If you want to be as successful as Jack Welch, Larry Bossidy, or Michael
Dell, read their autobiographical advice books, right? Wrong, says
Roger Martin in The Opposable Mind. Though following best
practice can help in some ways, it also poses a danger: By emulating
what a great leader did in a particular situation, you'll likely be
terribly disappointed with your own results. Why? Your situation is
different.

Instead of focusing on what exceptional leaders do, we
need to understand and emulate how they think. Successful
businesspeople engage in what Martin calls integrative thinking
creatively resolving the tension in opposing models by forming entirely
new and superior ones. Drawing on stories of leaders as diverse as AG
Lafley of Procter & Gamble, Meg Whitman of eBay, Victoria Hale of
the Institute for One World Health, and Nandan Nilekani of Infosys,
Martin shows how integrative thinkers are relentlessly diagnosing and
synthesizing by asking probing questions including: What are the causal
relationships at work here? and What are the implied trade-offs?

Martin
also presents a model for strengthening your integrative thinking
skills by drawing on different kinds of knowledge including conceptual
and experiential knowledge.

Integrative thinking can be learned, and The Opposable Mind helps you master this vital skill.

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