The book that I choose for this assignment is The Opposable Mind by Roger Martin. Professor Roger Martin is a writer, strategy advisor and the former Dean and current Institute Director of the Martin Prosperity Institute at the Rotman School of Management at the University of Toronto in Canada. He has written twenty Harvard Business Review articles and published eight books and one of them being The Opposable MIND. The Opposable MIND by Roger Martin explains this process to be "integrative thinking"; the ability to face constructively the tension of opposing ideas and, instead of choosing one at the expense of the other, generate a creative resolution of the tension in the form of a new idea that contains elements of the opposing ideas but is superior to each. The Opposable Mind teaches that leaders – true innovators – have the remarkable ability to hold two contradictory thoughts in their minds at one time, and then work through the unique strengths and challenges of each to create an even better, third option. In The Opposable Mind, Martin examines the topic brilliantly and, perhaps most important to our conversation, teaches how you can develop a more opposable mind yourself.
Integrative thinking is about testing and expanding our own "lens" (or "reality-model", as Martin calls it) by comparing and contrasting it with the lenses of the people around us, constantly seeking new, better alternatives to all. It's about having a certain level of expectation as to what a solution could look like and refusing to lower that expectation simply because the ideal solution doesn't yet exist. An example of his quote:.
"Integrative thinking shows us a way past the binary limits of either-or. .
It shows us that there's a way to integrate the advantages of one solution .
Without cancelling out the advantages of an alternative solution. Integrative thinking affords us, in the words of the poet Wallace Stevens, 'the choice not between, but of.
DeShazor: "Despite the infrequency in display of violence with the mentally-ill, mental disorder and violence are closer linked in the public mind." ... So the actual facts diametrically oppose the media propaganda and the ironic truth is that the overwhelming majority of people labeled "mentally-ill" are not violent!!! ...
Churchill has loved with all his heart, with all his mind, with all his soul, and with all his strength, three things: war, politics and himself. He has loved war for its dangers, he loves politics for the same reason, and himself he has always loved for the knowledge that his mind is dangerous -dangerous to his enemies, dangerous to his friends, dangerous to himself. ... In 1941 Germany invaded the USSR, and although Churchill had always opposed the Communist regime, he offered to help Soviet leader Joseph Stalin. ... His story is told in the official biography begun by his son Randolph and c...
Childbearing Controversy: Abortion in America In the past twenty years, abortion rates have climbed significantly. More and more women are exercising their choice, and with it their rights, to have what has become the most common surgical procedure American women undergo (Tompkins 145). The simple operation is undertaken by one out of every five women over the age of 15, a quarter of which are teenagers. These 1.6 million women come from many disparate backgrounds, from all races, creeds, and classes, but they share one common trait: for one reason or another, they feel unready for th...