat Software – a man who made billions from free software. Others featured include dance entrepreneur extraordinaire, Martha Graham, and Piers Handling , who has taken the Toronto Film Festival from a struggling start-up to becoming what one influential critic has called "the most important film festival in the world".

Martin, who is Dean at the Rotman School of Management at the University of Toronto, incidentally agrees with us – that 'Integrative Thinking', as he calls it, is teachable; that people can learn to do it and become more skilled and confident with practice.

Why 'opposable mind'? In studying how these exceptional business thinkers 'held two ideas in fruitful tension', Martin was reminded of the way in which other skilled people use their hands. It is our 'opposable thumb' that differentiates us from nearly all other creatures on the planet and gives us the ability to hold onto things, to write, to carve, to make tools and machines, to conduct life-saving surgical operations and so on. And so we can use our opposable mind to hold two conflicting ideas in constructive tension and think our way to a better solution – one that integrates the best of both. In this way, Martin contends, great business thinkers move beyond the conventional trade-offs that others insist are inevitable.

Our creative thinking courses start with the words of US adman George Lois "Creativity can solve almost any problem. The creative act, the defeat of habit by originality, overcomes everything." Having your managers learn to use their opposable minds, come up with the second (and the third) right answer and produce strategies that transcend conventional trade-offs could transform your business.

Time to get started? Click here to find out more or to book a taster session on Creative Thinking.