How successful leaders think
How successful leaders think. There is a management scholar named Roger Martin, who is the dean of a business school in Canada. He has studied more than 50 business leaders. If there was one thing they had in common, he said, it was integrative thinking. Deep thinking belongs to IQ, and the ability of integrated thinking belongs to the highest IQ, which is more advanced and difficult to master than decision-making thinking and systematic thinking.
Someone may ask: Why do you emphasize IQ? Didn’t you say that EQ is more important than IQ? I want to tell you that for leaders, EQ is very important, but IQ is more important. You can meet successful leaders with low EQ, but you can never meet successful leaders with low IQ. So IQ is a prerequisite for being a leader.
As I said earlier, integrative thinking is the highest level of IQ. The famous psychologist Howard Gardner has a similar statement. He summed up four levels of mental models. Integrative thinking, he said, is the most mature mental model, and most people do not have this mental model. Let me briefly talk to you first, what are the four mental models summarized by Gardner.
The lowest mental model, Gardner says, is “binary opposition,” which divides the world into good people and bad people, with the good people ultimately overcoming the bad. Gardner also called the mental model of binary opposition “the mental model of a five-year-old child.”
Basically, Gardner says, that’s how five-year-olds see the world. Why do children all over the world start formal schooling around the age of five? Because if you don’t go to school, you will see the world at the level of duality and opposition.
Higher than “binary opposition” is the mental model of “striving for fairness”. This mental model recognizes that good people have flaws and bad people have strengths. Gardner calls this “the mental model of a ten-year-old.”
Higher than “strive for fairness” is the mental model of “relativism”. This mental model holds that there is no such thing as a good person or a bad person. Gardner refers to “relativism” as “the mental model of a fifteen-year-old boy”, which is equivalent to the adolescence of thought.
I just talked about the three mental models, binary opposition, striving for fairness, and relativism, and they are not mature enough. The most mature mental model is the fourth, which Gardner calls “personal integration.” This mental model holds that good and bad are relative terms and that you need to choose a proposition that integrates the interests of all parties as much as possible. What Gardner calls “personal integration” is integrative thinking.
Gardner refers to “personal integration” as “mental models of adults.” However, Gardner made it clear that there are many people, even though they have gone to school, whose mental models have stayed at the age of 5 or 10. Even among adults, duality is the most prevalent mental model.
Now you know, everyone, around the age of five, learns duality. But only a few people can finally learn to think integratively. These few people have become great leaders and built great companies.
I use a Cambodian fable, “The fish also lost the rabbit and ran away” to help you understand. Binary opposition and integrative thinking are two diametrically opposed mental models. Binary opposition means “you can’t have both fish and rabbit”; integrated thinking means “I want to have both fish and rabbit”.
Let me give you an example of a leader who thinks integratively. Surely you know Procter & Gamble. Procter & Gamble once had a CEO named Lafley, who is now retired. He is considered one of the most successful CEOs in the history of Procter & Gamble. What did Lafley do? He cut costs and innovated vigorously.
Lafley put it this way: “We wouldn’t be successful if it was ‘either-or’. Everyone can be ‘either-or’. That’s the way the world works. You sacrifice this to get that, but You can’t be the best in your industry if you don’t.”
Lafley’s words actually explain to you clearly why binary opposition is very low-level and integrated thinking is very high-level. Binary opposition means choosing one or the other. You can only choose one between cutting costs and vigorously innovating. You can’t get both rabbit and fish.
It is easy to choose one of the two, and there are many people who can do it. And integrated thinking is I want both, I want to have both, I want to cut costs, but also vigorously innovate. This is, of course, difficult, and only excellent people and excellent companies can do it.
As I just mentioned, Lafley is in Procter & Gamble, not only cutting costs but also vigorously innovating. This “both this and that” is the expression used by leaders who think integratively. They don’t say we are “either this or that”, they say we are “both this and that”.
Let me give you another example of an integrative thinking leader. In the previous course, I gave the example of Schultz, the founder of Starbucks, telling a story. Schultz is both a master storyteller and a master of integrated thinking.
Come and see what Schultz said about Starbucks. When you get it, count how many “both this and that” are in this passage: “I have always believed that Starbucks can create an authentic personal experience and grow into a profitable global company. Yes, I want the baristas in our stores to serve customers with genuine smiles and be efficient. Of course, I believe that our taste and environment can both reflect the local culture and provide a consistent taste and high-quality coffee.”
In conclusion, integrative thinking is an important skill for leaders to possess, as it allows them to consider multiple perspectives and find creative solutions that benefit all parties involved. By developing this skill, leaders can make better decisions and achieve greater success in their organizations.
